Deepspacepilots "Nebulizer" music video

The music video for "Nebulizer" from Deepspacepilots Point of No Return album (2016) is right HERE

An unfortunate cosmonaut from another planet gets "rescued" by a group of extremely sketchy scientists.  Basically, don't rely on the kindness of strangers especially when some of them are addicts, opportunists, bureaucrats, and/or religiously delusional.  That's a universal message, I think.

The "Nebulizer" music video has been featured on Radio One Chicago, Rockodrome, Sounds from the Underground, Fuzz FM, and Stoner Mountain.

Get more of Deepspacepilots by visiting their Bandcamp page.

Stills from this project are below.

"October Sketches" short film

"October Sketches", primarily a visual piece, tells a story about a young artist with an overactive imagination. 

The film, inspired by Ashley Sant's Icari Hollow concept, was produced to serve as a collection of B-roll visuals.  Sant's vision of Icari Hollow (plus a pic bunch from this project) is explored HERE.

"October Sketches", on its own, is a charmingly surreal short movie--a lightly spooky children's film, really--about fantasy, fear, and creation.  Watch it on Youtube right HERE.

claiming land for Icari Hollow

Updated information HERE

A friend of mine who's an author, Ashley Sant, asked me if I wanted to collaborate with her on an idea about launching a festival:  an October convergence of vampires, werekin (werewolves, weredeer, weredragons, you get it, part-human/part-animal beings), fairies, and witches.  These magical supernaturals come from all corners of the known world and some come from dimensions that we've never even heard of!  Victorian insect-people,  medieval warlocks, art deco elves, and some glamorous undead who just can't seem to let go of their 18th century finery (hey, everyone can be sentimental sometimes).  These spooks originate from a full spectrum of time periods so why should they hide it?

The essentials of the concept:

Outside.  Costumes.  Vendors and artisans selling amazing gear, products, and original works.  Food.  Performances.  Contests.  Characters interacting with guests.  Different factions of freaky entities mingling with each other.  Fun for the whole family.  An interesting place to take friends, boyfriends, girlfriends.  Or to go solo and soak it all in.  All ages.  Autumnal fantasy, not horror.

The idea is incredible; it was fun teaming up with Ashley to go on that journey.

The truth of the matter is that I love Ashley Sant's concepts.  She's a great storyteller with a great creative mind, and a wonderful person, so I was happy to be included in the process of idea-building.

Yes, the name of Ms. Sant's festival is Icari Hollow.  "Hollow" rubs beautifully with "Halloween" and it's a nod to haunt-ridden, classic places like Sleepy Hollow.  "Icari" is a word relating to the universe of her characters, serving as a reference to the legend of Icarus.  Icari are what the legion of animal-people are called.  The werecats, werebirds, werelizards, etc. are the Icari and, according to Sant's narrative, they're the ones running the festival, inviting humans to celebrate the season alongside the supernaturals.  Pre-written dramas ensue, spectacles take place, delicious food is eaten, costumes worn, and goods exchange hands.  I'm 100% for it.

Ashley and I created videos to present a sort of visual and tonal taste of the Icari Festival concept, to give a samples of what kinds of characters guests encounter.

A short film, called "October Sketches", is inspired by Ashley's concept.  The film toys with the idea of creativity/fantasy/phantoms of the collective imagination--the vampires, witches, fairies, and werebeasts lurking in all of our heads.  "October Sketches" is a series of drawings (and a loose narrative) via film as much as marker on paper.  Sketching can be done in all kinds of ways, whether it's poetry, songwriting, or--yes--filmmaking.  The "October Sketches" short film, which is right HERE, was created to present visual samples and as a kind of storytelling B-role.

Spooky, enchanting, and intriguing:  Yes

Terror and splattering brains:  No

Autumnal fantasy, not horror.

Could things be a bit.....unnerving?  Chilling?  Thrilling?  Definitely!

But, no, no chainsaws and dripping viscera.  Ashley and I do love that kind of stuff when it comes to slasher films and other people's Halloween events........but gore is off the menu for this concept.  Family-friendly.  No jump scares, no uncles having heart attacks.

Ashley's slogan, that she whipped up the other day:

"Let Us Enchant You...."

Sounds good to me.

Spooky Nice

We had the pleasure, earlier this year, of being featured on some of the web's very best paranormal studies and folklore sites for our "Spirits of Detroit" short documentary.  Here at Addovolt we want to send some very Special Thank You!'s to Mysterious Heartland, The Moonlit Road, Timothy Yohe at Paranormal Insights, and Unearthly News.

Silent Smile

I don't want to talk too much about our upcoming film "Midnight Recipe" which is a postmodern "Disco-Medieval" short film based on an old European fairy tale.  But I'll share a few things about it and where we're at right now:

*Everyone has gone above and beyond with their performances (Lauren Hearter, Michael Marius Massett, and Michael Moody are hilarious and brilliant and I'm a very lucky director).

*Everyone involved has been extremely patient with me (yikes!).  We've been shooting this film in fits and starts for well over a year and I'm not proud of that fact.  It's gotten significantly more pricey as it's gone along--even though it's a bare-bones indie--because it's taken on a Winchester Mystery House aspect in the sense that I keeping gutting certain parts of it, reshooting other stuff, and adding more and more nonsense and set pieces to it.  Because I keep getting more "ideas" for it and it's one of those projects that, I'll admit, has gone a bit off the rails.....but not to the point of doom.

*That being said, it should (as long as nothing implodes/explodes) be online by Valentine's Day 2016.

*I watched "The Wiz", "Fellini Satyricon", "The Warriors", "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "H.R. Pufnstuf", Hanna-Barbera cartoons, "Welcome To The Dollhouse",  Molly Ringwald-era John Hughes movies, "Xanadu", and vintage Disney documentaries before and while we were shooting this project.  Those are the influences.  How they all mix together....?.....well.....we'll see, won't we?

*The music will be great.

*It was nice doing a film where I didn't really have to worry about diagetic sound while shooting it.

*People have been extremely kind and accommodating to us while we've been shooting it (sometimes in places that we probably shouldn't have been but.....oh well).

*"Midnight Recipe" takes place in a mishmash parallel world in which it's the 1480's, 1980's, and 2180's at the same time.  Just go along with it, kids.  "Disco-Medieval".

*It's a creepy film.....

*....but it has a lot of heart to it as well.

*It's a coming-of-age film about an extremely frustrated princess, paranoia, addiction, goblins, and enchanted baked goods.

The images in this posting are stills of what we've shot so far (but we have some more to do yet).

What we're going for is, basically,:  "glittery, jittery, literate stoner extravaganza film".  

So far, so good.

The Baby Magic's "Huts" music video press release

Information and images in this posting may be used freely by any news outlet, reporter, blogger, publicist, website, etc. for the purpose of featuring or mentioning the music video for "Huts" by The Baby Magic.

No Wave rock band, The Baby Magic, has released their new music video for "Huts", a single from their most recent album, Rent a Place in Hell (2014).  Shot in Chicago through the summer of 2015, the satirical "Huts" video features the band wondering if it would be better to just go back to the land instead of clawing their way through different American identities.

Hear more from The Baby Magic on Bandcamp and Facebook.

"Huts" was shot and edited by Derek Quint, Addovolt Productions, 2015.