Hammer Improv 2 Year Anniversary Show!

I know everyone is watching the Oscars right now, but believe me when I tell you they pale in comparision to the fun that was had on stage last night, at the Hammer Don't Hurt'em Improv 2nd anniversary show!

Hammer is a comedy improv group made up of Felicia Day, Alex Albrecht, Tony Janning, Sandeep Parikh, Brooke Seguin, Jeff Lewis, Tara Perry, and Eddie Repanich. Their usual shows consist of several acts, each revolving around improv games involving a play on words or scenerios provided by the audience. Last night's show was special, since it marks 2 years that the group has performed together. They were in a bigger venue, with a packed house, and had an opening act AND an intermission!

The night started with an amazing set by Garfunkle and Oates. These girls are hilarious, and their banter between songs was as funny as the songs themselves. Their new hit album is titled, "All Over Your Face", and you can get it at iTunes or Amazon. In celebration of the new songs, a fan threw plush sperm onto the stage. So the comedy was off to a good start.

After the intermission, my favorite game was up. They call it, "Props with Greg Aronowitz", so, you can probably see why it appeals to me...

I've had the honor and the pleasure to work with all of these guys on various projects and shows, and they are all amazing performers. It's very flattering that they have pulled me out from behind the scenes to join in on the stage.

The first prop I brought out was an alien skull from my Sci-Fi feature, "Battle Planet". Felicia stepped up and transformed it into a strange pet that she commanded to "do it's business!"

Next up was a painting I did for Matt Hawkin's Image comic, "Merlin", part of the "Lady Pendragon" series. I think this came as a surprise to the group, but it didn't take long for them to turn it into something hilarious.

Jeff Lewis introduced himself as the class swimming instructor.

And Tara and Felicia used it as a computer screen to scrutinize a potential dating match...

Everybody scrambled when I introduced Ralphie, my Dinosaurs Baby parody for Atom.com's "The Dan Levy Show". Coincidentally, he's from the same episode that Kate from Garfunkle and Oates parodies "Blossom".

Tara fell in love with the little guy, and after the show, Brooke confessed that she almost grabbed him and ran off the stage. Turns out she's a huge Dinosaurs fan. I'll have to blog about my 4 years on the show for her sometime. Lots of crazy stories to tell.

Alex stole the show though, when he and Ralphie potrayed E.T. and Elliot during the bicycle escape.
The biggest audience response for sure was when I presented the Codex staff. You might notice that it's purple instead of the usual green. That's because it was custom built for the greenscreen shoot during" The Guild Season 4". It had to be a different color, because anything green would get lost in the compositing process. So I chose purple, since it's my favorite color.

Sandeep didn't miss a beat in doing a caricature of Felicia as Codex. People were rolling in the aisles.
I love when someone starts a bit, and everyone jumps in with the rest of the props.

This piece isn't so much a prop as it is set dressing, but I thought it could inspire some comedy. Tony used it as a Star Gate dail.

And we'll never know where Jeff was going with this bit! As he stepped into the dial, there was a loud snap! In fear of ruining the prop, they abandoned the sketch. No damage was done, but it proved to be a pretty funny moment anyway. I assured the guys that I wouldn't bring them anything that could be destroyed, so what ever happens next time, just go with it!

The last prop was a giant object that looks sort of like a crescent wrench. Or, at least Felicia thought so as she pronounced her troubles with assembling Ikea furniture.

Eddie jumped in and turned it into a performance enhancing tool, but it didn't seem to please Felicia until Tony limboed under it!

I had a few more surprises back stage, but we ran out of time. Oh, well, hopefully we'll get to do it again. And hopefully you can join us! Be sure to check out Hammer Improv on Facebook, and follow them on twitter (@hammerimprov) to find out about future shows.

