ScreamFest, Orlando 2006

I attended the ScreamFest on Saturday 14, 2006. It was my first time to a convention of this kind and attendence appeared high.

I went, specifically, to see Gris (Griz) Grimly because his work is fantastic.

Gris signed some of the books I brought with me.

I also got a Mad Creator shirt from Liz. I picked his brain about his first film, Cannibal Flesh Riot, which features stop motion monsters a la Ray Harryhausen. His budget was under $10,000 for the thirty minute short. I look forward to its release later this year. Gris has got a great sense of style and persona which is a charismatic, turn of the century era, Jack the Ripper.

If it weren't for his pleasant demeanor I could picture him thinking of ways to eviserate me.

I also spoke with Voltaire.

Voltaire has done some cool stop mo spots for MTV but said he hadn't done stop motion for about 10 years and recently got back into it and did a spot for FangoriaTV. In additional to being an animator and illustrator, he is a talented musician and has several albums out. He was performing that night at the convention center but, unfortunately, I missed the show.

Voltaire, as it turns out, is friends with Gris and their booths were situated next to eachother.

Voltaire autographed the stop motion animation shirt I had made for the show. While speaking to Voltaire, he told me where the Chiodos were located. He had yet to introduce himself and I said I would pass along his interest.

There was another terrorific illustrator, Dave Cook. He was just down from Gris and Voltaire.

Dave's style is reminiscent to Bernie Wrightson or Jack Davis.

I stopped over to see the Chiodo Bros., Charlie, Stephen, and Edward.

When I approached the Chiodos, Charlie said "Here he is! We've seen that before." Refering to the logo I did for the shirt design I had pitched for the Centennial Celebration. Ed asked if I had received his email regarding the event informing me that it was still in the planning stages. They underestimated how soon in advance they needed to book a venue. I told them I had just left Voltaire's booth and he had been wanting to meet them. Stephen replied "Ah, the infamous Voltaire! Where is he at?" After pointing in the direction of his table Stephen said he would have to go meet him. The Chiodos were letting people know about "Killer Klowns 2", which may also have a videogame tie-in. Their table had a fullsize foam latex Killer Klown head and some conceptual art. In addition they had acrylic cases with miniatures from "Team America World Police." They have also written a childrens story called "Chiodo Bros. Alien X-Mas" which is a zany romp about aliens that think Santa is building weapons of mass desruction. There is a Foreword by Ray Harryhausen an Afterword by Ray Bradbury and it has been nicely illustrated.

They are in early stages of development turning it into a full feature stop motion animated film. Charlie also told me to keep an eye out for a Crayola commercial they had completed with stop motion. The Chiodos were really easy going and fun to talk with and they did an hour long Q&A about the Killer Klowns and film making rewards, hazzards and pitfalls. They even poked fun at the ScreamFest MC when he mispronounced their last name, apparently for the second year.


Next year I hope to stay for all three days and nights. Everyone was gratious in answering my questions and now that I have had time to think about it I wish I would have written my questions out before hand and also recorded the conversations. There were alot of other guest celebrities of which I'm sure the other attendies enjoyed.

Stop Motion Animation T-Shirts For Sale

I got some encouragement from some members of StopMotionAnimation to make a shirt from a design I created. Click on the Shop link at the bottom of this page to look and or buy a shirt.



The graphic for the shirt was developed over the course of a few months. I was trying to create an icon that would represent stop motion animators but not be specific to one type of the form. I received input and feedback from several members of Anthony Scott's StopMotionAnimation site. I decided to focus on the animator and animator's tools. The initial sketch was of one of my surface gages. The gage is the tool used to assist the animator reference the position of the model from frame to frame. From that drawing I turned my attention to positioning the character of the animator. Since animators work behind the scene that's where the figure was placed, but, an animators performance comes out and is transfered to the model through ones hands so I wanted them to be prominant. I have the camera lens as a transitioning device through which the animator's work behind the camera comes through to the viewer. The viewer is located in the position of the model to wait to be moved by the animator, both literally and figuratively. Some other inspiration was naming the camera after J. Stuart Black, noted as first developing the technique in 1907. I chose purple for the color of the lens, because purple is often associated with magic and stop motion definitely has that magical quality. I further wanted to pay tribute to two men who had influence in my life, Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen. They are visualized as the light reflections in the face of the lens. Mr. Harryhausen has often referred to the snowball effect that stop motion has had on younger generations. Finally, I incorporated my name in the serial number on the lens as a way to sign the work without making it overt.

Cannibal Flesh Riot

Hello everyone or perhaps hello one. I was in the local retail bookstore and my daughter wanted to look at some childrens books. We were perusing through some titles when she handed me a book titled Boris and Bella. I thought the cover art looked interesting as well as the obvious reference to Boris Karloff and Bella Lagossi. I read the book to her in the store and I had to find out more about the artist Gris Grimly. Gris' website Mad Creator has some wonderful artwork and information on the artist. What I really thought was cool was the trailer for his first film Cannibal Flesh Riot which has a few stop motion sequences Cannibal Flesh Riot Trailer 2