Fred Grant's Metroid!

by Fred Grant

The Metroid fan trailer was both a chance to adapt a beloved video game into a live action story and an opportunity for me to stretch my directing legs by taking on a very effects heavy project. Knowing that the look of Samus was one of the most important aspects for the film's success, I sought out the help of Sean Michael Patton, an experienced costume designer/creator, to come up with a Zero Suit that was to both of our likings. I wanted Samus to maintain her sexy girlish figure but also look more tactical and military-appropriate while in her Zero Suit.  Finding the right actress was also a challenge, and Josefine Mikuta, a model/actress from Denmark (and who will represent Denmark in the 2013 Miss Earth Pageant) was eventually cast by Keyla McClure to play Samus Aran.  Shooting took place over one afternoon at Crawford Media Services. When Josefine went into wardrobe with Sean and hair/make-up with Christine Nguyen and came out as Samus Aran, the transformation was incredible. 

Josefine tries on the Zero Suit for the first time.

98% of the production was shot entirely on green screen, and almost all of the backgrounds and effects were created during post-production, which is why the short trailer took so long to be released to the public. Anthony Baker, a local Atlanta CG artist, was in charge of creating and rigging the “Power Suit”. We actually had to alter the design of the Power Suit so that Samus could fit into it since the Nintendo version was physically impossible. Kevin Ridgeway did an amazing job modeling Ridley, combining multiple versions of the creature from several different Metroid games together for a realistic and frightening appearance. Torey Haas added his creative touch with his stop motion Chozos. All of the visuals were wrapped up magnificently with sound design by Quyen Tran and narration by Marie Barker (Invasion of the Undead's Allison). While the Metroid Fan Trailer has been on my personal YouTube channel for a while now (I was initially using it to promote the Indiegogo campaign for my first feature film Dekiru) it is now officially on the MonsterBuster channel.

We had to modify the Power Suit design so it could accommodate an actual human body. 

Modeling Ridley!

Overall, the Metroid Fan Trailer was a big learning experience because it showed me where I was as a director and where I needed to improve. If you like it please check out Dekiru!

BABY BABY Music Video Now Live!

Our music video for BABY BABY's "You Can't Spell Conch Without the 'CH' is now up on our YouTube channel!

A variation on Lord of the Flies with elements from The Karate Kid and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (check out the radioactive pig man), this video was shot back in August on Jekyll Island shorty before we wrapped Invasion of the Undead. With most of our resources tied up in Invasion, we had limited crew, a shoestring budget and no permits whatsoever to pull off what was a pretty epic story line for a music video. Torey wrote the script (from a concept by Grant and Fontez) and directed the video, while Eric (Invasion's assistant camera) and Tricia stepped up as cinematographers using both the Blackmagic cinema camera and a 5D mkIII. Propmaster John Holbrook made all of the DIY weapons seen in the video (the sea shell spear and knuckles were especially rad), and Greg Garrison designed the fight choreography (he's turning more and more into Desmond every day). The enemy tribe are all performed by MonsterBuster regulars/crew members- that's Nathan DeRussy, Guy Smiley himself, sans make-up as the enemy leader, with Fred, Jay, and Eric rounding out the rest of the tribe. Fontez, Kyle, Grant and Colin of BABY BABY were all a blast to work with- you may see them making a cameo in Invasion as we shoot some pick-ups later this November.

As always, thank you for reading and Happy Halloween!

The Invasion Teaser Trailer is Up!

by Torey Haas

My favorite scene in Star Wars Episode IV is the cantina scene. While the creatures themselves were fun and cool, what I really loved is how they each had extensive backstories that were later developed in Star Wars stories, novels and comic books. Every creature was a character, and whether this was planned from conception or just a byproduct of the series' success doesn't diminish how fun it was as a fan to learn that your favorite creature who only receives a few seconds of screen time actually has an entire life that brought him to Mos Eisley.

We originally pitched Invasion of the Undead as Big Trouble in Little China meets The Evil Dead, and while the lighthearted tone and crazy effects are definitely reminiscent of John Carpenter's '80s cult classic, I now think it's a little more accurate to describe Invasion as Star Wars meets The Evil Dead due to it's strong good vs. evil element, the fact that it's the first of a planned series of films (keeping my fingers crossed!) , the hero's journey that Desmond undertakes throughout the series, and finally its emphasis on characters. This final element is what the teaser and this blog post are all about; every character in Invasion is important and has a story that will be explored in later films, shorts and hopefully even video games and comics (again, keeping my fingers crossed!). Some of the characters highlighted in this teaser may only be featured for a scene or two in Invasion, but they are all huge components of our growing MonsterBuster universe.

