Note, this project is one of my annual Halloween Projects, which are something of an outgrowth of my old Children’s Halloween Record blog Scar Stuff.
For a complete listing of my Halloween Projects, please click here.
This lurid mess is a short film that I made around Halloween of 2010. It marries the audio from what is probably the WorstBest horror record I own (mail ordered from a comic book ad when I was 8) with visuals culled from the crude and gruesome cover art favored by the company that gave me nightmares as a child, Eerie Publications.
No, no — don’t thank me. I’m just doing my job.
Original YouTube Recipe:
Some (general) technical info follows:
It was primarily created in three programs.
Photoshop: This was the most time consuming part. I did lots and lots of visual prep work like eliminating cover text, completing any truncated images (e.g. if there was only half of a vampire because the end of the cover page was hit), breaking components out into separate layers and then creating new art that would fill in the holes left by moving those elements around, and so forth.
Motion: The program that allowed me to do all of the animation in XYZ (or “3D” you could say) space. Here’s the part where I’d move the images around like pieces of paper on popsicle sticks inside of a shoebox stage (well at least that’s how it felt to me) and sync them with the audio.
Final Cut Pro: Used to do the final editing together of the various scenes, adding the transitions (cross fades, etc), and for final export to video.
All of this took me about 4 weeks from start to finish, which accounts for more than a few false starts and obsessive tweaks. This was actually the first project I had ever attempted to do in Motion and while it turned out to be waaaay more work than I had initially bargained on, I really had a lot of fun.
Downloadable & Sightly Remixed Vimeo Version:
The Cast of Eerie Publications perform the Johnson-Smith Novelty Company “Horror Record” from Jason Willis on Vimeo.
(Oh and for you Johnson Smith “Horror Record” purists: I eventually came to terms with the fact that I was going to have to cut the flogging scene; Eerie Publications just didn’t have a single decent whip-heavy cover that I could find. Too tame for their tastes I guess.)
And hey! Here are a few links to some supercool articles and blog posts that have mentioned the video — thanks a lot guys!
- Museum of the Weird
- Secret Fun Spot
- Magic Carpet Burn
- Werewolf’s Meal Inc.
- K.W. Monster’s Blog of Evil
- Future Chimp
And while you’re clicking around, be sure not to miss out on the great Facebook group for Mike Howlett’s Book “The Weird World of Eerie Publications”.