Take The High Way

 Recently broke out the fat tires after about a year hiatus.

Hadn't been up along the ridge since last winter. Right off the bat we discovered that they forever ruined a once great long, steep technical hill climb. Don't know the why or reason behind this "improvement". The millennial highway. Take the money and run we guess: 

Approximately one-half mile, 400ft relief. Was always a great right-off-the-bat warm up to the miles of ridgeline and hollows beyond. Always varying conditions depending upon the measure of seasonal weathering combined with the off-road traffic spaced between sporadic bouts of light maintenance. Top climb rate back in the day, level bottom to level top, (unofficially) clocked at eight minutes. Personal best was eleven minutes.

The timber company did us a big favor, however. Put in a nice MTB spur off the main line coincidental to performing some upkeep on a heavy storm and strong wind damaged ridge line occurrence from a year back. We'd have been all over that steep hill climb thirty-five years ago - battling it out with the 'Good-man', Strongman Matt and Brother Howie to claim first climb of that thing.

Includes a very nice and very steep downhill drop ta' boot.

Needs a bit of trail maintenance as it proceeds out along the ridge.

High road.

Low Road.

Nice view out across the hollow along the way - especially this time of year. Maybe a bit over a mile total over the ridge top.

Eventually ties into the south end of the long ago abandoned but once favorite "Old Powerline Trail". This trail was closed off sometime in the mid '90's by the property owner because of constant abuse by four wheelers and a few incidents of trash dumping.

Late afternoon viewing the ridgeline from back along the main road.

In Amundsen's Tent (Halloween Fun)

Here's a pretty good recitation of author John Martin Leahy's short read 'In Amundsen's Tent'. Produced and narrated by Ian Gordon for YouTube channel 'HorrorBabble':

(YouTube Video)

Precursor to H.P. Lovecraft's 'At The Mountains Of  Madness' (1931) and John Campbells 'Who Goes There?' (1938). The latter later inspired and was loosely adapted for the film 'The Thing From Another World' (1951). John Carpenter's later filmed remake, simply titled 'The Thing' (1982), more closely follows Campbell's original tale. 

Prince of Darkness (aka: The Cat Creeps)

 "For the cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see.
He is the soul of antique Aegyptus, and bearer of tales from forgotten
cities in Monroe and Ophir. He is the kin of the jungle's lords, and heir to
the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and
remembers that which she hath forgotten."

                                                             - The 'Cats of Ulthar' (1920), H.P. Lovecraft

Nocturnal rambler and watcher... we bet he knows:

Who stole the toolbox out back of the neighbors pickup

Who stole the lower neighbor asian gal's street bike

Who stole the end of the street neighbor gal's motorcycle

Where the skunk dwells

(Internet Image)

Eighty Years of Killdozer

Worked heavy construction for near forty years and seldom met a heavy equipment operator, who if ya' mentioned the film 'Killdozer', would respond with anything but "Man, that was the best movie I ever seen!"

(Internet Image)

Lots of fun - a Cat D9 bulldozer is possessed by an extraterrestrial energy force and goes on a killing rampage against a small eight man construction crew tasked with building an airstrip on a remote pacific island. Doesn't get more fun than that!

(YouTube video)

Brilliant!

The (made-for-television) film dismisses the prelude to Theodore Sturgeon's short written 1944 tale referencing an ancient antediluvian war between "another (terrestrial) race, whose nature it is not for (modern) mankind to understand" (a favorite topic of ours) and an extraterrestrial other. The other "was truly alien, a sentient cloud form... spawned in mighty machines by some accident of a science beyond our (modern) aboriginal concept of technology." This alien energy form introduced a weapon technology that turned all of earth's weapon technology against them. Sounds like The Terminator. The 1974 film version alternately alludes introduction of this energy form to an ancient earth meteor strike. That works with us, too. The film also steps the dozer up to a D9 - is a D7 in the book.

Sturgeon served for a time (working as a defense contractor) as a heavy equipment bulldozer operator building pacific island-hopping aircraft runways during World War II. His narrative is infused with quite a bit of technical heavy equipment-type jargon. Most may need to keep a copy of The Standard Handbook of Heavy Construction next to the dictionary and thesaurus throughout the read.

