Mural planning

For the mural layout I was thinking about last week I'm going to prime the walls and then block them out into framed sections.
Here's the hallway I have in mind. (Please excuse the clothing etc. We're in the process of setting up our "Artful Boutique" store in the gallery.

Once I've cleared the hallway and primed the wall I'll paint on the frames on and then when the whole group gets together we can each play in side the frames.

Kind of like the frames on these Mucha pieces:

Here's my doodle on the thought:

 

This is going to take some time to put together, so I'll start chipping away at it.

Step one. Go buy Kilz paint.

Last winter we had a little water damage becaus eof melting ice dams on the roof, so Kilz will be needed to really prep the wall.

The first "Art and Chill night" (does that work as a name?) will be on December 30th and that will probably be more of a "bring what you're working on and let's be artsy in a group" thing.

Either way. Progress!

Deck the Halls with Booze and Painting

The world is a great big ball o' stress right now.

Holidays, money, no sunlight and cold weather encroaching (for those of us north of the equator that is), and I'm seriously feeling it.

I know my friends and family are too so I've been planning on starting up an informal art night at the MAC650 Gallery in Middletown.  (Still trying to come up with a catchy name, let me know if you think of one.)

And to reeeaally kick it off?

I want to host:

Deck the Halls with Booze and Painting

Hehe. :-)

BYOB/snacks and and folks can join me painting a new mural on the walls in the hallways of NEAC. In the process I can help people learn some scenic painting techniques like, how to best hold your brush so you have great control and your arms don't tire as quickly.

I could even pre-plan the mural so that the various parts of it will need different techniques to be used.

I can teach things like

• how to paint a crisp clean line without painter's tape
• how to do paint wood grain
• how to paint shadows and highlights that really make the image pop.

Those should all probably turn into blog posts one of these days.

So, to prep for this endeavor I need to figure out a few details.

Drink and Mural Materials:

• Paint
• Brushes
• Paper Towels
• Water
• Cups or Buckets
• Drop Cloth
• Rags
• ladder
• step stool
• cardboard

Things to do before the day

• Pick a wall and prime it
• sketch out the groundwork for the mural
• Invite people (lol, that's an easy one for me to forget...)

So now there's the question of, what should the guiding idea for the mural be?

Normally when I attack the hallways with paint, I just kind of doodle on the wall and call it a painting, but it would be nice for this one to have at least a little planning behind it this time.

Hmm... here's my Pintrest board of inspiration:

Follow Jeanette's board Mural Thoughts on Pinterest.

 What do you think? Want to come paint with me?

5 Pro Tips for Choosing the Perfect Watercolor Paper

As black Friday deals swirl around me and all of the possibilities exist for me to buy buy buy. However, there is only one thing I want.

Paper.

I need to restock on watercolor and inking friendly paper and that stuff is expensive!

I'm not above drawing on non-traditional papers. Napkins, sketchbooks with filmsy paper, cardstock, the backs of movie posters (if you ever get the chance to draw with ink on glossy photo paper, do it. That paper soaks it up in such an interesting way.)

But sometimes, you just need decent paper to get your ideas out and have them be *clears throat* presentable. Especially if you are selling the artwork afterwards.

So here are my 5 Tips for choosing your perfect watercolor paper.

1) The Heavier the Weight, the Better the Paper

On the front of a package of paper you'll often find a number like " 60lbs." 

Ideally, for watercolor paper, you want to aim for 140lbs paper.

140lbs and higher can handle multiple washes without buckling.

2) Cold Press vs Hot Press

Either paper option is good for painting on. The difference is, do you want a smooth surface or a textured surface to work on?

When I watercolor I prefer the extra texture of Coldpress paper.

however

When I ink I prefer the smoothness of HotPress paper.

So, do you want clean, smooth, graphic lines in your work? Or a more textured/ grunge look? Up to you.

3) Blocks vs Loose Leaf vs Sketchbook

When you go out to buy water color paper  you'll notice it comes in three main varieties.

