Don't talk to Strangers: GREETINGS FROM THE SHORE

So I recently unearthed some old photographs from my days in the Art Department on the film GREETINGS FROM THE SHORE. It was a pretty sweet gig, where I basically got paid to hang out on the Jersey Shore (well before anyone knew what a Snooki was). It was a super sappy love story that I believe went straight to DVD. We were there just after Labor Day and kicked of an ambitious film with a small crew, a tight schedule, and a tighter budget.

I was credited as a Set Dresser in the film, though I helped and assisted with carpentry, scenic painting and a variety of other tasks. This was definitely a get-your-hands-dirty kinda job. It was great because the weather was still mostly spectacular, we (our 5 person Art Dept.) lived in a small guest house that was a minute and a half walk to the bay were you could try your luck fishing out crabs or you could turn around, walk seven minutes and you'd hit the ocean.

We filmed at a view different locations; on the beach, along the board walk, at the Lavalette Yacht Club, and a Paramedic Garage Bay that we converted into sets. To meet out deadlines, everything had to have a natural look, even if it was entirely fabricated. We set about building flats for sets, gathering set dressing & props and tackling the project full on.

One main set we needed to build was for "Catch", played by Paul Sorvino. His character lives on a dilapidated houseboat, which meant we couldn't film there so we built it. The main idea was to sell the idea of a man that was down & out on his luck and had been for some time. I think this environment definitely reflects that.

Newspapers, which were tinted with a brown paint wash, covered the windows serving as ghetto drapes, but also hid the rest of the location around us. Here it's filled with rain gear, old trunks, and other knick knacks.The walls are a wood paneling that we slightly sanded and then spot stained to add severe aging.

One thing we also did so that this room was "sold" as the boat interior was drill pinholes in the walls and tie fishing line to things like the hats and tools, and would lightly tug on them time from time to give the illusion that they were swaying in the water.

For such a small space, you can see how much was piled into the room. I honestly believe the boat would've sunk if we would put that much set dressing on it.

Here you can see our "Jenny" leaving, but what you also have to notice is the "natural" or "practical" light sources which are a big deal in helping light a scene that would normally be dank and dark.

Here you can see the attention to detail with crushed beer cans and old dry cleaning hangers. You have to go out and get/save that stuff!



This room I am particularly proud of as it was largely constructed by myself and left to my discretion, though supervised by my bosses. This was Jenny's rented room above a Bait Shop in the storyline. It's meant to look more than a bit disheveled and left to the elements of being located near the shore. The stairwell you see goes no where, but it was nice to add the sound effect of other renters stomping up the stairs.

One part of the wall is white B-board that is painted an almost robin egg blue and then sanded to reveal the white underneath. From that I added layers of dark green and brown was to give the appearance of water damage.

This was done to the particle board was as well. The electrical conduit you see is all fake as well, but it helps sell the effect.

We built a window bench and discolored that as well with sanding and by scratching and carving the names of my department into the wood.

Homely elements balanced with some of the dankness helps sell the illusion of the trouble with the character. Even just tossing some wardrobe about really helps the audience belive that the character bleongs in this space.

One thing I really like was the water stain I painted on the ceiling. It's a brown paint water wash, painted inwards in a circular pattern. This was done with combination of brushwork and sponging.

These flowers? They were fresh that day, donated from a local florist. I however took some grey and off-green spray paint and made them look like they had been dead for weeks.

One joke was that Catch would have a pin-up girl on his boat, so I took up the challenge and a scrap piece of particle board. I used an old Vargas girl as inspiration and made sure to age it with a watered down brown paint wash.

Here's a look at the whole portrait. Most folks were pleased with it, but I wanted to work on it longer, I'm still not very good at the human figure. This was all done with acrylic paint and black Sharpie marker. This is a perfect example of why Vargas is an icon and I write a blog.

One running joke written into the script was how the Yacht club always, always, ALWAYS, had Scrod on the menu. I did up a couple of chalk sandwich boards throughout the film.

Here's a couple of close-ups. This was all done with standard sidewalk chalk.

Here's another closer peek.





Another set we had to build was one of the boarding rooms were the hunky, but misunderstood foreign love interest stays. Here we used cheap contact paper as wallpaper and sponged it with brown paint wash for a dirty, weathered look.

The same blue B-board is carried through to imply that this room is in the same building since it has similar decor.

One thing I particularly liked was the square stains that would be left behind from paintings or photographs on the wall. Of course, that's simply paint.

Here you can see the back side of the flat, making the room completely detachable. Camera and lighting are able to move in and freely get a wide range of motion in capturing the scene.

And of course here's the famous water stained ceiling. We ended up using this anytime we would see the ceiling in a shot of the boarding rooms, so if you'll look closely, you'll notice the same stain dance around to numerous rooms and corners!

This was a really fun and challenging project to work on and the crew was fantastic, turning out top-notch, quality work constantly, day in & day out. It was the last feature film that I would work on from start to finish in the Art Department. Regardless it's a fun little date flick that will probably help you get to 2nd base at the very least.

 

And I know you're dying to see the trailer, so here goes....





And if you actually watch the film, you see a cameo of yours truly, as I got sucked into a party scene.

Idle Hands and the Devil's Workshop: Part 2

Consider this the sequel to my cadre of artistic endeavors.

