Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

"Prepare for the festival. He is coming from Yuggoth."

Today local filming commenced on Cthulhu and adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's Shadow Over Innsmouth and your's truly was in the thick of it....With our costumes in hand we checked in at The Dead Lion for sign-in and makeup and then reported to the location which happened to be the old Union Fisherman's Co-op net shed at the foot of 31st, you know, the one that's way out over the water...

It was really fun, they had about 15 or 20 of us decked out in black and up on the third floor which was serving as some sort of cult church. There was some phoney looking altar set up and they wanted us to stand around it and chant the nearly unpronouncable..

""SNAGAHATH-THEY..NEI-HULHA YUGGOTH!!...FTHA'LEIN CTHULU! CTHULHU FTAGHN!

ummmm, yea.....

that had us run through it several times before the actual scene was shot and it wasnt that easy to get the timing, pronunciation and enunciation in sync..but eventually they thought we were ready so the cat playing the Grand Wazzoo or leader emoted away as he circled the altar with us dutifully chanting away H.P. Lovecraft's gibberish....We did several takes of it so they'd be satisfied...In one take, one of the assistant directors mistakingly crossed in front of the camera(real pro,eh?) and the director yelled "CUT" and muttered something to her that wasnt nice Im sure. For some reason I thought this was funny and I busted out laughing. I was the only one. Everybody looked at me weird, including the director. I thought, "oh fuck, he's pissed I laughed and he's gonna tell me to split." He looked at me for what seemed like a long time then said,
"Hey, you got a great laugh-I want you to laugh real long and evil for the camera now, okay?"
Me, being the dedicated professional I am, said, " Uhhhh, well sure okay." And so I reached deep down inside my sinister core of evil and did what I thought was the appropriate laugh. When he said cut the whole crew applauded. Man, I tell ya, I'm gonna gain cinematic immortality. I'm never gonna die, but will live forever, me and my evil laugh, on the tv late movies, laughing evily while actress Toree Spelling is getting raped by the monster, Cthulhu.....

After we got done with that scene we had some downtime...they fed us, waited for it to get almost dark then put a bunch of us in black shrouds and filmed us marching into the net shed carrying candles....Tomorrow we go back down there and do some more.


Okay, that's the Hollywood report for tonight from the exciting world of motion pictures... so remember.

"Take the gun. Leave the cannoli"


Curious? You can check it out for background and see a trailer at:

http://cthulhuthemovie.com

Thanks a slimy, tentacled load for that report, Scoot.

We die-hard Lovecraft fans ( yours truly leading the pack) will be interested to see how the film turns out, and will wait, entranced, for the moment of your laugh scene.

I do hope the "Seattle film-makers" are able to come up with something better than the other efforts at filming Lovecraft. "From Beyond", for example, was a real failure-- a little Lovecraft as a sweetener, then 45 minutes of softcore B and D whippings and leather, all grande jetee-ing around a kind of pulsing pizza. Hmmmm.

"The Shadow Over Innsmouth", one of HPL's best stories, has long seemed to me rather cinematic and a cinch for filming. I hope they engaged the services of Dick Cheney to play Cthulhu.

""HRA, KRAHTAR, DI MEYGO NYBOR GRESTIS ACTIB RYLETH!"

Your laugh appreciator,


Zlatko

This blasted library computer doesn't have Quicktime. What kind of bullshit is that?

The history of films based on Lovecraft has indeed been dismal.
"The Reanimator," for instance, has almost nothing to do with "Herbert West - Reanimator."
Or even worse, was "Die, Monster, Die!" starring Boris Karloff, which was originally supposed to be based on Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space," which, despite an awkward title, was really a pretty horrifying story, and had they stuck to it instead of scrapping the original screenplay, it might've been a movie worth watching. But ah well.

There was even a video game under production called "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth" that looked incredibly promising. Lots of really cool details, such as a "sanity system" (your character, if exposed to enough of the horror and aberrations, would go insane, and possibly even try to kill himself) and realistic combat damage and various other features that worked to produce a total immersion in the game environment -- but then the bullshit that is destroying the gaming industry stepped in; many features were "nerfed," as it were, or removed altogether, and now when it's finally released it'll just be an ordinary action game featuring Lovecraftian creatures.