1. Blocks
2. Sketchbooks
3. By the Sheet

Each one has it's own benefits, and it really depends on what you prefer, but I'll let you know the main highlights.

Blocks

What are those?

Block watercolor paper is the whole stack sealed together at the edges by wax or plastic.

Benefit

It keeps your painting stretched and ready to work on. It tends to keep really wet paintings from buckling.

This style is my favorite because it is the happy medium between the quality of "by the sheet" paper and the mobility of sketchbooks.

Downside:

You do have to work one sheet at a time for the most part. You have to slice off the top sheet to get to the next one. So if you like to bounce around from project to project, this might not be the best choice for you.

Sketchbooks

Benefit:

If you like to travel a lot while you're creating, this style will protect your work with it's covers. 

Downside:

The quality of the paper tends to not be as great as the blocks or by the sheet.

By the Sheet

Benefit

This come is far bigger sizes than either the blocks or the sketchbooks, so you have the freedom to create something large scale. 

Down side

This tends to be the priciest option

4) Trusted Brands

If you have the opportunity to get your hands on these brands you can trust them. I've used them for years and have always been happy with the quality of paper.

My top choice for quality is always  Arches Watercolor paper.

I have yet to meet a paper better suited to my (often over-saturated with paint and water) style.

However, is it pricey. So I only ever buy it when It's on sale, or I manage to find a coupon.

The brand that Isn't as pricey, but still has great paper is Canson. 

I can't be as violent with my process on their paper, but it does hold up well and I always enjoy working on it. 

5)  Where to find this goodness

There are a few stores that are my go-to for art supplies, but here are my favorites, and you can purchase online if you need to.

1. Jerry's Art-o-Rama
2. Dick Blick Art Supplies
3. AC Moore
4. Micheal's
5. Joann Fabrics and more

-----------

Hopefully you'll find this helpful, and let me know if you have any other tips to add

XOXO

Jeanette

A Shift in Focus

Hello Blogger land.

I haven't had anything to share over here in a looooong time, which mostly has to do with my focus on my Horror Blog. That, and I've been writing my novel (finally!!) and I just haven't been doing anything in the art and design world for a good erm... two years pretty much.

Artist Burnout

Well before my last feature film project I was feeling totally burned out. Exhausted, unhappy, and unhealthy. I loved (and still love) every single person I was working with, but the work itself wasn't satisfying me anymore.

And that was incredibly hard for me to admit. It still is.

I was feeling burned out and I had also been looking at where my life was headed and wasn't entirely happy with the path I was taking. Working 8-10 months out of the year away from friends, family, and any hope of a healthy routine was not something I wanted in the long run.

But it left me with a big ol' question mark, if I'm not doing FILM or THEATER what on earth am I going to do with myself.

So I took a step back. 

Since I've taken a step back from features, I've produced my own web-series, learned how to edit, taken musical theater classes (and freakin' loved them!!), started blogging (like a boss), been doing commissioned artwork, and WRITING.

Writing has been a big deal for me because it was always that one skill I felt I was OK at, but loved doing even though it wasn't as polished as my other skills. This past year in particular I've been giving my literary side a lot more loving.

I've discovered some new things about myself

1. I like working independently on collaborative projects.
2. I need a LOT of variety in my weekly routine to feel satisfied
3. I need a fair amount of face to face time with friends and family
4. I like acting
5. I love singing
6. I love writing, but I'm still terrified of it. lol don't think too much on that one...
7. and drawing is like breathing to me. I can't stop myself from doing that even if I wanted to.

Blogging

I've been learning a ton about blogging, social media and  small businesses. All of these topics I think I'll start sharing here, because I think blogging, in particular, is a very powerful tool for artists of any type to get your name out there.

In light of everything happening in the world right now I've also come to the conclusion that

Art is important

Art, is the one thing I have to offer the world that I think truly adds to it in a positive way.