Dragon Age: Redemption

It is such a relief to finally be able to share this! I still can't really talk about it in detail, but the fact that I was working on Felicia Day's "Mystery Project" no longer has to be a secret. I've been designing and building stuff since October, so there will be a lot to blog about when I finally can! In the meantime, you can get a glimpse of the awesomeness to come by watching the teaser trailer Felicia premiered on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon this week:

The Wasp Woman

Recently, I did some filming at Bronson Cave, and it brought back a lot of memories. Bronson Cave is a man made tunnel under the Hollywood sign, at the west end of Griffith Park. It was dug out in the 60’s to be the entrance for the Batcave in the infamous Adam West version of BATMAN

I hadn’t shot there for a while, but early in my FX career, when I did a lot of lower budget horror movies, I frequented the place. I probably did about 30 films at that location. Most of them blend together, tons of gore effects and bullet wounds, but the first memory that comes to mind every time I step foot in that cave is Roger Corman’s WASP WOMAN

Photo 1: Obviously, not the classic original! I definitely wasn't doing effects in 1959. I didn’t even exist when Roger came up with the idea of selling a horror movie by superimposing a woman’s head onto the body of a giant wasp as a marketing campaign.

Photo 2: For some strange reason, what's on the poster is not even what the creature looks like in the movie! It’s quite the opposite, a woman’s body with the head of an…well, a…I’m not sure what that is exactly! I guess it’s supposed to be an insect. What ever it is, it sure scared people at the drive-ins 50 years ago!

Photo 3, 3a: In 1995, Roger decided to remake Wasp Woman for his Showtime series, Roger Corman Presents. But this time, he wanted to make the creature much more convincing. I got the call to re-envision the title character. The main question was, should it be the body of a woman with the head of an insect, or the head of a woman on the body of an insect? Which image from the original was the most haunting? The answer I got was, “Doesn’t matter, as long as it has cleavage!”

Photo 4: So I went with a full on giant wasp, with a D cup. Only in Hollywood can such things be possible. In the end, Roger stated that my Wasp Woman was his favorite creature from his extensive movie catalogue. He said he just wished the movie were better!

Photo 5: The movie starred Jennifer Rubin (The Crush) as an aging super model/ cosmetic company owner who has just been replaced by a younger model. Daniel J. Travanti (Hill Street Blues) is in the role of the scientist who formulates an experimental de-aging serum made from bee pollen. Jennifer takes the serum against the doctor’s wishes and, well, turns into a revenge seeking, murderous wasp! Hey, I didn’t say it was Shakespeare!

Photo 6: Scream Queen Maria Ford played Caitlin, the younger model, and naturally, one of the wasp’s earliest victims. Ironically, I used Maria’s body cast from a previous project we had done together as the study for the Wasp Woman sculpture.

Photo 7: In order for the Wasp Woman creature to be low budget friendly, it needed to be a suit rather than a make-up. That way, it could slip over an actor quickly, instead of being applied like prosthetics for hours. But the wasp needed to have a very shapely hourglass figure, so the actor wearing it needed to be rail thin so the curves could be sculpted on without making the whole body too bulky.

Ultimately, the heady, body, and multiple leg rig would be considerably heavy, so a professional suit performer was necessary. The production talked to multiple people, but somehow the decision was made that I should be the one in the suit! It sounded like fun at first, but I had no idea what I was in for…

Photo 8: It’s often difficult to tell if a creature sculpture is “attractive” enough. As I was finishing this WED clay sculpt, this winged insect wouldn’t leave it alone! I took that as a good sign...

Photo 9: The leg rig was the most complicated part of the Wasp Woman suit. I wanted to have full mobility, but never really have my legs shown. I designed this welded steel rig to support me while I pretzeled my legs behind me, to be hidden in the abdomen. So, not only was I freakishly skinny, I apparently was much more flexible 15 years ago…

Photo 10: The welded frame was wrapped in sheet foam, which was then covered in a latex skin. The abdomen was constructed out of L200 foam, so it would be light and hollow. That, too, was covered in textured latex. This process was faster and cheaper than sculpting, molding, and casting pieces as large as this was.

Photo 11: The next step was painting everything. I used an old make-up trick to speed things up. I based everything out using an adhesive called Kryton, thinned with a chemical called Solvent 111. Kryton was actually invented during WWII as a rubberized de-icer for airplane wings. Somewhere along the way, it was adopted for wig adhesive, and then it’s use as a paint was discovered. It’s pretty hard to get a hold of these days, but for large areas like this wasp suit, it is pretty useful. The advantage is that you can apply the base, which I tinted yellow for this purpose, then airbrush layers of straight acrylic over it. This makes painting super fast and clean. Then a clear coat of the Kryton goes over the top, locking in the acrylic and making it just as flexible as rubber cement paint, or PAX.