Anyway, I really hope you enjoy the teaser and thank you once again for your support. Making this movie has truly been a dream come true for us and I'm excited to finally share this first glimpse of footage. We will release a more traditional trailer once we get closer to the film's release (we're still aiming for a late 2013 premiere but it's very likely to move into first quarter 2014). This trailer will definitely feature more effects and stop motion creatures than this teaser.

Oh, if you're wondering what game Desmond is playing when he is first introduced it is Nomolos: Storming the Catsle, a homebrew NES game by Gradual Games. They were gracious enough to allow us to use footage from their game in Invasion, and if you're into retro video games definitely check out Nomolos- it's a ton of fun.

As always, thank you for reading!

Thank You All!

Jay, Tricia and I with Lloyd Kaufman, president of Troma and one of our biggest inspirations.

by Torey Haas

This past weekend MonsterBuster went to DragonCon. We didn't go to promote anything (although Sean Patton, Invasion's costume designer and the owner of SMP Designs, did showcase a rough cut of our teaser trailer) but rather just to have fun, and it occurred to me that one thing that may not be apparent from reading this blog or looking over our Facebook page is that all of us are close friends in 'real' life. Sure, we are a legit company (I have the LLC paperwork to prove it) but we are first and foremost a group of friends who all just happen to love filmmaking, and during those few weekends when we aren't shooting you can still find us together playing video games, going out to eat or just generally hanging out.

At last year's Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse!

During production on Invasion there were many times when I'd look around at the crew and smile at the faces gathered there. I'd see Eric, one of my oldest and best friends dating all the way back to high school, fumble to get a lens for Nick, my current DP and a former undergraduate student at GSU who would talk to me for hours on end about cameras and visual effects during my shifts working at the video equipment check-out lab. I've only known Katelyn, our AD, a relatively short while, but we became almost immediate friends following our introduction through our key grip (and her boyfriend) Kevin, who I have fond memories of slacking off with in German class back when we both went to Georgia Tech. Whenever Nathan would stroll by in full make-up I'd have to remind myself that this was the guy who once threw himself into a tree for my short film Troll Picnic, and that amazing make-up rendering him unrecognizable was of course created by our creature creator Tricia, who like Katelyn I've only known for a short while but with whom I had an immediate connection with (she's pretty much my bff). Quyen, our sound guy, has been a staple on MonsterBuster sets since Crowscare back in 2011, and of course I can't forget Jay, aka Da J-Man, who is a close contender with Tricia for the title of bff despite his tendency to sleep on film sets, much to the annoyance of our production manager Lori.  Marie, Invasion's lovely leading lady, would often crack jokes with Dylan, who's tied with Nathan for being the most upbeat and agreeable person I know (I haven't asked him to throw himself into a tree yet, but I'm certain he'd do it). Most of the time while thinking about how great all of these people are I would often be distracted by Greg with some annoying actor question... Greg of course plays Desmond, and since First Date he's been the Bruce Campbell to my Sam Raimi; he threw himself into a bookcase, shoved his head through drywall, and performed other crazy and unsafe stunts all for the sake of making a movie, and he suffered only one minor concussion throughout all of it.

All of these people are not only my crew but also the best friends I've ever had, and that's not including some of the more behind-the-scenes MonsterBuster people like Hsiang-Ming, Fred and John, or the people who couldn't be a large part of Invasion because of other projects like Keyla and Ricky. There are also many other people, who, while not necessarily part of MonsterBuster, have still been extremely supportive of us and with whom I hope to continue working with in larger roles in the future- Bonnie, Emma, Gary, Jeremy, Brandon, Melissa, Eddie M., Eddie R.,Tony R., Tony H., Rachel, Sara Beth, Matt B., Ariel, John R. Will, Christine, Caitlin, Josh, Corey, Sean P., Sean H., Elizabeth, Matt W., Matt M., Breanna, Nick A., Alan and Sue-Ellen all come to mind, but if I didn't mention your name please don't be offended! It's certainly not intentional. The point of me writing all of this is that I am just extremely thankful for this opportunity; I've gone from being a wide-eyed ten-year-old watching Ray Harryhausen movies on Monstervision to running an independent production company alongside the greatest people I've ever known, and I couldn't possibly feel more blessed.

