Archive for Slinger’s Notes

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!

A few months ago, I was walking through Downtown Silver Spring with Carole, getting some frozen yogurt after a very intense stage performance for Sportaculture.

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. 

Stolen from http://www.bitethehandmovie.strikeaposefilms.com

(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!

I got an unexpected call from Rob Moroney last night, telling me he had an extra ticket to the Red State Tour in DC. I had no idea it was happening. Red State wasn’t a movie I was sure I had much interest in, but I knew Kevin Smith– a hero from my teenage years– would be there. And I also knew that Rob Moroney and I had a track record for hunting down famous people and getting pictures with them. Among other things…

So…OFF WE WENT- taking the metro down to DC again to the Warner Theater, where we had last tackled Denis Leary in a back alley and forced him to sign cigarettes for us, to meet one of the most well known progenitors of the Indy Cinema scene. Oh, and see his newest, most shockingly different movie yet.

Before the show began, Kevin came up on stage to give us in the audience some intel and backstory on the project. While I had heard Kevin Smith was making a horror movie, I had never really read much into it, figuring that, like most of his last few movies, I’d end up seeing it on DVD at some point in the comfort of my own home. Not in this case- I was amidst a sea of maybe two thousand or so Kevin Smith fans, hungry for his second to last project, and certainly his most diverse and unique film in his collection.

So I didn’t know a lot going in. I didn’t know that the badguys were essentially a cartoonized version of the Phelps clan of Everybody Haters, turned into Yosemite Sammites, out to purge the world of everything that used its genitals for non-procreation. Based on Smith’s opening words to the audience, and the final result of the film, it felt like he created this family of yahoos by imagining what it would be like if the Phelps family played too much Grand Theft Auto 3. But more about that when I get to my short review.

 

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I’d like to proudly announce that the next feature from Strike a Pose!!! Films short film will be BITE THE HAND, a gritty, dramatic hitman thriller, directed by Dylan Hintz, written by Tom Murphy, shot by Habib Awan, and  starring Paul R. Sieber. Find us on Facebook HERE! Visit the new subdomain website HERE!

Here’s the official synopsis:

A job comes along that Jack doesn’t like- whacking the wife and kids of his “client.” When he refuses, Jack knows someone will be coming to retire him, courtesy of his boss, Mr. Callahan. What he doesn’t know is Red is a new recruit with nothing to lose- a hungry dog looking to eat. Jack decides to try and educate the young killer that some orders are best refused, and some lifestyles aren’t worth living.

This project has been in development for almost a year now, primarily going through draft after draft of an excellent original script written by Tom Murphy. The story, conceived by Murphy and myself, started as a humble “two guys in a room trying to shoot each other” hardboiled semi-action flick, and evolved into the dramatic tale it is today- a darkly humorous mediation on the themes of loyalty, betrayal, and killing to live.

Habib Awan, cinematographer on Jack’d Up and All in the Game, will be shooting the film.

Already locked is actor Paul Sieber as Jack– a recently retired hitman who quit his job and has decided the life no longer suits him. You may remember Paul from such films as Ninjas vs. Vampires, Garden of Hedon, and Jebediah.

READ BELOW FOR CASTING INFORMATION!

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