HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL - Finale

The last turn actually took the visitors out of the carport and up onto the front porch of the house...

...where this fellow was waiting for them. The Coffin opens with a creaking noise and the pasty green Vampire with stake through his heart slowly rises up..... EEEEEKKKKK!

The lucky survivors scamper out through the "Cemetary" to receive their rewards...TREATS!!

[ How did I manage to cram all of this into my 10' x 20' carport, you may ask? With my usual scenic efficiency. The flats used for the walls of the corridors were only 3/4" thick, so it was posible to arrange them to make one long twisting corridor with the painted cardboard panels on springs to open and close the way. I was sitting on a small platform 4' high in the very center of it all so that I could see over the tops of the flats, using small mirrors for the spots I couldn't quite see, and there I flipped light switches and pulled cords which controlled all the figures and the action. A friend in costume would open the door and lock it again and then follow the "Visitors from behind to make sure they made it through alive!]

I used to start on the HOUSE  in the summer, working all the logistics out well in advance. I began setting the insides up a few days before Halloween, with the outside parts going up on that day.

It was a lot of work and a LOT of Fun. I never advertised, but carloads of folks whould show up before we finally shut it all down before midnight. I kept this up for about 8 years until I couldn't physically do it anymore.

I still miss doing it every year.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN !!!!!

HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL !

Near the end of the maze a pair of red glowing eyes were seen at the end of the last long corridor...

Suddenly a strobe light illuminated an 8'tall Frankenstein's Monster which loomed and bent down as if to snatch the poor visitors up!

More painted panels of some eerie skulls with blinking eyes...and the Master Himself

HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL !!

Once inside the lucky Visitors ( 2 at a time ) were led down a winding series of dark corridors...
(these flash pictures don't do justice to the special lighting which would pop on and off at intervals to expose the next fright around the corner)

The first scare was a squeeling Monster Spider which dropped down from it's large white web.

around the next corner a werewolve's howl was heard...followed by the abrupt appearance of the creature rising up inside it's cage...eyes aglow...

The painted panels on corrugated cardboard loomed at the ends of each corridor, flipping open to allow the unwary visitors access to the next fright...

HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL !!!

The outside of the HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL was painted black with vivid white murals and details lit eerily by blue floodlights once the sky turned dark. The windows and door glowed with blacklit 'demons' within. There was even a small "Cemetary" to one side with humorous tombstones into which the fortunate "Survivors" of the Walk Through emerged to receive their Treats.

Dangling from a tree nearby was this bizarre fellow...his eye sockets blinking red as he swayed in the breeze...

The Brave could approach the locked door and ring a gag 'Doorbell" I bought which emitted eerie sounds of gongs and chains. Then slowly the door swung open to the sound effects and the visitors were admitted....

HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL !!!!

Shortly after moving into our current house in Alamogordo, New Mexico I began a tradition of a Halloween Walk Through Haunted House which I set up in the open carport and along the front porch of the house.

I used some 4' X 8' flats made of 1x3 lumber and cheap masonite paneling, combined with corrugated cardboard cut-outs to set up the "Maze" in the 10' X 20" space....

The Cinefex Films - More Makeup !

We had no budget for the making of these films. We shot exteriors in Forest Park in Fort Worth, Texas  and interiors in  MARK'S house...utilizing a little 10' X 10' "Studio" room which was empty upstairs for most of the scenes...redressing it for each film.

Here is a shot of my own makeup case which I used in High School Dramas and for the makeups in the films, and later in College shows. I still have it and it is still pretty much the same as it was when we made the films 40 years ago. I made it from my father's old fishing tackle box. There is a pic of ME as the mad butler in DRACULA MADE ME DO IT ! after my demise in the film...and a pic of Mr. Walker as IGOR the hermit...one of three roles he played in that first effort, next to his own sketch for the character.

These 8mm reels of film sat in a shoebox in Mark's attic for 35 years. We would get them out and watch them again as a group from time to time, but didn't do anything with them until 1999. I purchased a device which would allow us to duplicate the films to VHS and we spent one long night doing just that for the thousands of feet of film in the shoebox. In 2008 I finally aquired a computer powerful enough to process and edit the films digitally and i set about the 3 year long process of restoring them as best as I could. The original reel to reel tape soundtracks were long gone, so I rerecorded all the dialogue, sound effects and music to create new ones.