Our premiere is still a long ways off, but what I am honestly most excited about for that night is just to stand alongside all of my best friends on stage and to introduce the movie that we all made together. I don't know if Invasion will be successful (in the financial sense, at least), but I do know that we are all working as hard as possible to make the best movie we can, and I hope that it is just the first of many feature-length movies we will make together. Eric, Nick, Katelyn, Kevin, Nathan, Tricia, Quyen, Jay, Lori, Marie, Dylan, Greg, Hsiang, Fred, John and the rest- I love all of you guys!

Troll Picnic! Circa 2007.

This picture, taken after we wrapped First Date, always makes me smile because it's the only time I've ever been lifted up by a group. Note: the Castlevania tattoo on my arm is not real.

The final day of shooting Werebum in 2010. (Or is that 2011?)

The original Invasion teaser trailer shoot from January 2011.

Jay Holloway's Crowscare, the most horrifying killer scarecrow movie ever made.

Man, we're a bunch of nerds.

Jay Holloway's Werehooker, our last short film before Invasion.

Oh, and that Invasion teaser trailer I mentioned earlier will debut soon, I promise! I'm making a resolution to not announce specific release dates until they are 100% locked down (if you read over this blog you'll see that we frequently change release dates, and that's something I definitely want to avoid doing in the future) but it is virtually complete barring a few minor sound and FX changes.

As always, thank you for reading!

Invasion of the Undead is WRAPPED!

This past Sunday was our FINAL day of principal photography on Invasion of the Undead- it's been a long journey (we've been planning this movie since MonsterBuster's inception back in 2008) but the footage is now in the can and ready for post-production! Okay, okay, there's still numerous FX pick-ups that remain to be filmed but the vast majority of the movie is shot.

We closed principal photography with a lengthy flashback scene that explores the origins of the monstrous threat in Allison's mansion. This scene showcased two extremely talented Atlanta actors- Candace Mabry and Andrew Puckett (of the local indie folk band The Pucketts)- and was shot with a RED Epic courtesy of our friend Tony Reames, director of the upcoming zombie short Welcome to the Bubs.

Our sword fight choreographer Alan J. Sanders cameos as Drake Hillstead's doomed sword fighting instructor.

The beautiful and talented Candace Mabry as Belle, Drake's ill-fated wife. Candace was an absolute pleasure to work with and her scenes with Andrew are some of the most dramatic in the whole film. 

Andrew Puckett as Drake Hillstead, the human incarnation of Invasion's main villain. Much like Nathan, Andrew is one of the creepiest guys around while the camera's rolling but incredibly nice and personable once filming stops.

Drake vs. Alan! We love sword fights.

Eric Davis returns as The Mummy, arguably the most powerful creature in Invasion's menagerie. You'll see much more of him in the sequel.

This shot, captured with an 8mm fisheye on the Black Magic, took eight takes to get right. It was totally worth it.

Now that production is wrapped our first priority is getting our teaser trailer up for everyone to finally see what we've been working so hard on since last April!

Invasion of the Undead: Frequently Asked Questions

While we're on a short hiatus from shooting Invasion (we pick up again June 12th) we thought it would be a good time to answer some questions we're regularly asked regarding the movie and MonsterBuster in general. Here goes:


When will Invasion be released?

We're aiming for Fall or Winter 2013; Halloween would be ideal for obvious reasons but it's extremely unlikely given that we're still going to be shooting scenes and FX pick-ups all the way through August. Beyond that there's a lot of post-production work that needs to be done before the movie will be audience-ready, and with everyone in MonsterBuster working day jobs on top of their duties on Invasion it's tough to pinpoint an exact date. We'll definitely update this blog and our Facebook page with news on the movie as we move forward.


How do you plan to release it?

The current plan is to submit to festivals and coincide an online release (both streaming and as a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack) with our largest festival premiere so that as soon as people hear about the movie they're able to watch it. We're fully planning to self-distribute; our budget (approx. $17,000) is low enough that we feel we have a decent chance of making our money back if we release it ourselves instead of relying on (and potentially getting screwed by) a distributor. If we don't get into any festivals we'll likely submit review copies to different film and horror websites to hopefully generate some buzz. We're also planning to rent some local independent theaters and non-traditional event space to host screenings and Invasion-themed parties.


Are you really donating the profits from Invasion to charity?

