Tales from the Cellar

I started a section for showcasing the projects I’ve worked on. Projects from the Cellar will have stills galleries of FX and videos, with some behind the scenes commentary, and how-tos.

I’ve already added sections for Amateur Short Films, a Stakes FX gallery, a Monster Planet FX gallery, and a video on how to create a quick and dirty vampire death. Stay tuned for more.

I took a little time and updated the Monster Planet site. I also moved it to a new location: http://monsterplanet.silentgraywolf.com. It now has a snazzy gallery (2, actually), and the trailer is embedded via YouTube. Check it out.

For those into Web development, I used a content management system (CMS) called Joomla, which has a huge array of functions, such as WYSIWYG editing; category, section, and menu management; site-wide search; user accounts (requiring registration); and a host of others.

Once set up, it only requires someone to add content. Plus, it’s fully customizable, and open to plug-ins — of which there are a ton already available. And the best part is that it’s completely free!

I plan to use this blog to keep track of my progress with the seemingly endless list of creative projects on which I plan to work in the next few years. Whether it’s filmmaking, music, writing, martial arts, or even computer programming, creativity is in my blood—I can’t stop it. Whether what I produce appeals to anyone else is a different matter. I’d like to think it does.

At the top of my laundry list is Crawler. For the last three years, I have been working on the visual f/x for this low-budget horror movie produced by Timewarp Films. In particular, I’m working on the computer-generated title character. One thing I’ve learned in the last three years is that there’s a reason we see hundreds of names at the tail end of movie credits for visual f/x; it’s hard to do this stuff. It took at least a year to zero in on the best software to create and animate this beast. I finally settled on Softimage XSI—a godsend.

Currently, I’m on the 3rd to last scene involving the creature. After I finish the last creature shot in the last scene, and the 30-some shots of final renders, I have to address the miscellaneous f/x. For this I’ve recruited a few friends interested in f/x to help. That led to the next lesson learned (no, not “don’t hire friends”): I learned not to try to manage and do at the same time. You wind up doing a half-assed job at both. Thus, I had to concentrate on my stuff first. Once I finish the remaining creature shots, I’ll pull the gang (or what’s left of them) back together to finish the rest.

As a final note, I want to mention a project on the back burner, an amateur film project that is a mere 14 years in the making: Monster Planet.