I want to teach. I want to help. I want to create something that will positively impact the little chunk of tumultuous world I live in and try to help us all heal just a little from the pain we are absorbing as War inches closer and closer to us.

Because art may be one of the few things that can help us cope with what's going on. And I for one need it.

So now that I have a better grasp on what the blog is going to be talking about, beyond film-making, I'll posting one post every Friday from now on. It may be a lot of brainstorming to start, but once things get rolling you'll start to see more about the following things:

• The art community in CT/ New England
• Musician and Artist spotlights
• designing classes and courses for the arts
• personal art projects in progress, sculptures and the like
• how to promote your work through social media
• tools for advertising events
• how to get work as an illustrator
• how to step up a portfolio blog
• how to use social media like a pro - and not annoy the heck out of everyone

among many other thoughts.

Going Forward

As I spend some more time on my thoughts here, I'll start sprucing up the site, reorganizing and bringing this site up to par with what I've been doing over on HorrorMade.com. I may even switch this over to wordpress so I can have some more control over the design etc. But that's an issue for a later time.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey, and I hope I can bring you some valuable insights into how to approach the world of art, and perhaps together, we'll figure out how to make a proper living off of it.

~XOXO

Jeanette

Drool worthy production design

I recently reviewed "Bathory: Countess of Blood" over on my web-channel, Haunting TV, and I enjoyed the production design of the film so much I just wanted to bring some of my thoughts over to you guys here.

First off, if you have never seen "Bathory" here's my review:

Now for the fun stuff,a slew of screen caps and my random thoughts about the film's design for you to enjoy:

The Costume design in this movie was stunning. And the cinematographer's use of lighting and framing to make shots feel like 17th century oil paintings was stunning.

Also, The props department really had their work cut out for them. I mean, just look at this painting! I wonder if they photo-shopped it and then had it printed out on canvas or if they actually hired someone to paint this. I can't imagine someone painting multiples of these though- since this painting goes through a lot in the course of the film which meant they would have needed quite a few duplicates.

And then there were the incredibly iconic wigs. The wool wigs really added a fantastical flare to the style of the characters in this film. I kept finding myself going- how on earth do you make human hair do that?! The answer is, you don't. You make animal hair to it.

Now, let's just admire this carriage and the horses tackle set for a moment. Yep. Pretty well crafted props-work, yet again.

According to the information I've been able to find, the movie was filmed in Slovakia. But you're welcome to correct me if I'm wrong. I do think, wherever they found their locations, they made incredibly good use of them. And really paid attention to hiding modern details.

Look at that chair! Look at the witch's wig! There are so many great combinations of textures and details in the movie. It made for a very rich viewing experience.

This hat. This hat was the painter's solution to painting in the darkness of the cave, and I thought that was such a cool concept. I wonder how worried that actor was about his head catching on fire during filming though...

This was one of very few sets that really felt like a constructed room, or one that was created specifically for the film. But they did such a good job with the construction of it that the only reason I think it might be constructed is because of how free the angles and camera movement were within the room. The camera's movement sort of hinted at walls being moved around... but without asking questions of people who specifically on the film, I can only guess. But I digress. What I did want to point out was how well composed this set it. You have the red of the drying clothing adding life to the edges of the frame and complimenting the blood red water of the Countess's bath, with enough visible light sources to trick the eye into thinking the lighting feels natural.

This movie was such a spectacular looking one, and I'll probably return to it again in the future when I am in need of some production design inspiration.

***************

If you're interested in seeing more image collections like this, I post a ton a research for projects and reviews over on my Pintrest board.

How to Batch process photos in photoshop

I have wasted so many hours in my life doing redundant processes to massive groups of photos in photoshop. No longer!!! Photoshop does this thing where you can batch process entire folders of images in one go- with very little effort from it's human counterpart. I realize this isn't exactly news to the tech savy, but in case you are computer challenged [like me] I bring you the beauty that is batch processing.

