There has been SO MUCH going on with Alter Nation the last month.
Well, longer than that, but this last month has been especially busy.
First of all, the toys have actually landed on U.S. shores! This means that toys are actually shipping to stores where you can buy them! That said you can still order them to come directly to your home HERE!
Also the first webisode has been released! It features lots of cool people, including Rene and myself. You can see the first episode here:
And you can subscribe to the Alter Nation channel to see new episodes as they are released HERE! New episodes release every Wednesday.
I’ll do better about keeping this blog updated. As if this wasn’t enough, there’s all kinds of cool stuff happening right now.
I did this movie last year. We shot at Aldworth Manor in late September and October. It was a gorgeous location and such a great time with a great team. I’m very grateful to have had this experience and I’m REALLY excited for you all to see it!
I am currently on location in Harrisville, New Hampshire at Aldworth Manor shooting the new indie horror movie Squirrel. It’s been a lot of fun and you’re going to see a lot of it if you’re following me on social media.
Autumn is my favorite time of year and October is one of my favorite months. Rene and I got married in October, we LOVE Halloween, the weather is my preferred type with clouds and rain and chill, it’s our cup of tea. It’s really hard to be all the way across the country away from her and Frankie. They seem to be having a good time back in Portland and Frankie is super-cute in his outfits to keep him warm, as you can can see in these pictures:
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But it’s still hard. So I’ve been keeping myself busy in my downtime.
In the interest of Halloween, I’m telling spooky stories here at the manor. The first one you can see here:
I’ll be doing more all month and these stories are TRUE! Also, the manor house is apparently haunted so I’m going to be going through it with some of the cast and crew later this month to see if we can “catch” anything. Here’s a preview of that from Friday the 13th:
Of course, it wouldn’t be Halloween if I didn’t post Bloody Mary again – it’s a tradition:
And since we won’t be able to do LIVE Discussions for a while, here’s one that i think is still incredibly relevant on being a journeyman actor:
Oh, and I forgot to mention that we have COOL NEW MERCH NOW! You can see that HERE.
You can currently order these cool designs:
Of course, our patrons have first crack at all new material and at the higher levels of patronage you get discounts on your order! You can check that out HERE.
Please like, subscribe, click the links, share, follow – you know, do all the good social media stuff! We’ll see you soon!
We have been hard at work on all of our new stuff and while we’re are still working on things like sketches:
And things like Rene’s music parodies:
The thing that seems to be taking off is our series of LIVE Discussions. These are weekly (Sundays at 11am Pacific Time) and recorded live on our YouTube Channel. We have a topic of discussion (usually arts or creativity related) and I assemble a panel of friends, co-workers, and contemporaries to talk about it for at least 20 mins (although lately we’ve been going longer). Once a month we do a Feature Discussion with a bigger panel. Feature Discussions last for at least an hour and I do a follow-up video of just the highlights after the fact. Below is a playlist of all the discussions so far:
Please check these out, feel free to click on any of the advertising (wink).
Rene and I have some big plans for the future, especially as we continue building our own content. We can do a lot on our own, but we could use some additional financial support to help raise the bar on our activities. Everything we’ve done thus far has been done on a shoestring where we beg, borrow and steal what we need to get a project done. This has worked pretty well, like with The Chili and Bloody Mary:
But with a little bit more money we can do a lot more!
Please consider joining our Patreon page. We’ve set-up some good starter rewards and I’m very pleased to announce that I got some of our art proofs back this morning for the merch that we will be releasing (actual release date TBD, but it’s coming!!!).
If Patreon isn’t an option, please don’t be afraid to click on the advertising links you see here and on the channel. I try to make sure that all of the ads presented are appropriate for the page and they should be set-up so that the items shown are things you, as the reader/watcher, would be interested in.
Thank you all for your support! We have seen the page jump in activity since we started – and we’re doing very well for only being about 4 weeks into this new effort! We’re really looking forward to what’s next!
If you are a creative, this video will sounds very familiar – but it’s a universal message. Lord knows I’ve been down this road a few times. Determination, persistence and touch of naivete is usually enough to win the day – it’s just the “day” in question usually lasts for years.
You may remember that last year Rene and I were involved in the Fun Size Horror project, a series of 31 horror shorts that were released the week of Halloween. Rene and I were directly involved in the production of two of them: Bloody Mary, which featured Rene and our niece Katie, and Home which starred Rene and our friend Matt Conde. After the release embargo was over I released Bloody Mary right away – but I thought that I had lost the final file for Home!
During a massive file transfer to my backup drives I found it, and posted it on YouTube for all to see! So please watch and enjoy Home:
Rene and I are doing a lot of re-branding and building of our web presence since our commitment to take control of our careers this year. This happens to coincide with the end of any contracts that existed with my old production company, Wiggy VonSchtick Productions. The only thing that came out of that dissolution in any way intact was the YouTube channel Wiggy Webs where we auditioned some web content.
The most popular videos were a series called Make-up with the Wolf where award winning make-up and F/X artist Myke “The Wolf” Michaels demonstrated how to do Hollywood level make-up effects on a budget. I’m proud to say that the most popular video is of Rene getting transformed into a Buffy style vampire.
But as I was looking back at the video manager I found a video that I had almost forgotten about and thought was worth featuring today. It was for a group that was trying to rehome over 80 dogs because the rescue that had been their home was being shut down. A group of photographers, including Lori Fusaro, and dog clothing manufacturers got together to take good, happy adoption photos that helped get all of these animals new homes, most at a rescue in a different state.
Watching this again, I remember being at the rescue site and how all the dogs could tell that something was going on, even before all the photoshoot started. Some were nervous, but many were so happy to have as much human interaction as they got that day. With the number of unwanted animals in the United States, rescues and shelters serve as savior to many animals that would otherwise die. If you would like more information about how to help or adopt animals check HERE.
Even though Wiggy VonSchtick is shut down, Wiggy Webs is going to stay up as long as people keep watching it. And if we make the odd nickel every few months from Google AdSense that’s ok too.
They are finally able to be released publicly! The shorts we made for Fun Size Horror are now available for public view.
“Bloody Mary” was a fun bit of filmmaking made under surprise conditions. Originally we had a different crew, location and equipment – but then there was some bad luck behind the scenes. Thanks to some help from Fun Size founder Zeke Pinheiro we were able to shoot and get this in on time.
Give it a look and then watch it a bunch more and tell a friend. More next week!
As we approach the end of the year, there is a certain amount of personal reflection and review that I like to do and as I looked back on this year’s posts there were a few things that I thought were worth revisiting. One of my favorite projects this year was the 52 in 52 writing challenge. Even though I ended up cutting it short, it is something that I really enjoyed doing and it felt good to get those stories out of my head. Here is a link to one of my favorites:
So much happening today at Fun Size Horror! Today is the big day for Rene and I since the short I wrote and directed, Bloody Mary, is up and the short she stars in, Home, is up as well. Wednesday is Double Feature day, so all of the hosting sites are showing two shorts. We are friends with just about everyone involved int todays posts so I hope you’ll check them all out…
Home is the tale of a crumbling marriage and a fight that leads to the worst kind of homecoming.
Bloody Mary is a bit more personal. When my sister and I were kids I used to get a great deal of joy out of scaring her which, as I’m sure you can imagine, neither she or my parents were all that fond of. The worst thing I ever did was convince her that Bloody Mary lived in our bathroom mirror. This is that story.
This, this, all the this!
If you are a creative, this video will sounds very familiar – but it’s a universal message. Lord knows I’ve been down this road a few times. Determination, persistence and touch of naivete is usually enough to win the day – it’s just the “day” in question usually lasts for years.
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