I got a message on Facebook that sort of got overlooked for months due to it being from someone not in my friends list. It was a nice little message thanking me for doing Brento’s Budget Film Making Podcast. That’s the first such message I’ve received acknowledging the effort put into that little show. It was really cool to get that. That makes me think that I should do a show on creating no budget music videos. BBFMP was often overshadowed by it’s much more put together big brother show, MVP Mutant Radio, which is now, sadly defunct, at least for the time being. Anyways, great to be acknowledged and shout out to show listener, Krutin Amin, of Hanover Park, Illinois. Thanks for your message, Buddy. I’ll keep on making them if you keep on listening. At the current time, I’m working on a music video for Braden Harwood. Additionally, I have 3 other videos lined up to create as time allows, including one for Two Spies, though, obviously I’ll need help for that one. These things are like short films and as such, they make great anecdotes for BBFMP. It’s all great experience that I look forward to sharing on the show. I need to get a standard menu items for the podcast on this site, but for now you can access all the shows here or on iTunes. I’m up to #26 now so do check them out if you’re interested in film making for no money! Speaking of music videos, the one I’m working on now is for a southern rock tune called, “Getting Out of Here.” We’ve had two shoot days already and probably need one or tow more to complete capture the needed footage. I’m using a volunteer crew and often find myself being the only crew member on the set. The folks who have helped out have done so at some very serendipitous times and been of great value to the production. It’s hard to run a camera, direct and fly a drone all at once. I’m not above trying, but it’s difficult to say the least. I’ve also been working on pre-visuals for another epic multi-figure art piece. Here’s the loose concept not even close to being fleshed out. I’m resisting the urge to name it, “Stairway to Heaven.” You’ll be seeing a more fleshed out version of this work but it may be months as I want to create it at 4000 pixels wide and I’m using dynamic clothing on the figures making the climb. It moves things away from that Poser look I think, but it takes a lot of calculating memory and just time. When I start rebuilding this in the full size, I’ll need to have the look of my Seraphim, both male and female all worked out, so in that sense, this version is just a loose...
Read MoreHappy 4th of July
It’s been an interesting few weeks.Sometimes sticking up for what you believe in means either loosing a friend or breaking ties temporarily or even permanently. I recently had a “so called” music friend visit emotional hell on my soul. I’m not calling names, but if you follow my music projects you can figure it out. I’ve always had a bad habit of letting people get too close to me and my music, sometimes too fast. When you put your trust in someone who’s perhaps not the most trust worthy person or doesn’t have your best interest at heart. In my experience, if someone tells you that they are your best friend, or you are their best friend within a few weeks of spending time around them, chances are there is some emotional instability at play. It happened twice to me and I sincerely think the two folks in question have sociopathic tendencies. I’ve had a real “do nothing” kind of long weekend for July 4th. I took Nancee out to breakfast as her favorite restaurant, then to a shopping mall about an hour away and set her up with a bunch of spa activities, then bought her an expensive hair straightener. She seemed to have a good time, but I’m just not a big fan of crowded spaces. I also got my recently purchases iPhone 5s replaced at the Apple store. The one that they originally sent me had an issue with the glass separating in one corner. Of course dealing with AT&T’s sub standard service it was incumbent upon me to go and get the replacement in an Apple store an hour away. They want to put another $800 hold on my debit card to mail it which is total BS considering the phone didn’t even cost that much in the first place. Anyways, that was Friday. Saturday I pretty much hung out at the office and caught up on some episodic TV watching and messed with a few renders. Still pre-vising a flash back scene from my new script. That sort of led me to looking at the C For Chaos Web Series footage. I couldn’t seem to find the desire to work on it. That’s kind of the sad part of the whole thing. I care about finishing that project but when I feel completely dissed by someone, it’s hard to find the drive to work on their project. It’s not like I’m not still friends with JT, but it is a friendship I’ve had to redefine for myself and unfortunately, I think that at least for the near future we won’t be working together. I then decided to pull out some old footage I captured from one of the archive tapes. It’s a little skit originally created for our review of Terror In The Pharaoh’s tomb. Back in those days, we actually had fun working together...
Read MoreNew Logo Design
Here’s a little logo I recently designed for a client starting a skine care line. The direction was for a fresh healthy looking design that implied the organic nature oif the products. After a little research I found that leaf designs were extremely popular in skin care logos. My first pass was a real hit with...
Read MoreThe Blythe Avenger – On Johnny Brento’s JuJu
British film maker/ animator of some reknowned to the Poser community, David Watson of Davlin Studios recently completed a fun, horror themed animated short. Two songs from MVP’s own Johnny Brento are featured on the film’s underscore. Check out the film..
Read MoreRendering Horrors
Streebo asked me to share a little bit about my Poser work. For me it is often a first step to explore a script idea or in some cases a really awesome tool for storyboard work or developing the look of a character, so in some way it is related to film making. In the case of Mutantville Productions it was Live Action/Poser animation project, “The Zombie Hunter” that brought the players together in the first place so it’s fitting the the application have a place in the great halls of the Mutantville mother ship. I began using Poser around 8 years ago at version 5. At the time I remember thinking it was just the coolest thing for a person such as myself who really lacks great hand drawing skills. I began participating in the larger Poser communities such as Renderosity, PoserPros.com (now defunct) and DAZ3d.com, first as a customer, then an artist, a vendor and eventually a site owner. At the peak of my involvement in running a Poser site, PoserCity.com we averaged something like 6500 hits per day. But that kind of bandwidth gets too expensive so eventually the site was closed. From there my passion for Poser moved to the creation of original monsters. Of course being one of the primary Mutantville Madmen, I’d want to make monsters first. I established DevilDogStudios.com along with my partner Chris Haigood about 14 months back. I’m proud to say that in the short time we’ve been in business we have already produced the most popular Werewolf figure in the Poser community at large. In addition to this best seller, we also developed an original Creature From The Black Lagoon type monster called, “Creech” which was a part of the included content for the brand new Poser 8 software. Both my name and that of our company are acknowledge for our contributions to Poser right on the splash screen as soon as the program loads. I confess, that is a real hoot for me. It makes me feel like the countless hours I’ve poured in the 200 or so artworks I’ve created with the ap weren’t all for naught. And while this side company doesn’t exactly line my pockets with the green stuff, it does satiate my passion for creating monsters. DDS is currently is currently running our “Nightmare” contest which will result in a hard bound coffee table book filled with all kinds of monster and mayhem. While not directly related to Mutantville apart from my involvement, it’s a safe bet to say that several C For Chaos inspire works may find themselves on the pages within. Poser plays a big role when it comes to keeping me creative. I’ll share a little of my Poser art with you here in the coming months. Johnny...
Read MoreClassic Horror Returns
I’ve recently become aware of just how cheap some really rare horror flicks have become when sold within lots on ebay. Pennies on the dollar, People! We’re talking slasher, occult, gore, werewolf, vampire and zombie cinema that until now has not cross the radar of most people. Most of it seems to come from the late 70’s and early 80’s it seems and is typically only available on VHS. So you may want to rethink throwing out that old 4 head $39.95 from Wally world. It might just come in handy. Being one to appreciate all old horror movies, particularly the ones I missed the first time around, I’ve decided to take a journey of sight and sound back to the VHS graveyard to unearth some hidden treasures or in some cases rotting corpses of cinematic ambitions never realized. I’ll be carrying along my camera. You will bare witness. Stay tuned to the Mutantville Youtube Channel. Johnny...
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