14 Hours on Set

Just got back from a very long day on the set of "Green From The Grave", a short film involving zombies that shot in Palm Bay, Florida. It was another occasion where I'd been hired to do makeup and special effects and decided to put together a whole team including my husband Duckie to coordinate stunts and my friend Nicole Sweeney to handle the makeup in order to free me up to concentrate on the practical effects. Joining us last night was also a recent makeup school graduate, Brad Hunter, who assisted Nicole and fit in well with our team as if he'd been with us for years.

This is the fourth micro-budget project where I've utilized a whole F/X team as a package deal rather than just going to a set solo, and I've been very happy (as have been the directors) with the results. Duckie and I have been working on ways to bring the costs of supplies down in order to make our combined services more affordable for small-budget productions who would otherwise be breaking the bank to hire one of us, let alone a team of 3-5 people. We really want to help add a lot of production value to the films and last night was a beautiful example of how much we can accomplish as a team.

So after we wrap up on the last of the mechanical effects for Predatory Moon and get that big puppy fully into post*, we'll be putting a lot of attention on building devices to execute the most frequently-requested special effects and putting our effects team out there to work with idie productions to give them the most bang for their buck.