Photo 12: Here’s the head. I went for a very wasp-like look. The mandibles and antenna are animatronic, with the servos housed at the back, behind my head. The eyes are made from a front and back vac-u-form piece housing a cluster of ¾ inch clear spheres. The front vac-u-form is sprayed with a translucent amber acrylic, and the back plate is lined with aluminum foil to help reflect the light. The end result was very cool, but the dozens of solid marbles added about 10 pounds to the head. After an 18-hour day of shooting, I was scrambling for the Tylenol!

Photo 13: And there she, uh, I, am in all my glory!

Photo 14: It was a weird experience walking around with breasts. Yes, I know, I actually just said that. Honestly, when we were done filming, I swore I would never let anyone know that it was me in that costume! I even demanded that I go uncredited in the film. But, years later, looking at these ridiculous pictures, I figured I just had to share…

Photo 15: But sometimes the sharing was just too much! Seriously! The staring and the gawking!!! Even when I didn’t have the head on, guys were goggling. Dude, I’m a dude! Eyes up here. Please.

Photo 16: If you spend any time on a film set, you will know that there is a lot of sitting and waiting. I made a point to remember that the NEXT time I designed a creature suit. This is not a comfortable position to sit in while waiting for lighting changes and camera reloads.

Photo 17: And here we are up at Bronson Cave. It was a hot summer’s day. That’s producer Marta Mobley running to the left. She and I went on to work together many times. My favorite story about this film, and this location, involves her. But she would kill me if I blogged about it. I’ll have to tell you next time I see you in person…

Photo 18: In the cave and on the rig. You can tell by my expression that I have been on the rig way too long!

Photo 19: For the “over the shoulder” shots, which usually involved attacking the victim, I was rig free so I could run and jump. The exciting part of this for me was that I got to sit down on a chair like a normal person!

My on-set support team included Kenn Scott, an avid suit performer himself, most famously known for his portrayal of Raphael in Jim Henson’s Teen Age Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. To the right is Tom Skelington, who started work at the Barnyard with this production. His 8-year stint started when he wandered into Bronson Cave to see what was being filmed. I happened to be the person he asked first, sans costume, and when I told him it was a remake of the Corman classic, he jumped for joy. Oddly, the original Wasp Woman was his favorite film, and the one that inspired him to get into FX. I asked him if he wanted to work on the new version. He started that day!

Photo 20: Outside the cave, a second unit picked up some shots of the “cat wasp.” In the film, the doctor first tests the serum’s safety level by injecting his pet cat. Shockingly, it turns into a hybrid cat/wasp and starts to kill people!

Photo 21: The cat/wasp puppet had motorized wings and a radio controlled head. The hero close-up puppet had the same marble eyes as the suit. The version in this photo hangs in my bathroom, and every once in a while a new visitor will scream when they go in there.

Photo 22: The puppet legs were cast over armature wire so I could bend them in different poses, and the wings were clear plastic vac-u-formed over textured plaster.

Photo 23: There were very few cat like qualities in the final puppet, but even still, it did not get along with my English Bull Terrier, Action!

Photo 24: What would a B-movie be without more scream queens! Here I am posing with Melissa “Rocky” Brasselle and Antonia Dorian. I had my wasp head on for a magazine shoot, but in this photo I think we were comparing cleavage!

Photo 25: Rocky and I became great friends during the shoot.

Photo 26: And then I had to kill her! Just kidding, it was totally fake. Except for the part were she punched my wasp head in the face, which then in turn crunched my real face.

Photo 27: But later, she apologized and gave me a hug.

Photo 28: And apparently, even she was fascinated by my new, uh, assets.

Photo 29: It’s funny how people have no reservations about poking at you when you are wearing a costume. But don’t even think about doing the same to them…

Photo 30: Or you will end up getting punched in the face again!