Now all our efforts are posted on YouTube for all the world to see...and many have recently

the link is:  http://www.youtube.com/user/CinefexFilms

and there you can view not only the restored films but two documentaries on the making of and restoration of the films as well as some other little extras I've produced in the years since.

The Cinefex Films - Makeup!

This whole experience came about when MARK WALKER & MICHAEL BOYD showed me an 8mm film they had made in 1967 and based on the Dracula story and films from the 1930's and 40's. It was amateur to say the least ( they were 9 years old then) but it was pretty good and very creative visually. Mark was a born filmmaker and I proposed to them that we make our own serious Dracula movie. Over the next year Mark and Mike and I worked on ideas for a script...all very grand and ultimately way beyond our capabilities budget-wise. but we also created some gags and funny lines to spoof the whole genre and those took form as a kind of "Sequel" to the story which I wrote as a screenplay ( my first) and we decided that we just might be able to produce that as a film....

The result after more than a year of filming...re-filming...and creating a reel to reel tape soundtrack...
was   DRACULA MADE ME DO IT !

Above is the 16 year old ME applying wet paper towels and Karo syrup to poor MICHAEL BOYD as the "decayed" Dracula for DRACULA MADE ME DO IT ! and the finished product as it appeared in the final film. We did this makeup only once and filmed all the scenes requiring it in one long saturday afternoon ( the makeup itself took a couple of hours to do)....

The Cinefex Films 1971 - 1974

Some memories about those High School Filmmaking years:

I met MARK EVAN WALKER in Middle School ( McLean in Fort Worth, Texas) in 1969. I was Editor of the school newspaper and Mark was a Contributing Artist. His comic strip was called "DUCK TRACY" and  HE was the most interesting individual I had ever met.

I often tell people that I was a "dull thud" as a student...just no real personality or individuality to me in those days. That all changed the day I met Mr. Walker. He drew out the Inate Creativity lurking  within me and I like to think that I offered him the Creative Force of my ideas which led us both ( along with our mutual friend MICHAEL BOYD and so many others we encountered and encouraged along the way...) into the filmmaking experience which would produce the 5 Cinefex Films ( our name for the production company we created).

These included  DRACULA MADE ME DO IT !,  THE TELL-TALE HEART,  INJUSTICE,
THE RAVEN  &  DRACULA MUST BE DESTROYED !
 all made between the Summer of 1971 and the Summer of 1974... and shot on 8mm & Super8mm film with the two cameras pictured above. The 8mm was a Kodak Brownie that was spring driven ( a good hard hand cranking would render 3.5 minutes of footage, but with no light sensitivity...so daylight or bright floodlight illumination was required to produce an image. the color reneders was really beautiful, but we wated a lot of film due to our inexperience with the light meter!

After our first film we graduated to Super 8 and the battery driven camera and light sensitive film stock ( we could shoot even by candlelight and still get a nice image on film) and we just took off then and filmed almost every weekend through the next four years...

DRACULA MADE ME DO IT !

It's That Time Of Year Again !!!

My Friends and I made these two Super 8 Horror Films in the 1970's while still in High School.

They're pretty good, even 40 years later. And I digitally restored the picture and soundtracks in the late 2000's and posted them to YouTube for everyone to see.

http://www.youtube.com/user/CinefexFilms

is your link to the Cinefex Films Channel where you can watch these and the other films we made, as well as more recent documentaries on the making of the films and the restoration process...and a few other goodies.

Check it out as an alternative to all that other Halloween Trash. You might be surprised....

( Yes...I'm that Green Screaming Face atop the poster for the first film, and holding the menacing Stake in the second, our magnum opus).

Billy-Club Pupets - Review

All the effort paid off, as usual...it's funny how so many of these shows seemed impossible to mount, sometimes right up to and including their Dress Rehearsals...but on that opening night under the lights among the trees and with a supportive audience it always seemed to come together and we had a show!