---------------

Quite a few years back and was tasked with visiting a project site somewhere down in the wilds of inland coastal Virginia. A bit off in the sticks. Was sent to spell our regular project engineer who was off for the day. Work involved reconstruction of a small, maybe 20ft height x 200ft length, earthen dam retaining a small lake of maybe 10 acres. The project was near complete. 

Arrived on site and discovered that the entire construction crew for the day consisted of one equipment operator; he himself tasked with resuming construction of the dam earthen embankment. We were there to monitor that the work met contract compliance. After introduction and briefing me on the project specifics, he proceeded to hop in the single front end loader on site, load a few buckets from the soil stockpile to fill the dump bed of the only crawler dump truck on site, jump from the loader to the dump, mob over to the embankment and dump the load of fill dirt, jump from the dump to a Cat D5 dozer (only dozer on site) and spread the load to maybe a six inch lift, jump from the dozer to a lone 25 ton roller compactor, roll/compact the lift, jump from the roller back to the front end loader, and repeat the process. This operation was takin' at least an hour to place maybe 10cy of fill. Between fill lifts I'd conduct a test or two, via a bit antiquated manual weight and volume test method, to verify degree of compaction and to generate some numbers to include in a later field progress report. Alternately, I was settin' under a nearby shade tree tryin' to stay awake.

After about two hours the empty, padded dozer seat was lookin' a bit more comfortable. Minutes in the seat and the operator pulls up alongside with a new load of dirt.

"Hey - you know how to run that thing?"

"Nope - never been on one!"

He spreads the dumper load atop the embankment, jumps from the crawler, races over and hops up onto the left side dozer track. He runs through a quick explanation of the controls.

"Go ahead, fire it up!"

I hit the starter button. The big diesel revs slowly, a few staccato puffs of black smoke from the exhaust stack, and then modulates to a steady idle. You could feel the power of that machine surging right thru your bones. A bit more explanation regarding raising, lowering and angling the heavy blade, and he's back on the ground.

"Go ahead - spread that next lift!"

Took a few forward passes and backdrags to get the blade height (and me) adjusted to spread a workable lift thickness. The operator was off to retrieve another few dumps. He subsequently joins me back on deck and we've angled the blade to shove this load over the face of the embankment. We're movin' along now. We've spread three lifts in maybe a half hour. I've been repeatedly spreadin' and trackin' over 'em between dumps, but they still need goin' over with the compactor. He takes over the drivers seat of the dozer and we're backin' down the 2:1 angled front face of the dam. I get a quick lesson in dressing up the slope and he's off on the compactor. That rollings done and we've since spread 3-4 additional lifts. He's temporarily back at the controls and we're backin' down the rear face of the dam. A 1:1 slope. A bit hairy maneuver to me - felt like the dozer was gonna' roll right over backward. He hung out on deck while I made a few precursive passes over the steeper slope before he rushes back to the roller. Took a bit to remain comfortable trackin' up and down at that angle, but figured that ya' just had to have confidence in the machine. It was fine.

By end of work day we had added a (maybe) additional two feet to the embankment height and did a nice dressing of the face and back slopes. 

"You gonna' be back down here tomorrow?"

"Naa - regular inspector will be back."

"Sh*t - he just sits under the tree or in his car all day. Had to wake 'em up a few times!"

Was probably a month afterward before I quit ponderin' abandoning the regular day job and lookin' into what entry level heavy equipment operator jobs were out there before all that days fun wore off.

Stop-Motion 101

 "The predominance of ideologies in our culture tends to mean that, unless marked
as high art, many avowed non-realistic genres are viewed as frivolously escapist,
as 'mere fantasy,' and thus as suitable only for children or for 'mindless,'
"irresponsible adults."
                                                                                     - Steven Neale, Film Historian

Hey - this guy just wrote our epitaph!

We get quite a few inquiries addressing the stop-motion animation we've posted. Mostly from quite young folks. We've no intention of divulging a few techniques we've adapted that were derived from a bit of frustrating trial-and-error on our part. Techniques that we have yet to note in any of the endless reading and research that we invest into the process. Quite a few we feel to be a bit more simplistic than those of the acknowledged "experts" (who more often than not happen to have a cash interest attached to their expertise). However, it's tough to brush off a ten year old kid seeking a bit of assistance when we can help. If not mindless, we tend to be a bit responsible:

Stuff we've needed:

An (at least basic) understanding of the following ancillary disciplines are suggested:
Photography/filmmaking
Studio lighting
Video editing
Drawing/sketching
Clay sculpture/mold making
Scale model building
Scale model painting including airbrushing and weathering techniques

Can't hurt:
Woodworking
Metalworking
Stone Carving
MIG/Flux core welding

Software:
Photoshop
DragonFrame
Pagemaker

Some crucial materials (we inserted the manufacturer brand for stuff we've been using):
'Monster Maker' brand Monster Clay (medium)
'Sculpy' brand polymer clay
'JXE JXO' brand thermoplastic (beads)
Soft clay
'Monster' Liquid Latex
UltraCal 30 plaster
'Jack Richeson' brand armature wire - 1/16" and 1/8"

Most important, don't forget that ya' gotta' start with a script. Former NYU professor of film Haig Manoogian wouldn't let ya' touch a camera without first handing him a film script.

We started out machining our own armature ball and socket and hinge joints. We later adapted to using aluminum wire armatures. It got to be a chore building a small hex key access into the body of the props at each joint location for periodic re-tightening of the joints which always came loose. Have yet to have a problem with any breaking wires. Besides, we've built quite a few of the mechanical joints should we need them for a more "heavy duty" animation schedule.

We're typically shooting at distances between 1ft to 6ft. Focal lengths between 30mm to 80mm at medium apertures. So Depth of Field (DoF) is always tight. A few near-far focus targets occasionally come in handy. 

Other than creatures, we'll use kits for props if we find 'em. The 1/72 and 1/144 diving bells are built from scratch. The trawler is a scale model kit. 

The Sperm Whale was a hybrid. We cut the head off of a model whale we found on Amazon then added a wired foam and latex body/tail/fins for animating. A side cut drill came in handy for notching 'em a plywood animation track.

We modified this model tank into a Nazi 'Sonic Cannon' for a scene just to use a cool sound effect we found. But wound up not using it. 

This unfinished 'Giganto' was built for a (maybe not) abandoned project.

1/144 scale Nazi Haunebu "flying saucer"

Nazi saucer on an animation track.

A micro-scale saucer emerging from the "ocean".

A 1/350 scale Type VII U-boat for some depth to this shot. We played around with building styrofoam rocks for the shoreline for several days before the lightbulb lit - hey, just go out in the woods and grab a few rocks. We spray painted a bit of "snow" on the peaks then keyed in a background of more rocks.

Same set with a micro-scale U-boat. The very shallow DoF blurred the FG and BG shoreline a bit to make it look a bit more realistic. Generated a bit of a fog effect.

1/72 scale Type VII U-boat on set w/ animation track.

Another miniature built but not used. We were gonna' have the 'Gravity Bell' chain-tethered to this "Fly Trap" structure. It was to then be animated bounding about above the structure, confined to the length of the chains.

Nazi crater base (T) and base landing pad (B).

Sheet plywood Diving Bell interior "port hole" prop under construction. All the hardware we obtained from the local recycling scrap yard - hydraulic gauges and levers salvaged from a scrapped fire truck.

Our ingeniously designed "Shake-R" camera mount.

A saucer on the paint booth turntable.

The mechanical-jointed AI 'Jagganath'. We built one of these then switched to wire for the smaller units. We solved the issue of maintaining loosening joints by just leaving the mechanics exposed. He's a mechanical robot anyway. We camouflaged the exposed hex nuts with some cut aluminum tubing.

The smaller scale, wire armature 'Battle AI's'

Lighting the Battle AI's.

AI "laser test".

The 'Stone Colossus' - wire/foam/latex.

Assorted polymer clay heads sculpted for the Colossus.

Colossus on miniature set.

'Thompson Island' - air dry polymer clay sculpture

The 'Pteranodon' on set.

Wire/foam/latex construction.

The giant 'Brittle Star' snatches the 1/350 scale U-boat. The giant brittle stars of ancient lore were said to be bioluminescent, emitting an "eerie bluish glow". So we painted 'em with neon-glow acrylic blacklight paint, then lit 'em with a spot blacklight.

The effect was excellent. However, after final color balancing and correcting it's not as perceptible in the final mute-balanced print. That "sea floor" is air-dry polymer clay, textured for a sandy bottom.

Preview...

We're takin' a break from the Nazi's temporarily. These are three under construction 'Alien Soldiers' from a new project we're developing. Now back at it after our own summer break.