Step 1: Create an Action in Photoshop. 

I found this TUTORIAL on About.com to be incredibly clear and helpful. Here's the transcript from their video: (But I do recommend following along with the video.)

"Use the Actions Window in Photoshop

The first step to using actions in Photoshop is to make sure you have the Actions window open, so go up here to Window. Then choose the Action option. Now that you have your list of Actions open we can start. In this example, I want to make an action that resizes my photo by 50 percent and desaturates it but you can make an action out of almost any process you use in Photoshop.

Record the Action for Repetitive Photoshop Edits

First, I’ll press the New Action button right here. I’ll give it a descriptive name like “Half Size / Desaturate” and press record. Now, Photoshop is watching everything that I do - THIS is how you create actions. Now, I’ll reduce the size by 50% and now I’ll desaturate. Done! As you can see, Photoshop took note of everything I did. Then press stop and I have a new action. Now, I can go to this other image - press the Play button while my action is selected and the process is repeated. Be sure to play with actions to make working with a lot of photos and processes easier!"

Step 2: Batch Process Those Bad-Boys

Follow  this TUTORIAL I found on dummies.com about how to batch process. Here are the slimmed down bullet points from their site: (For a more though break down pop on over there.)

1. Make sure that all the files are in a single folder of their own. Because the subfolders will be included in the process.
2. Click on File pick Automate from the drop-down menu and then select Batch.
3. This opens the Batch dialog box.
4. Select the set that contains the action you want to apply.
5. In the Action pop-up menu, select the action that you want to apply.
6. In the Source pop-up menu, select Folder.
7. Click the Choose button, navigate to the folder that you want to use, and click OK (in Windows) or Choose (in Mac OS).
8. In the Destination area, tell Photoshop what to do with each file after the action has been applied to it.
9. Choose one from the drop-down menu.
10. Specify how you want Photoshop to create the filenames for the new, processed files by selecting options from the drop-down menus.
11. In the Errors pop-up menu, select whether you want Photoshop to stop processing a batch when it encounters an error or whether you want it to simply continue and list the errors in a file. If you select the latter option, click the Save As button and, in the Save dialog box, specify a name and location for the log.
12. When you finish selecting options in the Batch dialog box, click OK to start the batch processing.

Step 3: Sit Back and Relax while Photoshop Takes Care of The Rest.

How to paint slush cast latex

I have a stack of prosthetic pieces now waiting for me to bring them to life with paint but I've never actually worked with slush cast latex before... So, research time!!

*insert clicky clack noises and inspirational research music here* 

*ding!*

Pax Paint

translucent setting powder

Apparently the best way to paint slush cast latex is with pax paint. But the paint will stay tacky/sticky afterwards, so you have to make sure you set it with translucent powder after you're done. I found FX Warehouse to have the paint I'm looking for in stock, and the translucent powder you can get at pretty much any  make-up store. I'll probably hit up Ultra for mine. Oh, and "setting with powder" simply means to poof some powder on top of the paint job.




Ok great, now we know what we need, but how do we use it? That's where good old YouTube comes in. Here are the most informative videos I was able to find on the subject:

Now if I were cool I would own an airbrush machine and compressor, but I'm not. So I'll have to do this the good old fashioned way... with paint brushes.

There was a really cool tutorial that I may try, since it uses latex and acrylic paints instead of pax paint. I love cheaper options!

I hope you guys found this information as useful as I did, but if you happen to know of some more informative resources, please let me know! I'll add people's suggestions to the post.

Interviews and Adventures

Hi Friends!

This month has been awesome so far. Aside from the cold that made me miss writing Tuesday's post. *sniffle* There is so many exciting things going on. For one, the Women in Horror Month Festivities are going really well, 

This Monday I posted my newest interview for my Horror and Her Makers series. This week was an interview with Jackie Zbuska, special effects artist. Here's her reel, if you're interested. (Warning! some graphic content is in this video- because she does specialize in gore.)

