http://attackosaur.com/

A ROPE AROUND YOUR BROKEN NECK: PAGE DEVELOPMENT My third comic,...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:02:00 -0500

Pencils of Page 3 by R. Ricardo

Inks of Page 3 by R. Ricardo

Final Page 3 with lettering

Pencils of Page 15 by R. Ricardo

Final Page 15 by Nicolas Brondo

A ROPE AROUND YOUR BROKEN NECK: PAGE DEVELOPMENT

My third comic, after The Mutilated Dead (which I’ll post bits for soon), A Rope Around Your Broken Neck was another crack at Gothic stuff. The comic had two artists: R. Ricardo and Nicolas Brondo. Ricardo was an awesome Brazilian dude who had done a lot of adult comics. He had to drop out after doing all the pencils and half of the inks, so I asked Nicolas, an ace Argentinian artist, to jump in and complete the comic. I did the lettering myself in Photoshop. It took about a year all told from the beginning of the artwork phase to being print-ready. Receiving awesome artwork of shit that absolutely dominated my brain for up to a year at a time was seriously badass. I miss that little paperclip next to my emails! Anyway, hope you dig the artwork! You can read A Rope Around Your Broken Neck for free as a .pdf file if you click on the comics section.

PARALYSIS: PAGE DEVELOPMENT Thought it would be fun to post a...

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 09:00:30 -0500

PARALYSIS: PAGE DEVELOPMENT

Thought it would be fun to post a step-by-step account of the art process on some of my comics. Paralysis was my first comic, so it was especially exciting when I saw that little paperclip next to an email from the artist, J.C. Grande. Above is the progression from character concept art to a thumbnail sketch and then right through pencils to the final inked, greyed, and lettered page. He did an awesome job. I find the script a bit clumsy now, but just getting something down and printed was brilliant fun.

NEW SHORT FILM! The second video from my group, The Magikarp...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:36:00 -0500

NEW SHORT FILM!

The second video from my group, The Magikarp Experience, in Aber’s media production module. I wrote and directed this Tekken-based epic. Next week I’m probably gonna have to act in something. Bad times.

SHORT FILM! (I WAS THE CAMERAMAN) This is the first film from my...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:15:00 -0500

SHORT FILM! (I WAS THE CAMERAMAN)

This is the first film from my group in the Media Production module at Aber. It’s absolutely horrific. I’d demand the deaths of all involved if I wasn’t one of them. In fairness, we did only have like 2 hours to write and shoot it.

Photo

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:13:26 -0500

Let's all watch Psycho Sleepover!

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:14:00 -0500

If you like the title you’ll probably dig the film. If you don’t like the title I hope you’re never in charge of picking movie titles because that one is badass. From the directors of the American classic, Yeti: A Love Story, comes another no-budget splatter comedy. The story revolves around and gently fondles a group of four teenage girls whose slumber party is interrupted by the inmates of Murderton’s local asylum for the criminally insane. Penises get severed, faces get stomped, and it has more frenzied stabbing than Ron Jeremy’s entire filmography. And it’s funny as shit. If you want a comedy, want to support an indie film (a proper indie film, I mean, not re-branded, big studio Oscar-bait), and can forgive a few technical shortcomings, Psycho Sleepover’s your man. The film’s released through Troma and even features big Lloyd Kaufman himself in a cameo role. It’s available on Amazon on region-free DVD. And remember, every independent film you support is a punch in Angelina Jolie’s face.

ATTACKOSAUR #2 SNIPPETS I’ve not worked on Attackosaur #2...

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:57:00 -0500

ATTACKOSAUR #2 SNIPPETS

I’ve not worked on Attackosaur #2 in a long, long time and since issue 1 didn’t exactly set the world on fire I figure it’s not worth the 2/3 months per issue it was taking to finish the mini series. I’ve already put a lot of hours into bits of issue 2 though, so I figured I’d snip them out and put them online in case the three people who bought issue 1 are bored and check out the website. If that’s you, high-five! *kaputch!*

Since you're askin'...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:21:00 -0500

My favourite 10 films of the year! I’d been running on the assumption that it’d been a bit of a bad year, but after a bit of digging to jog my memory it turns out 2011 had some awesome stuff in it. I’ve not seen some stuff that didn’t get a massive release, like A Dangerous Method or The Ides of March (seeing it tonight actually), and a lot of the stuff on critics’ lists just looks like bollocks, like The Help, The Descendants, and Bridesmaids.

1 - DRIVE Nicolas Refn

2 - SOURCE CODE Duncan Jones

3 - SUPER James Gunn

4 - THE DIVIDE Xavier Gens

5 - THE WOMAN Lucky McKee

6 - ATTACK THE BLOCK Joe Cornish

7 - SECUESTRADOS (KIDNAPPED) Miguel Vivas

8 - THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 (FULL SEQUENCE) Tom Six

9 - SUPER 8 J.J. Abrams

10 - TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON Michael Bay

And shut up, Transformers was amazing.

punchingtheclock: I have a hard time wrapping my mind around...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:12:42 -0500

punchingtheclock:

I have a hard time wrapping my mind around how this works: A guy does a speed run of Mega Man 2, while Bit Brigade plays the soundtrack behind him in real time. It’s one of the most interesting concert-type-things I’ve ever seen.

Saw this online when I had Minor Threat on in the background....

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 09:32:00 -0500

Saw this online when I had Minor Threat on in the background. Amazing.

BEAT HAPPENING Reading Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael...

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 17:00:00 -0500

BEAT HAPPENING

Reading Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azerrad. Picked it up for Henry Rollins/Ian MacKaye interviews, but I’m totally falling in love with a bunch of bands I’d never heard before. Beat Happening are frickin’ awesome!

Photo

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 20:50:14 -0500

Random comic about eels and stuff that I drew. Spot the Danny...

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 14:41:00 -0500

Random comic about eels and stuff that I drew. Spot the Danny Devito!

ANOTHER BADASS FILM CALLED DRIVE! I’ve seen 2 movies in...

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 10:42:00 -0500

ANOTHER BADASS FILM CALLED DRIVE!

I’ve seen 2 movies in the past 2 days. One was the instantly forgettable Tin Tin - if I even begin to start typing about this movie I get borerfncdccsdnjsvdcvvcnjvc - and the other was Drive. A few rants back I mentioned David Mamet’s brilliant On Directing Film, a book which criticises Hollywood’s obsession with back-story and “building character”, whatever that might mean, as the story, and our interest, slips away. Mamet suggested stripping everything down to the story. Not the character. Not the theme. The story. “This dude does this,” and not, “This _____ dude does this because he feels ______.” Drive captures everything that is fuckin’ magic about this approach and is the most purely cinematic film I’ve seen since Amer.

Drive expects the viewer to create their own impression of what is going on. And I don’t mean like David Lynch, where he just throws all sorts of weird shit at you with no regard for plot hoping that the tone and the lesbians will see you through. Drive leaves out the shit that doesn’t matter. It tells the story through Mamet’s beloved juxtaposition of uninflected images. Drive’s storytelling is so efficient that it comes across as a style, even though it’s just simplicity. After Tin Tin, where a hero can ride a motorcycle on a highwire with nary a “Holy shit!” from a bystander, Drive’s beautifully constructed narrative was damn near a religious experience. I know it sounds like I’m being a pretentious nob, but it’s actually the opposite. Drive is simple cinema. Most of everything else, especially Tin Tin, is cinema + bollocks.

DINOHOUSE! If anyone from the SyFy Channel is looking, I can...

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 10:36:50 -0400

DINOHOUSE! If anyone from the SyFy Channel is looking, I can make a screenplay out of this. Hit me up.

Dinosaur school photograph.

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 19:29:11 -0400

Dinosaur school photograph.

FULCI-FEST Spent the weekend coming up with a few short film...

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:56:00 -0400

FULCI-FEST

Spent the weekend coming up with a few short film pitches for the Media Production part of the course. My favourite is a modern-day, 3-minute mummy movie. This is thanks, in no small part, to a Lucio Fulci bender I’ve been on after finding all sorts of extreme zombie awesomeness in Aber Uni’s library. In the space of 2 days, I’ve shuffled awkwardly through City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, The House by the Cemetery, Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, and Zombie Flesh Eaters. Every one of them was absolutely brilliant. City of the Living Dead has the best scene about a woman throwing up her own insides of all time. I decided to rejoin LoveFilm and beast through all the Italian horror I can shove onto a massive splinter of wood and eat. Body Count and Inferno are in the post.