I had worked with JOHNNY & DIANE SIMONS since 1972...40 years ago now...and would continue with them until I left the theatre for good in 1988, and we created more than 40 shows together during those years...most wonderful.

Next weeks post will not be about the theatre...but about HALLOWEEN! My Favorite Holiday!

Billy-Club Puppets- Production Photos 4

At the top is JULIE MCMAHON with a Smuggler Puppet and below PETE TAMEZ in a comic scene with PAT DIAS and JACK KIRKPATRICK, and a look at the detail of the set for THE BILLY CLUB PUPPETS.

I spent a good deal of time with the cast, instructing them in the proper manipulation of the puppets so that it didn't seem as if they were just props for a gimmick effect. Not everyone can master the finer details of emoting through one's hands that a good puppeteer must be able to do. But these actors and dancers were at least a few steps above the average and so it was fairly easy to get them on board. The result made for some very effective theatre, both Live and Puppet.

Billy-Club Puppets -Production Photos 3

At top are LISSA ROGERS as Rosita and MICHAEL GOGGINS as her Father. MICHAEL and I went to R.L. Paschal High School together under the inimitable MRS. MIRIAM TODD as Drama Teacher. He is still active with THE HIP POCKET THEATRE, some 40 years on down the line now.

At bottom was my favorite part of the show when the Puppets form a small "Band" and play the revolutionary song of freedom, in tribute to FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA who lost his life in the struggle with FRANCO during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930's. The puppeteers here are SERINA PHEIFER & ALLAN ROBINSON.

Billy - Club Puppets - Production Photos 2

The upper photo was a B&W print used for publicity. GROVER COULSON and RANDY REYNOLDS as the two Actor Smugglers with their Puppet co-horts have an exchange with ALLAN ROBINSON as Quakeboots in the Tavern area of the set.

At bottom is the great actor RICHARD HARRIS who acted as Narrator, ALLAN ROBINSON again with the Servant puppet this time and two unidentified actors.

All the actual actors in this play were in makeup that resembled a painted Puppet's face. The resulting performances rendered the whole as a living puppet show...something that was not perhaps LORCA'S intention, but that might have delighted him nonetheless...

Billy-Club Puppets - Production Photos

These slides were taken during an actual performance of THE BILLY-CLUB PUPPETS in  October 1979.

At the top "Rosita" both Actress (LISSA ROGERS) and Puppet sing a sad lament to her poor lover played by PAT DIAS.

 At bottom, PETE TAMEZ as Don Christobita performs with his Puppet alter ego as ALLAN ROBINSON performs Quakeboots the Tavern Keeper Puppet.

One of the marvelous backdrop paintings by MARK EVAN WALKER can be glimpsed in the background...

you will perhaps notice his sly reference to the MARX BROTHERS peeking out of the archway...

Billy Club Puppets - Finished Puppets!

I only discovered these snapshots recently as I was going through my Dad's pictures...I had forgotten all about them...but I'm glad they survive, as you know I am not very good at recording my work.

Here I am with the Rosita & Don Christobita Puppets just after they were finished and ready to be used in the show. Yes, I AM wearing a t-shirt with a cookoo-clock on it. My design sense and my personal style have never met.

The last pic shows all the puppets from the BILLY CLUB PUPPETS in probably the only shot of them all together. If you scroll back to my original sketches for these characters you will see that I hewed very close to my first designs with all of them.

Tomarrow, the promised photos from the actual production showing the set design and the puppets in performance.

Billy Club Puppets - Costuming the Puppets

My Good Friend SALLY VAN DE PAS from Texarkana, Texas was available and agreed to help me do the costuming for the 10 puppets needed for THE BILLY-CLUB PUPPETS.

These photos were taken by my Dad when we had finally finished them ( several long nights work)!

YES...that is ME looking like a teenager ( I'm 23 there) and Dear, Sweet SALLY. I owe her so much.

I had amended my original designs for  Don Christobita  &  Rosita  to have them look more like the Actors.

At the bottom you see La Hora's upper half ( her lower half was glued into the Clock prop) as well as Don Christobita's Servant and the Belle ( aka Prostitute) with her lovely nipples on display.

