You are currently browsing the archives for December, 2009.
I can’t remember the last time I spent 2:35 in a theater riveted like I was watching Avatar today. This film simply has to be seen in a theater to be believed. A truly beautiful film with a touching story of sci fi fantasy. johnny B heralds this one an instant classics. Don’t miss it in theaters.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/
Todd A. Britt, resident makeup guru and spiritual leader of the Mutantville makeup department has a set of appliances he enjoys torturing me with. They were originally created for a rather involved vampire makeup from a previous project. When used by themselves they tend to make me look like an exaggerated Jay Leno or perhaps Bette Midler’s Winifred ‘Winnie’ Sanderson from Hocus Pocus, ie a big warted nosed witch. Ever since I knocked out a large chunk of oone of his front teeth in C For Chaos, Todd has been looking for the right opportunity to strike can. This weekend he found it.
Now typically ole Johnny B stays behind the camera unless the role calls for some danger stunts we don’t want to endanger our actors with or an uncomfortable mask. That said, I felt like Todd has really pulled it together for this project despite a shaky start and was obliged to indulge him with this character makeup.
Now this time he wanted me to shave my beard only on the chin, Liev Schreiber style, which I did. The idea was for the chin appliance to fit on the clean shaven area. Unfortunately, someone’s math was off with the shaving which was expanding twice. Ultimately Todd decided that I’d survived latex directly on the edge of my remaining beard line. Sweet mother was this painful to get off, that is if you consider having your beard plucked one hair at a time painful. There was also some lovely latex in the nostril.
By now it should comes as no surprise to anyone that it was an amazingly successful shoot. We this unbelievable cast of giving artists we really can’t go wrong. It’s gratifying to see some of the cast proper, coming back to lend a hand on the pickup shoots or fill a role as an extra in disguise. We also made a few new friends who just found there way to the magical kingdom of Mutantville.
It was cold and a bit uncomfortable but once again everyone pulled together and we made our day. Todd A. Britt and Sylvia Burris provided some rather remarkable battle damaged makeups which I wish I could share. At last, we can’t let that cat of the bag just yet. I have posted some snaps on the Face Book gallery so be sure to swing by and check those out.
Remember this above all else Mutantville Players, Johnny Brento loves ya!
From the Deadpit gang – via Jay Reel. It’s another Chester Grim Christmas!!!
Streebo has posted a few notes on the site about my web series, RESPAWNER. To be fair, it’s a 1 minute short film at this point. There’s been some nice buzz generated among the Mutantville Players about doing a web series in 2010 dedicated to the character I’ve created.
About The Show
“What if an undercover police officer could RESPAWN into an invincible demon with powers only limited by her imagination whenever she is murdered?”
The lovely and talented Sylvia Burris plays the lead role of Lexi Bowman, an undercover police officer with an incredible, secret super power.
Over the course of 10 or so 5 minute episodes she will face amazing super villains in a Bad guy of the week format.
I’ll be sharing more about this new project as the post production for G.H.O.S.T. draws to a close. At present this is soley a Brento project as it just sort of birthed itself organically from a 1 minute test film. If you think that this should be the next MUTANTVILLE effort, why not share your thoughts with good ole uncles Streebo and Geo Swanko by using the Contact Us function here on the website. There is no “I” in team – but there is an eye in meat pie as the saying goes.
In any case, I hope you enjoy the test film.
Written in 20 minutes, shot in about an hour, edited in about 6 hours, this test film (yes I know purist don’t like to hear video called “Film” sorry Streebo) was designed and created as a reel builder for Sylvia Burris, my new side kick, or rather, the person to whom I play sidekick most of the time here lately.
Sylvia, Jeremy and I worked hard on this little ditty so please leave us a comment and a rating on YouTube and subscribe to my channel.
In honor of the holidays – get your festivities started right with this slasher classic from the Eighties – Christmas Evil.
