Antarctic Nazis (Commander Herdegen's Locker)

 We've been wanting to try our hand at stop motion animation for quite the while. Just finished this project short film that we've been working on and off for the past two years:

Commander Herdegen's Locker (2023)

Run Time: 12min (approx.)

We'll post a Part 2 with a bit more details for those interested. The film is a narrative format. We didn't want to just shoot a bunch of clips - there's gotta' be some story involved. Considerable homage to 50's thru 70's sci-fi/fantasy films, ranging from Atomic Submarine to Johnny Quest and influences Ray Harryhausen to George Lucas. The observant and perceptive (and far out) among us may catch on to a bit of cryptic "planetary" theory (plasma energy, earth bio-rhythmic cycles, time travel, Delta-T Antenna and such - fun stuff). 

Lots of miniature and model work. We snatched a few background plates off line from sources that (we understand) are royalty free. Hopefully no one has a "beef" with that issue. This was an "experimental" work with no compensation to be involved. Actually, we've been working on a corresponding full feature spec script which is for now a top secret project. Thank's to Fesliyan Studios for use of their brilliant music tracks. Hollywood couldn't even create better "bad guys" than the Nazis - always fun to beat up on 'em (although, Herdegen is a "Captain Nemo"- type in the spec script - he don't like the Nazis either).

The animation didn't turn out too bad for our first attempt (our opinion - only one that matters to us). We'd have some issues if we were five or more films into it.

Beauty In Darkness (Cinema Part 8)

 We're nearing the conclusion of these old videos:

Beauty In Darkness (1998)

Run Time: 17min (Approx.)

Beauty in Darkness. We've already posted a few years back so we're not gonna' get too descriptive. We had an updated version as well, which was posted on the website, that included a segment on PA brown bats that inhabit the cave. This is the original version that doesn't include the bats. 

Shot entirely in HI8 video format. Wish we had the LED lighting technology available today. Some of the small, portable and adjustable light units with built-in batteries, that we currently own, was made for this work. We drug a lot of stuff down and into this place.

Thank's to O'Hearn and Boddy/Boots/Van Der Heijen for no issues with the YouTube upload.

Most of the dialog was transcribed and cave map duplicated from the publication Caves of Western Pennsylvania; Casparis (Opperman's) Cave (J.R. Dunn and G. Storrick), 1976.

Think we included a few if not all of these photos in the earlier post. We'll post 'em again:

Intrepid cave explorers ('82)

Some tight, wet and muddy squeezing and crawling

Some cool formations throughout

A portable light unit we designed and built specifically for this project. Are some halogen lights from the auto store. DC power. Everything folds down and tucks into that ammo box, where the battery is stored. The LED lights of today we could have put in our pocket.

A hideous and frightening cave demon!!

The waterfall at the end of the cave. The cave/watercourse obviously extends up through the ceiling, but is not traversable beyond this point.

As far as we know, the cave was gated shut a few years back and is now under state control lock and key.