Witch n' Stein

Stormy weather yesterday yielded a clear sunshine-y day today. These are just some glamour shots of the witch and Frankenstein heads I made. Looks like we're getting a number of volunteers for the haunt this year. Gonna be fun

Autumn Socks and Spooky Shocks

Well it must be Autumn, because yesterday I had to wear socks for the first time in three months. Heh heh.


Okay folks, I have a little treat brewing for youse-guise.


See I had all this footage of my haunt from a couple years back, just sitting on my external drive, not doing anything for anybody. I wanted to make a nice haunt video, but I never had the editing software I needed to put it together.

But our director Gary Wilder wants to use some of this footage in our movie, thus providing me an excuse to take all that footage over to the production house and put in a little work on the editing suite.

I'm just about done, there are some gaps here and there but Gary watched what I had, and was nodding approval throughout. Heh heh.

Homebrewed Fogger?

Just like gram'mama used ta make! This is a neat little tutorial showing the mechanics of a very primitive fog machine. It gets at something that I've been contemplating for quite a while: Could I make my own home-made fogger?

I think that any haunter who has used a store bought fog machine knows the pain these things can be. I have yet to own a fog machine that worked consistently two years in a row, and this isn't by accident, it's a business-minded industrial design tactic called "planned obsolescence" wherein products are designed to fail prematurely in order to encourage consumption.

Consumer fog machines are pretty darn simple, having three basic parts: a reservoir for the fog juice (filtered water and glycerin) a heating element with a thermal regulator to keep the machine from overheating, and a pump to push the fog juice through the system.

If the fellow above could do a makeshift fogger with a Bunsen, a pie tin, and a soda pop bottle, I imagine I could make something pretty effective myself.  Heck I could even figure out a condenser so that I wouldn't have to cool the fog to keep it flowin' low, and custom design the output for wider, low-laying, dispersal of the fog.

So I dunno, what do you think? Do you know of anyone who's tried to make their own fog machine?

Frankie jr!

Hey folks. I'm not lying, it is a dark and stormy afternoon, thunder rolls in the distance, and it's perfect weather to show you the Frankenstein head I made.

This is just a styrofoam wig head that I sculpted on with paper clay. I was going for kind of a mix of traits from Jack Pierce's iconic and never topped makeup for Boris Karloff in the original 1931 Universal production of Frankenstein along with the later makeup design for Glenn Strange.

Left: Boris Karloff ~ Right: Glenn Strange

I like the cragginess of the paper clay, though it's pretty much impossible to get fine detail in this stuff, next time I think I'll make my own.. I'm not sure about the paint job I did, I tried mixing purple and green. So whaddayou think? Crits are welcome!

Haunting Music

I've been watching videos of yard haunts on youtube this evening. Every so often I find one that's REALLY special, and I add it to my Yard Haunt playlist.

One of the things that I look for in a good haunt video, is a unique soundtrack. Pretty much everybody uses "This is Halloween", "Thriller", or something from Midnight Syndicate, so when a haunter chooses a tune that is really unique it stands out.

This evening I found this video by HamlinHaunt, and the choice of music really complimented the great atmosphere of their haunt. It's a version of the 13th century latin hymn "Dies Irae" (Day of Wrath) a giant funeral mass for the end of the world, with a definite apocalyptic feel to it. I think most people know it as the theme music from The Shining.

There have been a number of excellent versions of the Day of Wrath throughout musical history, here is a version of the original Gregorian chant.

Here we have Amadeus Mozart's version of Dies Ira as part of his famous Requieum. It is a a soaring, yet personal lamentation of premature death.

Now we have Franz Liszt's Dies Irae, "Totentanz" the German term for the French "Danse Macabre" or dance of death.  Bombastic, brutal, like a piano being smashed beneath a hammer. Death leading dancers of stations both mighty and meek, into the grave; be they pope, emperor, king, child, or peasant, all face the same end, and the same uncompromising judgement, or so Liszt seems to say.

 
Now Verdi's Dies Irae, utterly epic. Whereas Liszt gave us an intimate dance of the dead, and Mozart gave us a soaring personal tragedy, Verdi's version suggests the whole earth being thrust up, overturned, and all of humanity thrown into confusion and turmoil.

Okay, bear with me, I know these are a lot of old dead classical composers, but hark, we now come to my personal favorite of all the versions of Dies Irae, Hector Berlioz' "Dreams of a Witches Sabbath" from his brilliant "Symphonie Fantastique" which is chock-full of amazing Halloween music. Seriously, put this on next time you set down to do some prop building, it will inspire you!

You may recognize many of these pieces from movies that you've seen in the past, and due to their popularity in cinema, there are tons of modern covers of Dies Irae. I'll leave you with this great folk-metal version of Totentanz from German band "Corvus Corax", and sort of take us full circle, heh heh. ☠

Witchead

I sat down and painted the witch head that I made last week, then I sealed her up with clear coat and set her out to dry. She's still a little tacky, but I went ahead and took some photos while I still had light.

Honestly, she's kind of creeping me out, so I figure she'll spook the kids come Hallowe'en.

For the paint job, I put on a coat of black paint and then dry brushed on some violet, over which I added highlights in metallic gold. Then I tinted the whole thing with forest green, brought out the highlights with light olive green, and finally accentuated with more gold.

My hope is that the metallic paint will help catch the light, and I tried to give her a light enough paint job that she'll show up in the dark. I somewhat regret tinting the whole thing green, I suspect that doing olive highlights over the violet base would have created an interesting effect.

And she still needs eyes. I am thinking about using some semi-translucent green marbles that I saw at the dollar store, though I visited the Mecca art supply thrift store yesterday, and they had a whole barrel of ping pong balls.

When this witch head is done, I think I'm going to do a Frankenstein.

☠

Darkness, Disney Style!

I've been watching classic Disney cartoons while I work, I just put them on mute and try to keep track of the plot from the visuals alone, which gives my brain something work on while I type, ha ha.

Disney is usually considered very wholesome and family oriented, but I have to say that I see a cruel streak running through the subtext of a lot of these, particularly the Donald Duck cartoons for obvious reasons. Even Mickey has a mean streak though, especially the early ones that Walt worked on himself, Mickey has a lot of latent bitterness, which he takes out on others.

The image above comes from "Truant Officer Donald" in which Donald tries to round up his hookey-playing  nephews and get them into school. This is probably the most nightmarish image I've ever come across in a Disney cartoon, taken out of context it tells a dark story, it almost seems psychotic.

Later in the same cartoon, Donald has Huey, Dewey, and Louie tied together by their throats, whipping them along with the end of the rope. Family friendly, hhm? You can check out the toon yourself below:

Truant Officer Donald