I got my guts ripped out on Thursday. Again. Considering how often this happens, you'd think I'd have much sharper ab definition than I do. I don't get it, but I suppose sometimes life just isn't fair this way.

At least I can usually recover from these kinds of injuries pretty quickly. Sure, it stings a bit at first, and then falling off a bridge or whatever else I end up doing next kind of sucks, but sometime before the credits roll, I'll be back in the pink. Or green, as the case may be.

Which is a valuable talent, especially in this business where getting killed at 10:00PM is no excuse for not being back to work by 4:00AM the next day.

I have to wonder who came up with the idea of making a "Snap, Crackle, Pop! Microphone"; whenever I'm trying to make use of a microphone, whether it's on set or in the studio, snapping, crackling, and popping are all really high up on the "things to avoid" list.

On the other hand, being priced at a couple of cereal box UPC codes does make it affordable even for most musicians and filmmakers, so there's the still the risk of running into one on a set. I'm hoping I won't, though. If I ever see the sound guy using a microphone that has plastic elves stuck on it, I'm bringing my own.

It's certainly interesting to spend a month being a monster. It's a lot of fun--jumping out of the shadows and making monster sounds is something most people don't get to do after about the age of seven.

Well...I guess they could, but even then there are some pretty harsh limits on what you can get away with. Most employers, for example, frown on it when you do it at work, no matter how emotionally satisfying it might be, especially after you've been dealing with whiney customers all day.

But for me, it's part of a day's work. Same goes for running amok and ripping the heads off your coworkers: in most working environments, that could get you a reprimand or worse, but on a horror movie set, it's part of the job description.

While the secret government experiments depicted in the movie have all been going wrong, my experiments behind the camera have been working out pretty well. My plan of hooking up laptop computers to the Sony's HVR-Z1U high-definition video cameras through the firewire port and using the laptops both as high-definition monitors and as capture devices does work, thanks to the miracle of VideoLAN's VLC Media Player. Now that the basics are working, I need to throw together a few external firewire drives and haul in a color printer, and we'll be able to print out screen captures from anything that's been shot to date for continuity purposes.

On the whole, I think it's a great approach for high-definition filming on a budget; just having a battery-powered high-definition video monitor on the set can be a great help. The main drawback that I'm seeing is that even a fairly powerful laptop is difficult to operate when you've got three-inch claws covered with blood.

...or at least it's not good for the laptop. I'm not sure if the extended warranty even covers that.

It all started innocently enough...just a little adhesive on my nose. Usually when I end up with my nose getting sticky it's not with adhesive, but I'm all for going with the flow on these things.

It's good experience. If I ever need to play a Star Trek alien, I'll be prepared.

Though in this movie, the makeup is a little more extreme than one usually sees in Star Trek; getting stuff on my nose was only the beginning.

Today's adventure in makeup, wet and sticky as it was, was still only a dry run for trying a few different variations and options and didn't involve the full makeup job. Probably a good idea to test these things out before production starts.

Though that's only a few more hours away now. I ought to get some sleep.

This particular shoot is using a couple of Sony's new HVR-Z1U high-definition cameras, which are as new to me as they are to anybody else. So, just for fun, (and just in case) I've set up some of the laptops to work as high-definition video monitors and for HDV capture on the set. At this point, I don't know if we'll need them or not, but it seemed like a worthwhile experiment.

Granted, I'm only an actor (and an actor coated in green, sticky stuff at that), but I might as well get familiar with the new crop of high-definition video cameras while I have the chance. It won't be long before these things are just about everywhere.

Even right here...but I'm waiting for the Panasonic AG-HVX200 to come out; then I think it'll finally be time to take the plunge.

And I agree with their reasons, it's just the timing that concerns me. Mark Grove (shown being attacked by claws in the previous blog entry), who I think has now proven that he is really the "hardest working man in show business" volunteered to come up with a new creature design and handle the makeup, despite the fact that he's already doing the fight and stunt choreography and other FX on this production...and he's working on The Sensei at the same time.

Everybody is thrilled with his design, but getting all the materials completed and ready in time is going to be quite the challenge. I figure Mark has just rescheduled sleeping until late July.

By the way, the picture at right is *not* the new creature design from Shadow Walkers. I figure I'll just keep the design a bit mysterious for now, so I've inserted a picture from another, quite unrelated, film project (scary though it may be).

Yeah, all in a day's work. Didn't seem all that hard or all that far, either. I guess you can put a secret government research facility just about anywhere you want to, even right near the wild west.

But, then, the hapless researchers who find themselves trapped in the secret underground research lab when their experiment goes horribly wrong haven't all been torn to pieces yet, so I guess I haven't gotten to doing any *real* work yet.