The short film I’ve come up with, ideally, will be full of loud gasps and excessive zooming, but sadly the project demands that different people take specific roles in production, i.e. the writer can’t choose the shots because that’s the director’s job. I think the lecturer would lose his shit if we tried to use the zoom button as well. Fair enough, I guess, when none of us is Lucio Fulci. It’s also not a guarantee that Survival Horror (that’s the title of my mummy idea) will even be one of the scripts chosen to be made. It probably depends on who’s in your group. Being an awkward shithouse, I’m not actually in a group yet. We’ve been told to form our own and I don’t really know anyone. I don’t know that anyone’ll be more enthusiastic to work with me when I tell them I want to have the main character stab a man in the balls with a broken mirror at the end. If I don’t end up being the writer I’d like to direct, but I hope I don’t end up directing a script full of people talking. If it’s about unrequited love or involves scenes with people crying, I’ll stab myself in the balls. Best to be the cameraman and remove myself from the creative decision-making process if that’s the case or I’m just gonna get on people’s nerves by insisting on demonstrating his undying love with kung fu training scenes or some shit.

Also, I drew a zombie!

Wasting time drawing a Godzilla! Smoosh that village!

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 07:27:21 -0400

Wasting time drawing a Godzilla! Smoosh that village!

Always Be Closing!

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 19:44:29 -0400

Lectures are still at the introduction stages at the moment, so I’ve been raiding the library in my free time. Having already been forced to rethink my entire approach for Bitch by Blake Snyder’s Save The Cat!, yet another book has come along and kicked me in the teeth: David Mamet’s On Directing Film.

I love Mamet’s work - Spartan and Redbelt are the most recent, badass examples - but I always thought of him as a dialogue man. I also own a copy of his Three Uses of the Knife and, whilst interesting, it isn’t of much practical use. On Directing Film, however, will have to live in my desk drawer for constant reference (once I buy my own copy). The book is the result of a series of lectures Mamet gave to film students and is the most anti-bullshit approach to storytelling I’ve ever read. Mamet explains that there is no such thing as character development and backstory; there is only action. What happens next? is the only thing the audience should be thinking. His ideas provide a helpful guide to making scenes faster and more engaging.

One of my favourite sections of the book was Mamet’s argument against the use of the steadicam. He believes ‘the steadicam… has injured American movies’ because it allows the filmmakers to simply follow the protagonist around without cutting. Mamet is very big on cutting. He believes strongly in telling the story through cutting, not through acting or narrating everything through ham-fisted dialogue. He believes in the idea of, as he puts it, telling a story through the juxtaposition of uninflected images. Shot of man + Shot of food = Man is hungry. The man doesn’t need to put on a silly face to show us his hunger; the combination of the shots is enough for us to get the idea.

Mamet says that actors are there merely to perform the actions listed in the script. Open door. Come in. Sit down. Actors don’t need motivation. Character biographies are a waste of time. An actor cannot show in his performance that the character’s mum left him when he was 2 years old. The only way to show this in performance is if he opens the door, comes in, and sits down whilst saying, “My mum left me when I was 2 years old.” If it can’t be acted, there is no need for the actor to worry about it. The audience will create their own impression of the character through his actions. I love this approach. As a dude who is often intimidated by actors and utterly useless when trying to explain what kind of emotion I’m after, this approach is a godsend. If I plan ahead and have a great shot list, then the story will come through. No acting required.

After reading stuff about Mamet having actors read their dialogue to metronomes to get the timing spot on, I was concerned On Directing Film wouldn’t be all that cinematic. On the contrary, Mamet’s approach is 100% pure cinema. Bitch will keep getting better, if considerably harder to write. No more reading now!

http://attackosaur.com/

A ROPE AROUND YOUR BROKEN NECK: PAGE DEVELOPMENT My third comic,...

Top secret Nazi documents found in a hidden bunker. This...

PARALYSIS: PAGE DEVELOPMENT Thought it would be fun to post a...

NEW SHORT FILM! The second video from my group, The Magikarp...

SHORT FILM! (I WAS THE CAMERAMAN) This is the first film from my...

Photo

Let's all watch Psycho Sleepover!

ATTACKOSAUR #2 SNIPPETS I’ve not worked on Attackosaur #2...

Since you're askin'...

punchingtheclock: I have a hard time wrapping my mind around...

Saw this online when I had Minor Threat on in the background....

BEAT HAPPENING Reading Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael...

Photo

Random comic about eels and stuff that I drew. Spot the Danny...

ANOTHER BADASS FILM CALLED DRIVE! I’ve seen 2 movies in...

DINOHOUSE! If anyone from the SyFy Channel is looking, I can...

Dinosaur school photograph.

FULCI-FEST Spent the weekend coming up with a few short film...

Wasting time drawing a Godzilla! Smoosh that village!

Always Be Closing!