If you'd like to read her interview you can find it by clicking over HERE

Over on Haunting TV my newest spaz-tastic reviews are up for the graphic novel Y: The Last Man along with the tour of Savannah Comics- from my recent visit to Georgia.

Here's the review:

And Here's the comic book shop tour:

Yesterday the Haunting TV micro crew (Alexander) and I wandered off into the frozen graveyards of Waterbury to get some handheld B-roll for our dark poetry video this Saturday. Beneath the shadows cast by of the glow of the giant LED cross of Holy Land USA we filmed some really fun shots with our infrared lens filter. We're going to be part of the Bloody Valentine Horror Hop 2015 so Alexander is whipping up something extra morbid for the festivities.

And so, there's you weekly round up of what the heck I've been up to. 

Women in Horror Month

Hello readers!

February is Women in Horror Month and I'm doing a bunch of things that you may find interesting.

Yesterday I posted an interview with director Emily Hagins on www.horrormade.blogspot.com . Emily and I, as you may know, worked together waaay back on "5 Senses of Fear." Here's a link to my post about that project: Horror Movie Renderings. Lol, at the time I had to be super vague because features don't tend to share a lot while they're in production. But I can share all sorts of things with you about it now.

It was so much fun to work on this project. Every week I got to work with a new director on a new story with one of my favorite film crews in the world - Synthetic Cinema International. For Emily's segment we took over some abandoned buildings in an old campground in Moodus CT. It was such a great location, and I certainly did my share of urban spelunking while I was there-- in the name of finding set dressing of course. ;-) We made road spikes out of plastic chunks and strips of wood, had quite the adventure with cataract contact lens that made the child actor pretty much actually blind while wearing them, and we had some uncomfortably cold days of exterior shooting. Thanks New England weather! But it was fun, especially when I got to smash in a few windows on the van for the car crash. Wrecking cars really never gets old to me. My interview with her is the first in a four part series where I ask some of my favorite horror-movie making co-workers about their experiences in the industry.I'll make sure to post the links to those here so you can check them out as the month progresses.

 I also posted the first youtube video for the month's festivities. This week is my review of 'Struck' by Clarissa Johal. Here it is for you to check out:

 And really, feel free to make fun of me. I'm still figuring out how to not be a total spaz on camera. Who knew I'd be doing so much acting?

The Babadook: Crafting it's Reality Through Psychology

I love watching movies with good production design. Not just the ones that fill the world on screen with interesting things and visually stimulating sets. I love to see ones that fill the world with visual subtext and say something deeper about the story. I often feel like that extra layer of depth is left out of people's work, even my own. Especially in indie film, it can be hard to add the details that create that additional layer of character to a space when you have no time and no budget to spare beyond the necessities. So whenever I find a project that actually does it well, I get incredibly excited. I watched the horror movie The Babadook recently and I enjoyed the heck out of it. It was scary, yes, and had some beautiful cinematography, and great performances, but I couldn't stop geeking out over the production design on this movie. If you want a good chuckle you can pop over to my youtube channel to hear my overly-excited review about it:

www.youtube.com/hauntingtelevision

The Babadook is a movie about a single mother who is struggling to take care of her son after the death of her husband. One night her son finds a mysterious and disturbing book about the Babadook and frightening things begin to occur in their lives. The Babdook is an Australian horror movie directed by Jennifer Kent released in 2014 and it created quite the hubub around the horror community. Everything about this film was masterfully done. The direction was spot-on. The score was beautifully woven into the film. And there were some powerful performances that were Oscar-worthy by Elsie Davis, who played the mother Amelia. This movie felt like you were finally seeing something fresh and yet instantly classic from the horror genre. So if you haven't seen it yet. please do. And then come right on back so you can join the conversation about the equally spectacular production design.

**** Spoiler Alert*****

I'm talking specific details here which will absolutely give away too much in the pursuit of scholarly analysis. So if you want to avoid me giving things away, come back after you have watched the movie please.

