You ever work on something for so long, toiling and grinding, that you sometimes thing you will never get there?
Well, the time for all that hard work, all the studying, effort and endless nights of learning, learning and learning are finally paying off.

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So with a brief lull before we begin filming The Cthulhu Key, I have been working on an animated project.
It’s no big secret that horror and sci-fi are my favorite genres, so with Cthulhu Key covering the horror, I started outlining
a story for a web series set in the future.

AstroNoir.com is the home for this series, and if you care to check it out, you will see some of my initial character designs
and test animations.  I am working on streamlining the whole 3D pipeline, and considering this is pretty much a one man show
at this point, that is pretty much my focus.

It’s an ensemble cast, set in a future that while not full on dystopian,  is still rather darker than most mainstream sci-fi.
I guess thats the “Noir” in AstroNoir…

Promo art

So I have found a lot of great sites,  forums and businesses that I think have helped me get to the point I can actually make a movie.

I keep up with a few blogs, some updated regularly, others not so much. But one thing they have in common, is that when it comes to digital filmmaking, they are definitely the sites that believe in “teaching a man to fish” so to speak.

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So I realized that I have been so busy the past 18 months or so, that I haven’t had any real *fun* time.

Now don’t get me wrong, working on music videos and horror film projects is a blast, but sometimes I just need to
get away from the computer and unwind.

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I have been working this up the past couple of days, but between being sick and trying to get ready for Christmas, it’s been slow going.

I still need a couple of more photos to finish out the design, then I will begin working it more seriously.
Some of my regular watchers may recognize the shot of Alix I did a while back for a Lovecraft themed project I did for her.

wip

Hard to imagine it’s been 100 posts.
Preproduction on The Cthulhu Key: Legacy is moving along great.
Five of the roles have been cast, and we will hold a casting call
for the rest of the roles sometime in the middle of January.

I know I haven’t been updating as often as I should, but frankly, I have been buried in the writing and re-writing the script.
Lewaine is a great help in bouncing ideas off of, and she is providing alot of great energy in streamlining and amping up the
intensity of the story.

So for now, I will leave you with a couple of photos from the work bench.

a hand copied codex infernium and the Lovecraft tarot

some props and tools

So I am getting very excited.  I got my friend Alix to sign on to be in the Cthulhu Key movie.

Alix has been in more than a few horror movies, and was a Tromette of the Month for Troma Films.

and, since it was a very nice lazy holiday weekend around Heath Manor, I was able to get around to posting the first drafts of the movie poster!

Cthulhu Key: Legacy

As usual, my favorite time of the year is flying by.  I have been reading a lot of books on scriptwriting, and a book about using the Tarot as inspiration for writing.

Of these books, I have found that Save the Cat and Tarot for Writers synch up great as both inspiration and technique.

My current production, The Cthulhu Key, is created using a composite of the methods from those two books.
I have created my own Tarot spread, slightly modifying the Tarot for Writers spread.

Using this modified spread, I was able to completely fill out my Save the Cat scene board in an afternoon.

That’s 40 scenes outlined and laid out.

I am not going to go into theory of Tarot here, but regardless if you believe in the paranormal, the symbolism of the Tarot married to the structure from the Save the Cat beat sheet can open cascades of creativity.

Go get a Tarot deck, and find something that looks cool to you
(The Dark Grimoire Tarot (English and Spanish Edition)),
then get the book (Tarot for Writers).

Read, practice, write, repeat.

Yes, it seems Lewaine found my cool Miskatonic Antarctic Expedition shirt from Propnomicon.com.
It’s a great shirt at a really good price, though I have to admit, it looks waaay better on Lewaine than me…

is that Kharma Jones???

Oh, and we have begun pre-production on a web series about a woman
who solves problems involving…things not of this Earth.

Wonder who could be starring in that???

I am not sure what she was talking about, but Cami excited about it…

Technical note:
This was shot late in the day, in the shade of the garage. I have a telephoto lens attached to the Jag35, f/4 with the HV30 on Automatic.
You can hear the Jag35 a little in the shot, but I could have dialed down the speed and you probably wouldn’t have heard it.
There were also a couple of dust spots on the gate, so that was added to the mental checklist for next time.