Archive for General

So before the night closes out (in the 11th hour), I have to just say this is kinda cool (to me, anyways!) This past Saturday I decided to, on a random whim, show a good friend of mine the 1989 version of Batman that she had never seen before. After watching the movie, I did the mental math (which yeah, I started to smell smoke up there…) and deduced that this film was just about 25 years old. 

Little did I know I’d wake up 2 days later seeing a thousand posts on Facebook about the 25th Anniversary of when Tim Burton’s “magnum opus” premiered in theaters. 

The Image that Forged Me

The poster in this picture holds some significance in my life. You see, I’m 27 years old. I was born in 1987. 

My mother, bless her heart, took me to see this film. In theaters. When it first came out. 

I was like, 21 months old. 

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As of today, November 5th 2012, the strikeaposefilms.com website is officially 6 years old!

Not as much to show off as last year, what with the crazy Max Action meets Dylan video, STRIKE A POST, but heck, we’ve had a lot of stuff happening behind the curtains, mostly related to my acting and film career, but there have been a few other surprise things going on we can’t talk about just yet!

One thing we can talk about : Expect an update to this website in the next couple of months. I’ve been learning a lot about web development and CSS/Wordpress template building at my job at 270net Technologies, so hopefully I’ll be able to apply them to the site soon! (You might notice that the nav bar is err…not in the right place!).

Point is, expect a flood of updates – I’ve done lots of random client work, so you’ll see some packages and docs, a couple of short entertainment pieces, a post about the Lightsaber Choreography Contest entry I did with Apsis Motion pictures, and like I said, some updates on my stunt and acting career.

I will also probably be making a page on this site dedicated to my freelance video production work, including portfolio and contact information. Any tips on that is appreciated!

So with the updates rolling in (and yes, hopefully Bite the Hand coming soon…wow it’s been a year since I made THAT promise!) we will be creating a cleaner, more SEO driven site with re-uploaded video content. IE – I will probably re-export a lot of my old videos and upload them to YouTube to free up server space and, again increase SEO for the website (and our YouTube page, which is over 50,000 views without almost any internet marketing!).

Also:

We are still looking for a film critic to submit guest reviews to the website, as well as people looking to speak up on local (or global!) industry news.  And while Strike a Pose Films has been the home for the DC Stunt Coalition updates as of recently, soon we should have a new place to call home for that intel.

There’s a lot we can do with this website, as there’s already a lot of content on it, so there’s no reason not to continue with updates, new content, and better optimization.

If you’d like to help with the rising success of our work, and keep it relevant (like Gangnam style!) please be sure to share the Strike a Pose!!! Films Facebook page on your facebook, google, or whatever! Our fan level is rising, but we need more support!

Be sure to check back a week from now. I’m sure I’ll have something up by then!

Thanks,
The Management

Yes, I am a complete geek for these guys.

I threw together a quick video with the segment from the 5/3/12 Titus Podcast “Dude, Where’s My Plastic Explosives?” primarily because, well, I got tired of searching the podcast for the segment for people who were asking me what was up!

So here you go, all 0:38 (actually more like 20…Tommy is actually shouting out Sherry from Colorado for the first 10 seconds…) seconds of my glory, as presented by the awesome Stuntman Tommy Primeau, by way of comedians Christopher Titus and “Bombshell Rae” Rachel Bradley.

I was fortunate enough to meet up with Titus and Rachel at their Baltimore Comedy Factory stand up performance last weekend and, thanks to this podcast, I didn’t come off as a complete psycho stalker! In fact it was kinda the other way around when I realized Rachel knew who I was before I opened my mouth! Clearly her criminal justice degree paid off, as she had apparently built up a whole criminal background check thing on me, just to make sure Titus was safe upon my approach…

Titus and Rachel Bradley

“And if Dylan had just stopped talking right at that moment, that would have been a cool story…”

Yeah…totally taking this too far. Point is- THANK YOU Tommy, sir, you’re an awesome inspiration, and now that I know who you are I totally want to go back and watch all the Titus seasons again, just to see you get blown up in awesomely horrible ways! Thanks, sir!

Here’s Stuntman’s Reel, just in case anyone was wondering. Awesome guy!

You know, that crazy guy we all know and love from various videos! Including a new one ( a preview! ) we’re releasing today!

December kicks off with Our Boy GHO57 and his amazingly talented acting performance in the SAP classic, “Bodango Returns”- the short sequel to the awesome Curse of Bodangofish. You can find this video on that video’s page, and eventually, when CURSE is on sale (maybe as a Christmas present for those you love!), you’ll be able to get a SECRET LINK to the full video. In the meantime, the crazy guy has a great little vignette for us to read!

5 Years already? I can’t believe it’s already been this long since we were goofing off on top of the parking garage outside of Target, miming what was “the greatest battles of all” and marching the streets of Rio dressed up in wacky outfits, trying to draw attention to ourselves.

Good times, and even better when we got serious with it. Whether it was running around in the woods with deranged bounty hunters, solving mysteries of serial killers and missing girlfriends, or fending off street scum with a BRUSH, Strike A Pose has always had it’s share of laughs and tales throughout the years.