So I held a Art Contest Giveaway on my Twitter Zach for Zombies a while back and Geof of The Man Cave won. His prize was an original piece of artwork of anything he wanted. After spending a day drinking heavily watching sports he came up with my task; to create a wrestling match between the HARD ROCK ZOMBIES and the band KISS with JAWS (yes, the shark) as the referee. This death match would also have Pinhead of HELLRAISER, Freddy Krueger of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, Jason Vorhees of FRIDAY THE 13TH, Ash of EVIL DEAD fame, and Mike Myers of HALLOWEEN as the lumberjacks outside the ring, poised to annihilate anyone that gets tossed over the ropes. Not a small task to accomplish by any means.

I started a few sketches in pencil on Bristol board, trying to figure out the best perspective to include all of these figures in one unified space. I knew the angle and the size of it all would determine how to proceed. I ultimately decided to tackle it straight on and use that very same angle. I went in after some sizing and started to add the details that would make each figure instantly recognizable.

Now I could understand the state of mind Geof was in when he thought this up, or I at least tried. I decided to use watercolors to give it a hazy, pseudo-comic book vibe. The trickiest part was depicting each character in it's limited scale and achieving each look that makes them so iconic. Watercolors are fairly unforgiving, but I enjoy working with the controlled chaos of how each color will ebb & flow. I then outlined different parts in Sharpie and fine point pen.

The piece is gritty and pretty ridiculous. Despite the challenge of creating it and the time it took, it was a lot of fun to experiment with such a mash-up of Geof's favorite films and influences and deliver a worthy prize. To do it again, I may would have tried acrylic or maybe even crayon.... You can check out Geof's unveiling post with video at The Man-Cave by clicking here.



John Squires the beard and brains behind Freddy in Space commissioned me a while back on our field trip to Coney Island to see the Bruce Campbell Burlesque Tribute Show. He wanted a piece of horror themed artwork to decorate his new homestead that he had just moved into with his lovely girlfriend Jen. Johnny wanted a piece that celebrated the Clint Howard schlock fest known as ICE CREAM MAN. I said yes, of course and the wheels started to turn.

In researching how I wanted to craft this piece I remember I had the seat from an old wooden chair from college. The chair broke, but in such a way that the seat came out free and clear and I kept it knowing I was going to have to create something. It wasn't until John's request that I knew the genesis of this project. I would now embark on carving my first wood cut ever.

I used my girlfriend's carving tools to etch out a picture of Clint from the cover art of the film. I knew that I would have to think backwards in two ways with my work. 1) Whatever I carved away would be the negative space left behind, almost like drawing in reverse. 2) Anything I would use for this would be a reverse image when I pulled any prints off of it. Both of these things are something that's a lot harder to grasp in actual execution.

I got the carving to just about where I wanted it. The tricky thing with the seat was that I was trying to keep the image centered in the circular recess of the chair seat, you know the part you put your ass in. Then covered a small piece of cardboard I tore from a shipping box in smoothed aluminum foil and taped the edges underneath. I then squeezed out a quarter size of Speedball printing ink and used a small hand roller to start an even flowing layer of ink. You can find the ink and roller at just about any art store, and the ink has the same consistency as acrylic tube paint. Then I took the roller with an even coat of ink on it and rolled onto the wood. I had to be mindful of the divot, and I would suggest next time of only using a a FLAT board, but I digress. I have never pulled prints before, so there's a few valuable lessons I learned. The heavier stock paper you use is a bit more forgiving for beginners. I had a thinner piece tear on me as I was pulling it off. The thinner stock is a lot nicer for framing so there's the draw, it just requires a bit more patience and a steadier hand. You can find all kinds of specialty paper for printing at the art store as well. You don't want to go overboard with the ink as it will come out gloppy and too dark. Too light with the ink and it doesn't come out all the way. Some artists chase after a "Ghost Print", which is when you pull one print and have enough residual ink left over to simply apply another piece of paper.

I ended up pulling 9 prints in total, my favorite number. I decided that I was going to leave 3 as they were pulled and I decided to alter the remain 6 with spray paint and Sharpie to add a bit of variety.

 The 3 I left unaltered are labeled #1-3 and signed. The others are all unique one of a kind variants. the last one actually has a hole in it that I plugged by gluing my business card on the back side as a way to double sign my work. Each of the altered prints are titled "Eye Scream #1-6" respectively.

Once I let the ink dry on the wood cut, I wanted to create a truly one and only piece. I was effectively going to destroy my plate, ensuring that no other prints could ever be pulled from it. I was going to paint over the seat in acrylic paint, which dries to a almost hard plastic. I set about building the flesh tones and then adding the other elements from the movie cover art that wasn't incorporated into the carving.



Here you can see the paint filling in the crevices from the recesses of the carving process.



I had added the lightning and a graded blue background to make the image pop. The initial idea was to title the piece in red, with the drips from the bloody ice cream cone feeding into the letters, but I scratch that as I felt it would get lost in translation. I instead opted for a lime/mutant green that I wrote in with a paint marker, a graffiti artists best friend. The green, I feel, really adds a touch of late 80s sensibility to it. The other issue I was having was the eyes, which I went back over with white acrylic. 

Here's the finished piece, outlined in sharpie which proved like driving over road bumps when drawing the borders and carved areas. The title is smeared and drippy on purpose with a festering look about it. The whole project was a lot of fun to create, and I feel like I pushed myself into a new medium to deliver what was expected of me. This was my first commission piece so I felt obligated to go above and beyond. This is meant to be hung on the wall and Johnny also received all 9 prints with this piece.

You can check out Johnny's post with photos at Freddy in Space by clicking here. Rumor has it that he be holding a giveaway of his own....

Come back soon as I'll have even more projects to share.