RANDOM THOUGHTS ABOUT HALLOWEEN

Whaddaya think!? This (above) is the bottom of the Halloween Tree that causes so much trouble in my house every year. I think it's a thing of beauty but my wife hates it. She refuses to eat at the table while it's there. 

If you agree with me, a note reprimanding my wife for her lack of culture would be appreciated. If you hate it as much as she does, well.....keep your silly opinion to yourself!

Here's (above) a reprint of Theory Cornerite Joel Brinkerhoff's superb Halloween picture. Joel and his co-creator could make tens of thousands of dollars off this photo if they chose to sell it to Hallmark (Hint! Hint!). It's copyrighted by Joel and his friend.

Halloween is right around the corner and there's not much time to make something for the porch. Maybe large box sculptures a little bit like the tiny ones above would be quick to make....or not. Probably a lot of thought went into these.

I could put poster-size frame blow-ups near the door. How do you like the one above? Sigh! It would be even better to do the giant fly head as a 3D sculpture...but who has the time?

Have you been to Steve Worth's "Animation Resources" blog lately? He just put up an interesting post about Mario Bava, the Italian director who inspired Hammer and Roger Corman.

Bava had to make films like "Black Sunday" on the cheap but you'd never know it. He had an art director who could make a bare bones set look like it cost a million bucks. It was all done with lighting.

By way of an example, take a look at the picture above. That's a set-up from Black Sunday, the way it looked when lit for shooting.

Here's (above) the same set with the house lights turned on. A big difference, eh? The pillars are painted and the plastic shrubbery looks like it came from The 99 Cent Store. Like Steve says, it looks like a set done for a high school play.

For more info on Bava: http://animationresources.org/

On a different subject, I like to do symmetrical paper cutouts. I got the idea from Hans Christian Anderson who's said to have carried paper and scissors with him at all times.

I'm flirting with the idea of doing a sort of 1' or 2' tall fence around part of my inner lawn made up of white paper sections like the one above. Inside the fence would be a paper haunted castle. How hard could it be to make something that's just boxes and paper turrets? Groan!...probably harder than I know.




I was also flirting with the idea of making a giant, yard-long pistol. It would be similar to the one in the video above, but much, much simplified. I still have a 6' funny paper girl that I made a couple of years ago. If I had the gun, I could have the girl wield it facing the street. I'd hold her and the gun up with thread tied to a tree branch.

Of course, if it rains, I'm dead.



Boy, this kid's (above) really ambitious! Watch out. He'll be your boss someday.