Perhaps there's a curse on anything based on Lovecraft.
Which would be strange, because he was fine with the notion of other people using his mythos

here's some pics from the location...they werent letting any body take pics of the actual scenes, but they photoed us rehearsing or on down time:

here's the 100+year old net shed being used for the location set:


some of the crew



rehearsing the chant scene. That's me, Piston McCauffey, on the extreme left, finding my motivation:



here's Piston MaCauffey-horror movie actor- relaxing with a cup of mud chatting up the security guy


"To my good pals at S8--

See ya in Hollywood,
Your Pal,
Piston McCauffey"

Weird scenes inside the movie.......

Great stuff.... Fascinating to see the inner workings of the creation of cinematic art. Thanks for the update, O trashy one. A great, great post. And I will look for the film. And I want to hear that laugh.... it know it will make the cut....

Grand Wazzoo

Grand Wazzoo

Scooter I am so proud of you. I am going to see that got dam movie even if it scares me shitless. Just to hear you laugh. BTW I now know what the initials G. W. stands for.

I speaking of all hollows eve, I spent a night out in the Boonies around Phoenix MD, (Blair Witch) this about twenty years before the movie. The house was a huge mansion circa 1790 CE. Most the house was a burned out but it sill had a great kitchen, warm and cheerful by the light from a huge fireplace. I took a walk through the forest on my way home. Very dark night, but I used to have good night vision. Remember the line from the B&W Abbott and Costello movie, the fat boy says “I saw what I saw when I saw it.”


Scooter I am so proud of you. I am going to see that got dam movie even if it scares me shitless. Just to hear you laugh. BTW I now know what the initials G. W. stands for.

I speaking of all hollows eve, I spent a night out in the Boonies around Phoenix MD, (Blair Witch) I think some of the sceenes frow Water's Pink Flamingo were filmed on that old farm. this about . The house was a huge mansion circa 1790 CE. Most the house was a burned out but it sill had a great kitchen, warm and cheerful by the light from a huge fireplace. I took a walk through the forest on my way home. Very dark night, but I used to have good night vision. Remember the line from the B&W Abbott and Costello movie, the fat boy says “I saw what I saw when I saw it.”

I can't deal with double trouble post, edit later

alright you afficiandos of fine film..I know you've been waiting for this....the crew was back here this past weekend finishing up some dream sequences and lo and behold this epic is now in the can and it's a wrap (that's insider talk for "we're all done filming"

Now.....here's the current version of the trailer where you can se ME YES ME, busting out my acting chops in my big screen debut!


CAUTION: THIS PREVIEW CONTAINS STRONG ADULT LANGUAGE AND SEXUAL CONTENT MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL FAMILY MEMBERS

yeah, like that's gonna keep you horndogs out.....

Okie Dokie, Roll'em, L-Rod
http://cthulhuthemovie.com/CthulhuTrailer.mov

Wow! I just now saw this thread.

Pretty cool, Jim!

Looks like a creepy movie! I like creepy movies!

Did you go to an open audition or something?

Just curious...

Looking forward to seeing it when it's released!

Oh it's creepy alright.....and the movie probably is too.

How? There was no audition, just a call.....feign disinterest, act aloof and wear sunglasses...when you're in scenes keep crowding the action where the main characters are-keep inserting yourself and appear to be confident and bored-like " this is so beneath me". Drop names and talk about your "last movie" and say stuff like "I swore never again..."
When invited to cast and crew parties when the day's filming is done just roll your eyes and half smile.
Did I mention sunglasses? Whenever the camera isn't rolling wear sunglasses and practice looking bored to tears...

how cool -
great trailer!

but jim, where are you ?
my screen is so fuckin dark i can't see faces!

Yeah I had the same thing as well must be because that's how it will look. Hey St can you tell us how long you're up on the screen and when is the movie coming out????
_________________
BMW Z1

panta rhei wrote:how cool -
great trailer!

but jim, where are you ?
my screen is so fuckin dark i can't see faces!

I just pop in a for a second or two in the trailer....also for the night shot I'm marching along the catwalk in my shroud carrying a candle...that one is really dark

Dave The Dov wrote:Hey St can you tell us how long you're up on the screen and when is the movie coming out????

I don't know how much I'll be in the final cut....I was close in to several key scenes, though, including the climatic sacrifice and murder of the cop....I have no idea when release is, I suppose it has to go through post production which could take 6 months-maybe less-maybe more, I honestly don't know.