Not sure what my Dad thought about that one!

Billy Club Puppets - Sketches

In going through my file on  THE BILLY-CLUB PUPPETS I found these additional drawings and sketches.

LA HORA was a singing puppet who appeared inside a clock. Her upper body was a puppet that rested against her lower body which was fixed inside the clock...the doors opened and she sang her song.

Aside from the main character's alter-ego puppets, 8 other's were called for in the script. Here is my basic sketch for them all. Quakeboots was the main one as he was the proprieter of the Tavern where much of the action took place. Two Smugglers were joined by two actors as smugglers to make four. The aformentioned long-suffering Servant of Don Christobita and a Young Lad, a Belle (Prostitute) and a Street Urchin rounded out the cast.

A sketch I did for the poster to adverstise the show, which I believe was also used for the program art, and a list of the puppets required and some of the materials I would need.

I built all the puppets in Wichita, Kansas where I lived then and brought them down to Fort Worth, un-costumed. I wanted to replicate and immulate the actor's costumes being created by DIANE SIMONS, and so I waited to do the final costuming until I was on site.

Billy Club Puppets - Don Christobita's Coach

Aside from the 10 puppets required for the show, I also created this animated Coach & Horses for Don Christobita's entrance ( the Puppet, not the Actor).

Essentially a plywood cutout that worked by way of a crank in back, much like the Penny-Plain English Toy Theatres. The wheels rotated and the horses legs moved as it made it's way across a raised platform above the main stage. The Don Christobita puppet appeared in the curtained carriage window, and the Servant puppet was the driver. It was the first use of the puppets in the play and it caused quite a stir in the audience...almost like a magic illusion.

Here is my original technical drawing for the Coach and below the color rendering.

BIlly Club Puppets - The Puppets

The two main characters of Garcia Lorca's  THE BILLY-CLUB PUPPETS are Don Christobita, a Punch-like figure...and Rosita the young object of his..."attentions".

I designed the puppets early in the year, and later ammended the designs to more accurately resemble the actors playing the parts. The basic look stayed the same.

Celastic, my material of choice for durability was too expensive for this no budget commission, so I devised a method of sculpting the puppet's heads from styrofoam which was then covered in wool felt glued and stretched tightly over the head. When dried this was given several coats of gesso, sanding between coats ( and adding details such as noses, ears and lips of foam and plastic wood in between coats...) The resulting heads were virtually indestructable, and still very lightweight.

Billy-Club Puppets Set Design 1979

I was commisioned to design the set for this production as well as the 10 hand puppets required by the script. I began work on the show in the early summer of 1979 for a projected September opening.

My original sketch for the set was designed with the old Highway 80 performing space in mind, as this was to be the closing show there. I'm not sure where that sketch is now, or if it even still exists.

In any event, during the summer the spaces were changed and the troupe moved permanently out to the OAK ACRES venue, so things had to be altered to fit this much larger area. In my file on the BILLY-CLUB PUPPETS I found this sketch done by Director JOHNNY SIMONS showing me how he intended to stage the show in the new space, which at that time was basically a platform in the middle of a grove of oak trees...and little else. In fact it would be some yeras before we were able to construct a proper stage in this space ( see some of my earlier posts for pictures of the amphitheatre in the late 1980's).

I had already arranged for my friend MARK EVAN WALKER to paint some backdrops to represent a spanish village and plaza, and we improvised the rest when I arrived in Fort Worth in mid-September. I'll post some photos from this show soon so you can see how effective this set turned out to be.

The Billy-Club Puppets HPT 1979

My first production for the HIP POCKET THEATRE was FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA'S farce, THE BILLY-CLUB PUPPETS, produced in the then new space at OAK ACRES AMPHITHEATRE in September / October of 1979...34 years ago this month.

This play unlike LORCA'S dramas, was an all out farce in the style of a Punch & Judy Show, but with a decidedly Spanish flair and characters. The gimmick was the use of hand puppets to portray some of the shows many characters and the different personality sides of the two main ones.

