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!

 It’s been a somewhat slow year in terms of new content and videos for the site, but we assure you that will soon change. I personally make a State of the Pose address in the following video, co-oped by Joel and Denise Loukus of Apsis Motion Pictures- one of our potential future partners! Oh, and just so you all know, this video features a very, very special guest that I have never had the personal pleasure of meeting before. In person.

For the video and more news, click below!

Special thanks to the APSIS crew! And an even BIGGER special thanks to all the fans of STRIKE A POSE!!! Films. We have over 350 of you on the Facebook group, and a rising 60 or so on the page, so be sure to keep adding your friends to this band of merry crazy people!

As discussed in the video, we will soon be featuring:

• Cast and Crew retrospectives
• Never before seen videos!
• HD-upconverted re-releases
• A retouched episodic release of Curse of Bodangofish- the lost STRIKE A POSE!!! Classic
• New HD shorts!
• Updates on BITE THE HAND!

So be sure to give us a look, and show your friends! After all, we’s here at STRIKE A POSE!!! Films are just here to entertains ya!

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.”

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).

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.

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!

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?

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!

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!

Carole, Greg Sestero, Myself, and Tommy Wiseau (Feeling Me Up)

I expected Frozen Yogurt…what I didn’t expect was to run into, get a hot chocolate from, and interview (briefly), the greatest film maker of all time, Tommy Wiseau of The Room.

Words of wisdom, folks. Words of wisdom. You better believe I applied them to Bite the Hand. 

(Cause I’m lazy and busy)

Tonight we have a very special treat for our growing fan-base of BITE THE HAND!

We have an official teaser for you all to view! We hope you enjoy. Please share with friends and fans of independent film in the DC area!

Now, as you have seen from the teaser, we have no reason not to announce the fantastically opportune casting of:

JAY SAUNDERS as RED

Jay’s audition brought a lot of different elements to the table. We’ll be sure to post some behind-the-scenes stuff in the near future, but for now check out the photos of him in character as RED and send him a high-five through the internet! Out of an extremely difficult casting process, we were very excited to receive the Ninjas Vs. Vampires star as one of our lead actors!

Special thanks also go to two more awesome additions to the crew: Jake Weeks as audio engineer and Joel Loukus of APSIS as VFX guru. Without these two guys, the teaser would not be anywhere near as awesome as it’s concept promised to be by rising DP Habib Awan. We hope you agree that it delivers!

Thank you all for your continued support! Be sure to keep up with us on the Facebook Pages! Also be sure to find and favorite the new Strike a Pose!!! Films Fan Page on Facebook and follow Bite the Hand on Twitter.

a Promotional Still from Jay’s Audition!