Legendary artist Gene Colan passed away Thursday night. Gene was an artist on every major title to come from Marvel and DC comics over the past seventy years. He was most well known for his work on Iron Man, Daredevil, Dr. Strange, Howard the Duck and Tomb of Dracula where he helped create the character of “Blade” with writer Marv Wolfman. Word spread quickly across the internet at this unfortunate event. An official announcement was made on his website shortly thereafter:
“I regret to tell you that Gene passed away on 6/23/2011, around 11pm. Gene had ongoing health issues with his liver, heart and cancer. He was a fighter to the end, making plans on leaving the hospice to return home. He wanted me to price him a VW Beetle.”
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Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago at 4:33 pm. Add a comment
The guys over at Horror Etc. are discussing the sub-genre of horror comedy this week. We’ve seen some great horror comedies over the years starting with Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein all the way up to Ghostbusters, Return of the Living Dead, Evil Dead II, FEAST, and SLiTHER! Pop over to the Horror Etc. website and listen to the new show or download the podcast mp3 and listen to it on the go.
From Horror Etc:
Come and join us as we walk the tightrope that is Horror Comedy this week. It’s a topic that has been long overdue considering that so many movies that fall within this unique subgenre of horror are personal favorites. Part of the difficulty is in articulating what works on an individual basis – comedy may be the most subjective genre form and once mixed with the varying tastes of horror fans, it can get to be tricky. We tossed out a quote in the show that sums it up nicely:
‘only a select few filmmakers can successfully tackle the complexity of mixing fear with laughter – if storytelling were science, then the scary / funny film is quantum physics’.
So we gave it our best shot to break down what has made certain attempts more successful than others and along the way gave attention to dozens of examples from the dawn of cinema to the modern era. By the way…have you seen The ‘Burbs? If not, why not?
We close things out with a recap of Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) – a high recommendation for fans of the slasher genre, a fine satire from a different perspective than Scream. Finally, some callouts to listeners to participate in the show, some peaks at the future of the podcast, some thanks to generous contributors and a bold step into the cutting edge technology of 2007. Thanks for listening!
As always welcome your comments: horroretc@gmail.com / voicemail.
Posted 1 year ago at 6:34 pm. Add a comment
Hello Mutantville! I want to discuss something that helped us out immensely when embarking on our first feature film “C for Chaos.” A few of us had gone to art school to develop our eyes, since of composition, etc… But we hadn’t gone to “Official” film school. We were lucky that Streebo had been studying storytelling since he was young and I had been behind a camera since I was young. Brento had been making and editing movies since he was young. So now that we’ve established that at one point we were all young, we’re ready to move on.
When preparing for “C for Chaos,” we all studied feverishly. We read all the books we could find but another thing was watching movies. I know this sounds like a “Duh” type thing but…we watched them from as if we were making them. Streebo and I would get together and point out camera movement, lighting, pacing, screen directions, composition, coverage, etc… If you really watch and dissect films in this way you can see how different directors can cover similar situations. Some may use more wide angles, some may go in for close ups, etc… Commentary tracks are another great resource. Of course not all commentary tracks are created equal. If you’re a low budget filmmaker then I recommend lower budget movies. Robert Rodriguez has great commentary tracks. Some of his you need a note book and the pause button to keep up. Be sure you keep an open mind when listening to the commentary. You may only get one or two gems, But if it saves you a night of shooting or makes something easier, I’d say that was worth 2 hours of your time. For example, on the commentary for Ronin, he talks about the scene when they’re buying the weapons. They purposefully wet the entire area since they were filming outside, that way if it rained, it wouldn’t mess up their shooting schedule. Either write this stuff down in a journal or file it away in your brain somewhere.
Streebo is a big believer in only watching what you’re filming. So when we shot “C for Chaos” for about 3 years, that’s pretty much all Streebo watched. Thanks to places like Netflix he showed me horror films from all over the world. This can give you a lot of insight into the genre.
So before, while and after making your film, study as many films as possible. Notice I said study and Not watch. Watch is passive. Study is active.
Below Please leave comments about films with good commentaries for other filmmakers to go and study! Thanks!
Posted 2 years, 1 month ago at 9:08 am. 4 comments
Legendary artist Gene Colan passed away Thursday night. Gene was an artist on every major title to come from Marvel and DC comics over the past seventy years. He was most well known for his work on Iron Man, Daredevil, Dr. Strange, Howard the Duck and Tomb of Dracula where he helped create the character of “Blade” with writer Marv Wolfman. Word spread quickly across the internet at this unfortunate event. An official announcement was made on his website shortly thereafter:
