The Night Shift: Skeleton back into the closet

The Night Shift is the production diary of Fighting Owl Film's new independent supernatural-adventure-comedy of the same name currently in "post" in Mobile, AL. Over the course of the next several weeks and months, you'll get an insider's peek at what it's like for filmmakers to craft a new entry of paranormal pop culture from Erin Lilley, a producer and actress on the film.
 

Skeleton Back Into The Closet

 

Tonight, Herbie finds his voice. Soren is recording it as I type. For those who haven't seen the short film, Herbie is a limbless skeleton torso and snappily dressed man about town. He's also our main character's best friend, Jimminy Cricket-esque voice of reason and without argument, the most popular character from the short. He's also a plastic animatronic.

In theory (don't you just love when things start off that way?), one person would work the remote control to turn Herbie's neck, and the voice actor would speak the lines into a microphone. The voice would activate Herb's robotic jaw, and would also emit from a speaker in the skull so his scene partner could hear the lines. Any lines not picked up by the overhead boom mic could later be dubbed in, but we hoped to not have too many of those. In theory.  

Herb's what we liked to refer to as "our Bruce." You know, the shark from Jaws? In our case, instead of, "The shark is not working!" blaring over the megaphone, we heard, "The skull is not working...again!!"

Olympic skeleton guided by spirits

As if the Winter Olympic sport called skeleton isn't cool enough, there's now a little bit of paranormal to add to the wintry mix.

The Calgary Herald is reporting the Canadian skeleton team visited a "sport shaman" last fall to determine their spirit animal.

The shaman, Sandra Molendyk, suggested that racer Jon Montgomery (pictured here) is guided by a spirit turtle, which is why he wears a tribal painting of one on his helmet.

However, having the notoriously slowpoke animal as his spirit guide is apparently helping; the Herald reports that Montgomery had the fastest time in his two training runs this Wednesday.

-Aaron Sagers

Meet James Ensor ... This weekend!

This weekend, I'll finally be making it over to MoMA to check out the James Ensor exhibit that opened last month.

Ensor was a Belgian expressionist painter in the 19th and 20th centuries. He was my kind of wacky, eccentric dude who painted skeletons, ghouls, disemboweling doctors, demons and waiters serving severed heads. My personal faves are his "skeletonized self-portraits."

If you can't make it to MoMA, at least walk your virtual self over to the site to browse the online collection.

But before you do, read up on Ensor and get a brief tutorial on this paranormal pop culture artist from They Might Be Giants - aaron sagers