Big things are in store for this group and it’s dedicated members, and although my participation has been stretched thin for a while, I’m glad to be a part of them and share some of the story of our growth.

Thanks dude! We appreciate your support. Here’s the video!

Be sure to check out new tracks from DJ GHO57 on his Sound Cloud Page and Facebook Fan Page!

This Halloween instead of doing a traditional horror movie costume character via a mask, I decided I wanted to go hardcore and put the make up effects I had learned working on Wombs and various other indie projects to the test. So I decided to try my hand at recreating one of the most important cinema characters in the world on my face: The Terminator.

Terminator Arnold Red Eye

Terminator, Prosthetic, Make Up, Stan Winston

Terminator 2, Stan Winston Terminator FX

This is a blend between the original and T2 incarnation, with the eye socket destruction mostly based off of the T1 effects, and the random bullet holes based on the battle damaged post-Cyberdyne shootout.

In order to make the effect, I simply bought an effect prosthetic called “Socket To Ya”, what is supposed to look like the average “someone ripped out my eyeball with an ice-cream scoop” sorta make up effect. From there, I painted the socket with a blend of silver and black acrylic paint, giving it a gunmetal sort of flavor, approved by Stage Armament Solution’s master Brian Dettling as “authentic enough.”

Make FX Prosthetic for Terminator

No paint applied yet. Socket-to-Me prosthetic

The cherry on top to modify the effect was gonna be tricky…but my years of impoverished ingenuity came to the rescue: for the high-tech RED ROBOT EYE of doom, I simply bought a small red rubber bouncy ball, and shaved and cut it to match the size I wanted it to be for the socket, and then painted the edges the gun metal mix to make it look like it had a metallic dome around it. Close up it wouldn’t look like much, but from a distance, a small detail like this could add a lot to the depth of the visual I was going for- by that I mean making it look like the eye was a separate but attached mechanical part of the socket.

With all that done, I had a fully “functioning” terminator/Kano prosthetic in just a few hours work. Not bad considering one influenced the other. So now I could just paste this on to my face and most people would “get it” (or think I was trying to bring back MK).

Terminator FX, Make Up, Prosthetic

What? A scratch? What scratch? NO-I ALWAYS wear my sunglasses at night!

But that wasn’t enough for me. Most consumers who buy make up effects like this at local party stores just slap on some spirit gum and call it a day. I spent a good 30 minutes in front of a mirror applying some very small amounts of liquid latex, and painting black and silver into the creases for shading. Again, depth and detail to help create a basic contour that molded better to my face, prevented the “skin” from flapping off at the edges, and allowed for more blood to drip down rather than just smear on.

Oh right, the blood was a HUGE part of the blending process. Simply put- in order to make yourself look like living tissue over metal combat chassis (or endoskeleton), one MUST add some “living tissue” to the equation. Filling in various cracks and crevices with fresh stage blood out of a bottle was a cheap and easy solution to my lack of a giant JAR of latex. And it worked fast. The gravity pull of liquid blood will ALWAYS look natural if you just dab a bit and let it run, so never go into smearing it unless that’s part of the effect.

Terminator 2, Bullet Hole Make Up, Prosthetics

Imagine having to pick THESE in high school!

Finally, I wanted to add the tiny little BULLET HOLES in the terminator face. Well, this would have been hard, considering I didn’t have anymore prosthetic to paint under. Instead I opted to make it look like I had “bullet smashes” to show the battle damage, and that my “skin” was slowly being beaten in to reveal metal alloy. Probably not the most effective part of the costume, and certainly not film material, but good enough to add as an extra detail to the rest of my face so it didn’t have that isolated Kano effect I was worried about.

And yet I still got referred to as an angry Australian cop-killing arms dealer by one guy at a party…even with the Robot Hand!

Terminator 2, Stan Winston, Cyborg, FX

It’s a proven fact: Terminators are great friends with Gregorian Monks…Not so much with Lutheran.

Yep, a cheap children’s toy I’ve had since I was six was the piece de resistance (or however it’s spelled) to my costume, hidden snugly under the sleeve of my black leather jacket. Oh, and you ever wonder what a Terminator likes to drink when he parties?

Halloween, Terminator, Make Up Effects, Prosthetic

I don’t always drink when I’m terminating…but when I do…I drink…Blue Moon!

So there ya go kids. Gel up your hair and tuss it about, because as we all know killer robot’s don’t have perfect hair to match their perfect programming, especially after minigun shootouts, and voila! You have yourself a simple but effective terminator costume for under 30 dollars!

Definitely the best costume I’ve made in years…but I don’t have a picture of my other Schwarzenneger inspired costume: Dutch from Predator!

Terminator, Gun, Make Up Effects

Rule of thumb: Don’t Go to a Halloween Party as Sarah Connor, unless you feel like filing a restraining order the next day…

Coming up this month will be some special anniversary SAP articles, so be on the look out for some guest blogging!