There’s a modded version of Left 4 Dead out there – featuring Silent Hill. Check it out at youtube.
With it comes to making films with your partners there really is nothing more important than keeping the lines of communication open. Film making is stressful. The more the folks sharing the load communicate, the more things will magically fall into place when you’re on the set.
The members of Mutantville Productions meet 2 – 3 times per week via phone conference when we don’t have any shoot scheduled for the weekend and considerably more frequently when we do. Take today for instance, we’ve already had a 3 way phone conference and will have a business lunch meeting at 12. From lunch, we’ll take a short break and meet up again at 2 to start preparing the triage set and getting folks into makeup. The shoot will most likely run until 11 tonight or so.
Before you ask, we all work standard 40 hour per week jobs in addition to our duties in MVP. Experience has shown that the more we communicate, the better the finish product, ultimately, the film on DVD will be in the end.
Increased communication with your cast & crew will likewise make your life so much easier while in active production. Don’t presume that because you’ve sent the details in an email that everyone has taken the time to read it or has the important stuff present in mind. People get busy and forget. Put in the extra time to make that phone call and make sure every remembers the shoot schedule, what to wear, not to cut their hair when to arrive etc etc. You’ll be glad you did.
Remember this above all else Mutantville Players, Johnny Brento loves ya!
Johnny B With Gene Starnes
Many people have asked how we managed to get access to such an amazing location as the historic Albemarle Opera House for our current project G.H.O.S.T.. In truth it takes fineness, accountability and most of all relationship management skills.
I first met local business man and downtown Albemarle champion Gene Starnes many years ago. It was only last year that I discovered the amazing piece of history located above his place of business, Starnes Jewelers. Gene is a member of virtually every civic organization related to doing business in Albemarle and has a list of community contacts that boggles the mind. I began to ask him about the possibility of a tour of the opera house which his grand father originally built in 1908. Gene readily agreed and before you knew I was filming our walk through.
I, of course instantly realized the cinematic potential for the space, with it’s aged walls, circular French balcony windows and extremely high ceilings, but it wasn’t as simple as winning Mr. Starnes over to the cause. The space covers a neighboring building as well and is co-owned by the adjoining business underneath. There was the matter of establishing a certain rapport and illustrating that Mutantville Productions can be trusted. I really needed Gene to sell the idea to the co-owner of the space with whom we personally had no contact.
To satisfy certain insurance requirements a few ground rules had to be established. For instance, no smoking up there or out in front of the building. As far as I know this only inconvenienced one or two cast and crew members the whole time. As Dave Mustain of Megadeth once said, “We don’t smoke in this band!”
Contact numbers in case of power failure had to be maintained. I think there are 6 – 8 numbers in that call chain for instance. It turned out that we needed these on the night of the black out so that preparation paid off.
I recall a solid 3 months of discussions before final approval was granted. Even after that through the 9 months of pre-production I kept in constant contact with Gene, say on a bi weekly basis at least, keeping him up to date on the productions progress.
Throughout the process and even in the face of what I’m sure must have been an annoyance to him personally, the night the power went out and it took us 4 hours to find the fuse in the 100 year old structure Gene has really been amazingly supportive of MVP. At this time he is reaching out to a few contacts to help us possibly locate a local resource where the civil war period dream sequence can be shot.
Jumping back into to our mammoth half decade horror film production C 4 Chaos, we actually managed a ton of real locations. If a bar was called for, we were shooting in a bar. If the script called for a bunch of scenes in a comic shop, of which there are precious few around these days, you betchya we were in a honest to goodness comic shop. This really, really elevated that production to be working in the great locations instead of sets.
Like they say, it really is all about LOCATION! LOCATION!LOCATION! Remember this above all else Mutantville Players, Johnny Brento loves ya!
P.S.
Visit the most amazing Jewelry Store in Stanly County. Gene Starnes wants to be your jeweler. Tell him MVP sent you.