Halloweeny Goodness

It's that time of year again.  Last year I had very little time or interest, and ended up with my fallback costume, the Awesome Pirate:

...with his hawt rocker girlfriend.

But this year, I wanted to go a little bit darker, a bit more steampunk-esque, and channel my inner Vicent Price...

Yeah, that's the ticket.

The concept is an early-Victorian monster hunter, in the tradition of the classic Hammer and American International films of the 1950s & 1960s.  It's a concept I hope to parlay into some original fiction, and it starts right here:

 The only newly acquired elements are the velvet-finish top hat, goggles and 19th century vest.  The velvet front-flap Regency trousers were custom made by my high school theater pal Andrea Edelman, who is an amazing historical seamstress and milliner.  The deerskin gloves are part of my pirate/swashbuckler ensemble, as are the replica firearms, black shirt, knives and baldric (in which the pirate cutlass has been replaced with a mallet for stake-driving).  The boots are one of two pair I own for costume work, and are best suited for later-period endeavors (the others being massive gray cavalier boots).  The black suede jacket was one of those amazing $16 Goodwill finds, and is incredibly versatile.  Add in the brass-handled cane, silver cross and bottle of "holy water", and you've got a vampire-slaying, demon-exorcising, ghost-hunting, werewolf-shooting badass.  Can't wait to show it off at the neighbors' Halloween party on Saturday.  More pics (with me actually wearing the costume) to come, I promise.

Flashbacks

Had a burst of creative energy yesterday and finished the outline of Green Light, which I followed up by actually drafting the first five or so scenes - with dialogue.  And of course when I write, I require a music playlist of appropriate mood.  And since Green Light is about the end of one life and the beginning of another (as referenced in Rhymes With Drowning and My New Life Out Here), there are some tracks in the mix which perhaps have more emotional power than would normally be expected.

Like this one:



When the time we have now ends
When the big hand goes round again...

Can you still feel the butterflies?
Can you still hear the last goodnight?

I know people get married to the song, but it has a different meaning for me.

Weekend Players

No, not referencing the English neo-lounge duo.  I'm referring to the packed weekend in which we managed to be all kinds of productive while not exhausting ourselves.  We were up early Saturday to head to the Lynnwood office location of The Collectibles, meeting a skeleton crew to shoot some promo material for the show, including this:


And this:


And this:


The rest of Saturday consisted of Raechelle and me running errands, Halloween shopping, grocery shopping, and then retiring to the house for Halloween decorating and what ended up being a 5-hour Mad Men marathon.  We're getting Raechelle caught up for the new season.

Sunday morning consisted of me shopping and cooking brunch while Raechelle cleaned.  I made a nice brunch and we watched the first half of the Seahawks game (which was the team's first victory in the east in 5 years), then Brian Beardsley and I roughed out the second half of Airship Daedalus chapter three while Rae cheered from the living room (not us, the Hawks game).  Then Dan Humphrey (aka The Quick) and I went over some editing notes for The Collectibles.  Then Dan Heinrich called and we ended up heading over to Dan & Trish's for dinner and another couple Mad Men episodes.  When we got home, I colored and lettered today's Daedalus strip, uploaded it, then turned my attention to editing the PSAs for The Collectibles.

I've been really inspired to write recently - not just throwing stuff into the blog, but real screenplay material.  I did a writing pass on The Collectibles episodes 4 and 5, and have made a start on the Daedalus script for chapter 4.  Also been thinking more seriously about Green Light.  Tomorrow we rehearse Sorry Wrong Number with our Foley guys.

Exciting times.

A Life of Its Own, Part 2

And, just like that, The Collectibles website goes live, the pilot is revealed, and the funding campaign begins.  Holy heck, that's a relief.

A Life if Its Own

Funny how Dan & I were just chatting about doing a project during the summer to keep our filmmaking chops up and stay relevant in the Seattle indie scene.  The Collectibles has begun to get traction.  The traction is turning into views on some of the promotional videos (like those below).  And the views are building a fan base.  This has led to a strategic alliance with Zombie Orpheus Entertainment and Ben Dobyns' Fan Supported brand to help maximize exposure.  Our local media sneak peek happens on Sunday, with the website and funding campaign going live on Monday the 26th.  Here are some of the recent teasers we've released:







Meanwhile, Brian Beardsley and I did some research and altered the Airship Daedalus publishing schedule to a Monday-Friday model to better reflect our readers' viewing habits.  We will have a table at Jet City Comic Show this coming Saturday, and a limited run of single issues for Chapters 1 & 2 of the Daedalus comic.

 Also meanwhile (meaning concurrently with the above activities), we cast the fall show for Twelfth Night Productions, a limited double feature of classic suspense radio programs for Halloween weekend done in the same format as It's a Wonderful Life last year.  Actors in period costume performing the plays on a stage set like a period radio studio with live sound effects and, in our case, live music on a 1929 Mighty Wurlitzer.

My favorite poster design in a long time!

So, as always, incredibly busy, but working on stuff I actually enjoy and creating business opportunities along the way.  Still honing and tweaking the Ordinary Angels pitch with my buddy in LA as well.  Back to that in a bit...

What We Did Last Weekend

Some of this...

A bit of this...

A little of this...

A distracting amount of this...

Even some of this...

But we would never do this...

Sunday Comics

As the printed newspaper goes the way of any other extinction, the funnies have naturally migrated to the web.  Brian and I are having a blast creating the vintage pulp adventure Airship Daedalus, published twice a week.  It's an homage to the great pulp comics masters like Will Eisner and Alex Raymond.

We're also on Facebook and Twitter.