Yup! If you read our Indiegogo campaign description you'll know that we plan to donate 10% of our gross profits to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. We're also planning to donate another percentage to a charity that's directly affecting one of our main cast members; we'll make a formal announcement once we iron out all of the details. As to why we're doing this, it's just our way to give back to the community that supported us; Invasion was crowd-funded through Indiegogo, and while the majority of the budget ultimately came from an outside investor we literally would not be making this movie without each and every one of our Indiegogo supporters. Besides, we're in this to make movies, not money, and if Invasion is a big enough success to justify a sequel we should still have more than enough profit left over to gear up for production on a follow-up even after donating to charity.


What are you shooting on?

We're shooting Invasion with the Blackmagic Cinema Camera; we're primarily shooting ProRes instead of RAW to minimize file storage (on our ultra-low budget hard drives are kind of a big deal). We may also shoot some scenes with a 5D Mark III once the RAW hack by Magic Lantern is fully stable; we're shooting a lengthy flashback scene in August and the full-frame sensor of the 5D may be a nice, subtle way to give this sequence a different look from the rest of the film.

The Boogeyman loves the Blackmagic Camera!

Just how many monsters are in Invasion?

Now for the fun questions! The different creatures that infest Allison's mansion are Belle, a slimy undead Scarlet O'Hara with a stop motion creature head (you can see a test of her in our main Indiegogo video); the Sons of Z'athax, Blind Dead-inspired skeletal wizards that are the foot soldiers for the invasion and come in two varieties, regular and über; voodoo zombies, traditional Haitian zombies led by 'Big Z' that are obligated to serve the Hillstead family until Allison breaks the curse on them;  Guy Smiley, our Big Bad; the Mummy, a snazzily-dressed Egyptian sorcerer first seen in Allison's webisode; and finally Z'athax, a gigantic cobra-like demon that serves as the movie's 'last boss'.

All of our creatures will be created practically, either through make-up or stop motion animation. While we have a few CG environments (mainly the exterior of Allison's mansion since we couldn't find an old Southern plantation-style home on our budget) we have no CG creatures!


'Last boss'? What's with all of the video game references?

8-bit Desmond, Jake and Allison, as created by Fred Grant. Can you tell Fred loves Mega Man?

Narratively Desmond is an avid gamer who enjoys beating insanely difficult retro video games the likes of which would make the Angry Video Game Nerd cringe, but beyond that Invasion takes a lot of visual cues from video games, most notably in in its fight scenes, which are modeled after the epic boss battles in adventure and role-playing games like Zelda, Final Fantasy and Ys. We here at MonsterBuster Entertainment love video games; don't forget we made Mario and Luigi and Metroid prior to Invasion. We're even planning to include an original 8-bit style game based on the movie as part of its Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.

Ever play The Uninvited? So have we.

Speaking of Metroid, whatever happened to that? And what about the other MonsterBuster shorts?

If you regularly read this blog you know that we have a lot of projects in the works; hey, we love making movies, and an unfortunate side effect of that is that it makes us a bit over ambitious at times. Our only project currently in production is Invasion, but here's a quick update on the rest of the movies we have on deck:

Metroid - Fred Grant's fan trailer is complete and on YouTube, but we haven't uploaded it to our own channel or featured it on our website because he was primarily using it to promote the Indiegogo campaign for his upcoming feature Dekiru and we didn't want to risk being associated with another Indiegogo campaign so shortly after finishing our own. We're planning to upload it our channel once Fred gets a free moment away from Dekiru to write a blog entry detailing its production.

Katelyn Brammer's Harmony and Bath Salt Cannibal - Both of these shorts are completed and are currently being shopped around to different festivals. We'll post them online as soon as we can without interfering with any possible festival acceptance.

Jay Holloway's Werehooker - We teased this follow-up to Werebum on our Facebook page in January; it's almost complete barring a few audio changes. We haven't decided yet whether to submit it to festivals or simply post it online (it's really just a three minute mock trailer as opposed to a full length project) but we'll make an announcement both here and on Facebook when the time comes.

The Werehooker!

Desmond's webisode for Invasion - Yup, this is still happening. The current plan is to release it in July alongside the first trailer for Invasion.

Super Mario and Luigi and The Statement of Randolph Carter - We still plan to make both of these shorts, but they're currently not on the schedule for this year.


Finally, what about those trading cards I keep seeing on Facebook?