I had made a name for myself as a puppeteer in Fort Worth prior to my travels around the country in the 1970's and my "Return" was played up as a big deal for the sake of publicity, even to my being featured in newspaper articles, like the one above,  just prior to the show's opening night.

JOHN MURPHY'S BACKYARD MOVIE SCREEN 2009 !

In 2009 for the 10th Annual Moster Mash Bash, I helped JOHN coordinate an evening of EDGAR ALLAN POE short films for the 200th Anniversary of POE'S DEATH.

Hence the New Centerpiece featuring the Great Author and his favorite "Pet".

I was able to get ahold of a copy of  THE BLACK CAT,  a film made in Fort Worth back in 1965, as well as the restored print of  THE TELL-TALE HEART  which my friends MARK WALKER and MICHAEL BOYD and I made while in High School in 1973...plus some Poe inspired cartoon shorts. It was the grandest Bash of all, and sadly the last one to date.

(I'm the short one in the picture below).

JOHN has been in the market for a new house recently and hopefully the one he picks will have a backyard as wonderful as this one...if so, and there is space for the screen and header...we may meet again in some future October.....

JOHN MURPHY'S BACKYARD THEATRE !

I took these pictures just after we successfully mounted the new screen and header in place between the two trees that support the pipe holding the whole thing up. You can get an idea of how eclectic and beautiful  this yard is. Tables were set up for the guests and people were encouraged to bring their own lawn chairs to watch the movies. The little blue table in the center was the projection spot and had controls for all the lights and the speakers for the screen.

People do things like this all the time these days with the technology readily available now, but JOHN was really a pioneer in doing this back then.

JOHN MURPHY'S NEW MOVIE SCREEN HEADER !

At the top is my design for the New Movie Screen Header for my friend JOHN MURPHY'S Backyard Theatre. At bottom the actual Header in place on the screen. The Header is 17 feet across to span the screen and it's side curtains. The Original was in two long and hard to store pieces. This new Header is in 5 sections that lock onto the pipe that holds the screen up and to each other for rigidity, and no section is more than 4 feet wide, so the whole thing stores easily when dis-assembled.

The centerpiece was designed to be removable and interchangable, since the screen would also be used in the summertime and JOHN likes to have a "Theme" to these showings and thus something different at center for each screening. This one is two jack-o-lanterns with "Comedy / Tragedy" mask faces. The actual set of masks were even lighted from behind just like real pumpkins for halloween. There are also attached lights to illuminate the side curtains and a center light to spotlight the centerpiece.

 In addition, an electric colorwheel was positioned below the screen to throw vari-colored light across the blank white surface prior to the show starting...

JOHN MURPHY'S ANNUAL MONSTER MOVIE BASH !

From 1999 to 2009, my good friend and fellow Afficianado of Weirdness JOHN MURPHY opened his home and truly magnificent Backyard every October for a Monster Movie Bash. He happened onto this aluminum frame with stretched canvas movie screen, added the side curtains and lighting, and with the aide of the (then new) digital projector threw one helluva party for his coworkers and friendbase ( not cyberfriends, actual Real Friends...an enormous number!) in Fort Worth , Texas.
For years he told me that he wished the screen's header was more attractive, and for years
I said," Well, let me make a new one for you". Finally in 2008 I followed through for him.....

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre Model - Interior

Of course it wouldn't be much of an educational model if the inside wasn't visible, so I designed the front of the Theatre to be removable so that the stage and audience galleries could be seen.
The little "Actor" is one of Sam's toy soldiers ( about an inch and a quarter high).
Although this was only supposed to be a rough High School Kid's Idea of what the Globe looked like, I believe it is actually pretty accurate on this much later look back. My nephew did help me glue the parts together and paint the thing...and it is probably still there in the school somewhere, I don't know.

( Yes, He did graduate and went to college and today he is a computer animator and I'm very proud of him. We touch the lives we can.)

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre Model

I found these pictures of a model of SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE THEATRE which I "helped" a nephew of mine ( who shall remain unnamed...) construct so that he could pass his English Class and graduate High School about a decade ago. I'd forgotten all about it....

The base of the model is about 15" square, so the whole thing is about that high and wide, and made from wood scraps I had leftover in my shop. I based the design on some speculative drawings of what the Original Globe might have looked like ( there is only one contemporary sketch of the interior, and it isn't a very good likeness).

Tales from the Arabian Nights - Program

Here is the program of the production. I've never worked with such talented people before or since. It was a beautiful show and well received, propelling us into 1985 and the great productions to follow. Eleven in all that year alone! You do that math! Wow! A Fantastic and UltraCreative Time in my life!

Tales from the Arabian Nights - Etc...

I found these two pictures in my files. At the top is a publicity shot of GARY CUNNINGHAM as SINBAD with the SEA SERPENT Shadow Puppet that was used as background on the screen during that segment of the show. The SERPENT is made entirely from stiff plastic sheet, about four feet long and hand tinted with stained glass paint ( easily found at any craft outlet today, but not so easy to get back then...I think I found 5 colors and all highly toxic!). Three rods and two puppeteers were required to make the SERPENT gyrate around the shadow screen as if swimming in the sea.

The lower photo is of   MYSELF  in my makeup for the EVIL MAGICIAN from the Alladin segment of the show. I don't think I ever wore more makeup in any show! The Wig and Headress with beads are all one piece, held in place by an elastic chin strap. Nose of Latex, spirit gummed on, Ugh! And a fake beard that I had used and kept since my Casa Manana days a decade before! The rest is painted on. Pretty impressive even by today's standards. I always seemed to be the first person into the dressing rooms and the Last One Out!

Tales from the Arabian Nights - Puppets

At the top are two sketches I did for the GENIE Puppets required for the ALLADIN segment of TALES FROM THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. The bulk of the Shadow Puppetry in this show was utilized for this middle part of the production. The actor (PAT DIAS) playing Alladin on stage entered the small door under the shadow screen and his adventures within the magic cave were then represented by his "puppet self" while he spoke the dialogue off stage.

JULIE MURPHY & JANET SWAIN acted as the puppeteers here and with very little advance training from me, since I was also appearing in the show on stage. I showed them some basic techniques and movements and let them take it from there. They did an incredible job, especially since neither one had ever worked a puppet before!

Alladin was a very simple silhouette figure about 18 inches high. A single rod was affixed to his torso and another to his jointed right arm. The much sought after Lamp was a  prop cutout that sat on it's pedistal in a fixed groove at the bottom of the shadow screen.

Both the GENIE OF THE LAMP & THE GENIE OF THE RING were "animated" figures. The RING is seen in the frame grab at the bottom. A central rod supported the cutout face with hand-tinted plastic features. A tube just larger than this rod was affixed to the plastic circle just behind the face, tinted in a starburst pattern. The Puppeteer moved the puppet toward the screen from behind allowing the GENIE to "appear & disappear" magically, and also rotated the plastic circle behind the face to make the ring appear to levitate in space. Very simple and effective.

The GENIE OF THE LAMP was even simpler. Shaped like a flame with a face, this puppet had eye pupils that could shift from side to side by use of a rod. The effect of the flickering flame was as simple as moving the puppet back and forth from the screen in tight movements and the eyes moving to focus on Alladin as it "Spoke" to him was a chilling effect.

Tales from the Arabian Nights - Set Design

As usual, I have no photgraphs of this set. These are a couple of frame grabs from the only video clips I have of the show, but which should give you an idea what it looked like, I can tell you that it was made out of corrugated cardboard covered in Gold and Red crinkled foil. I had NO Budget at all for this show...everything went toward the Costumes and the fee for the musicians, without either of which there would have been no show anyway, so.....

At least the Shadow Puppets were a huge success. You can see "Alladin's Castle" in place on the Shadow Screen in the top photo. I used basic black posterboard cutouts for this "Scenery" with hand painted clear plastic sheet ( stained glass paint gave a delicate tinted look to mimic the tanned and dyed animal hide that was used in Middle Eastern Puppetry from the period of these tales).

In the lower photo CARMEN KHAN, DENA BRINKLEY & DAVID YEAKLE perform a scene from the  ALI BABA & THE FORTY THIEVES segment of the show.