It's just something we're making for fun; most of us grew up collecting the Marvel Universe and other similar trading cards, and this is our homage to them. If you like them though, let us know! We may print a small number of sets to help promote Invasion if the interest is high enough. Regardless we're certainly planning to release more cards on Facebook throughout the summer; the slate of characters were planning to include are Mario, Luigi, Jerry and Peach from Mario and Luigi; Belle, Mary, Ashley, Mr. Dunsmore, Big Z, the Sons of Z'athax and Z'athax from Invasion; May, Christie and the Man from Crowscare; the Werebum from Werebum; some as-of-yet undecided characters from Bath Salt Cannibal; and the Werehooker, Werepimp and Mary from Werehooker. We may also include Detective Steel and Vesper Kind from The Red Herring to celebrate the first anniversary of the play's release.

There's plenty more of these on Facebook.

As always, thank you for reading and for your continued support!

Voodoo Zombies, Belle, and a Girl Scout

15 days of production on Invasion of the Undead are wrapped!

Allison (Marie Barker) and Ashley (Josie Levy) cautiously investigate a strange noise.

Introducing Belle, the first of Allison's uninvited house guests.

Jake (Dylan Schettina) examines a lock of Belle's hair. 

Allison descends into her Inferno-inspired basement.

John Reed as Big Z, our main voodoo zombie.

Even with the voodoo curse lifted Big Z isn't too happy to meet Desmond.

Allison attempts to talk some sense into the horde of voodoo zombies before Big Z chokes Desmond out.

Another weekend wrapped...

We're slowly but surely moving through production on our first feature film... more stills coming next week!

Allison zones out on her front porch while Desmond and Jake deal with the creatures inside.

Desmond still manages to be a smartass even when bloody and bruised, to Allison's chagrin. 

Jake (unsuccessfully) warns Desmond about the supernatural dangers they're about to face.

Desmond and Jake's trunk is littered with all sorts of occult artifacts and old video games.

A heart-to-heart in the woods.

There's evil in these woods...

Our Tombs of the Blind Dead-inspired Sons of Z'athax close in on Desmond.

Location Shooting!

This past weekend we wrapped our two location shoots for Invasion of the Undead.  On Saturday we headed to Canton, Georgia to film at Harvest Moon Natural Market, an independently-owned natural and organic grocery store that will double as SaveMore Groceries in Invasion. The two managers who greeted us when we arrived several hours before the store opened were extremely accommodating and even prepared delicious breakfast wraps and smoothies for our crew. Saturday also marked the first appearance of a new addition to the Invasion cast: Mark Ashworth, star of the Doritos "Goat For Sale" commercial that aired during this year's Super Bowl, plays Dunsmore, the manager of SaveMore who is constantly at odds with Desmond and Jake (mostly Desmond). Mark is absolutely one of the nicest and most professional actors we have ever worked with and he was an absolute pleasure to have on set.  Relying on mostly practical lighting, we were able to wrap in the nick of time at 8:57 am, just minutes before the store opened. If you live near Canton definitely check out Harvest Moon; independent grocery stores are becoming increasingly scarce and Harvest Moon is certainly one of the best around. The employees are some of the nicest you'll find and Alisha, the owner, is very supportive of the local art community as evidenced by her support of our film.

Jake scours the Codex Demanicus for information about Z'athax in the SaveMore stock room.

Dunsmore (Mark Ashworth) isn't letting Desmond and Jake off easy this time.

Who's that shopping in the background? MonsterBuster propmaster John Holbrook!

Desmond has some words with Jake while Dunsmore looks on.

Sunday brought us to Videodrome, a video store that should need no introduction if you're a film buff living in Atlanta since it's one of the last of its kind. Videodrome will stand-in for the SaveMore video department where Desmond passes time when he's not killing monsters. Emma Greene, a talented local actress who previously appeared in our Witch make-up video for xteeener,  reprised her role of Mary from the original Invasion teaser trailer that premiered at our 2011 film festival and was as charming as ever. Fun fact: the SaveMore customer that Desmond blows off is actually Greg Garrison's dad Steven, who eagerly volunteered to be an extra for the chance to act opposite his son. Going to a video store to pick out a movie is quickly becoming a thing of the past but Videodrome keeps the tradition alive and offers virtually every movie for rental regardless of how mainstream or obscure it is; we even found a laserdisc of Greydon Clark's 1988 killer cat classic The Uninvited behind the counter. Please support them if you live in Atlanta!

The SaveMore Video Department is crowded as usual.

Magical artifact or pancake fork? Desmond sides with the latter. 

Mary (Emma Greene) should be used to Desmond's antics by now.

We resume shooting this weekend; check out this blog and our Facebook page for more pics next week!