***Spoiler Alert***

Here, I would like to discuss a little bit further about how well Alex Holmes, the production designer, succeeded in capturing and enhancing the subtext of the film. As I mention in my review, the mother character, Amelia, is suffering from depression after her husband passed away in a car accident the day of her son's birth. And her depression has prevented her from connecting to her son emotionally. The state of being has also crippled her in her day to day life and you can see evidence of that all around her. Her hair is a frizzy unkempt mess, her kitchen always has dishes and food left out on the counter and all of the loving details are missing from her home. 

What do I mean by the loving details? I mean there are no pictures in her room, hardly any knickknacks in the main rooms and so few personal effects in the space she inhabits. It's physically showing how absent she is in her existence. She's there, but she isn't invested or interested in her world. This point is made even stronger when you find out that all of  the things connecting to her late husband have been locked up in the basement. And the only time she reaches out it is to her late husband's violin.

Her depression is made to feel inescapable to the audience and it's conveyed through the masterfully crafted color palette. The rich blues of her home make the darkest moments of this movie seem like Amelia and her son are drowning in this nightmarish dream-reality. The color design ties right into the lead characters as well. The son, Samuel, is dressed in the same grey and blue tones as the house. Which, if viewed through Amelia's eyes it shows that she can barely see him as a person, and instead he kind of fades into the scenery of the world around her. The appearance of the Babadook book marks very clearly in it's garish red hue the moment that their world begins to change. It's the only thing in the entire movie that is so saturated and strong in it's color tone. It practically screams, "Danger!" "Don't touch it!"

This is where the psychology of the production design goes one step beyond mirroring Amelia's mental existence and gets into manipulating the audience's emotions. The blues, grays, and blacks in the house are so oppressive that the audience is drawn into the same mindset of the exhausted Amelia.  And as the lighting in the house gets darker, the moments of set dressing brilliance start to play with the viewer. Because the tension builds for so long, you get to the point where you start expecting the Babadook to start popping out all over the place. Instead there are all of these human shaped blobs of darkness strategically placed all over the house to get your heart pumping. It starts with the clothing pinned up on the wall in the basement, which is an intentional jump scare. But the technique continues. In the kid's bedroom, his wardrobe gapes open revealing a terrifying void. In her bedroom, the mirror keeps revealing movement that draws your eye to the shadows surrounding them and not to mention that disconcerting dress form in the corner of her bedroom. I kept expecting them to replace it with the Babadook every time they cut back in that direction. It was a really great choice to make, because it gets the viewer watching the edges of the frame for the Babadook well before the creature makes a proper appearance.

I would love to see more films that take the time to really flesh out the environments in a more emotional way and I'm certainly going to be keeping these thoughts in mind for my next project.

Learning to After Effects like a boss

My artwork from The Spider's Nest featuring the novel Pandora

I've been working like crazy to get the artwork done for the next episode of "The Spider's Nest" done, but all I can keep thinking about is how much cooler everything would be if it were even lightly animated. You know, motion comic style.

Zac Gorman’s Legendary ‘Zelda’ Comics Get Their Animated GIF

Because up until now I've always had to shop out any animating needed for the web-series and channel. But I keep hearing that after effects and photoshop aren't so different. So I've been hunting around for some tutorials on how to start using the program and I 'm posting my favorite ones here so I can reference them later. And hey, maybe we can become baller after effects artists together. Why not?

Also I found this really cool site that I'm posting here to return to once I've got my sea legs. Because I want to be able to do the things this guys does someday.

http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/

HowTo: Fake Drugs On Screen

My fellow designer and friend Mary Paul sent me a link to this incredible article about what stand in products props masters use when drugs are taken on screen. I've pulled the basic info out into a neat and tidy list for future reference, but here is the link to the original article:

http://nypost.com/2013/10/23/what-actors-really-snort-shoot-and-smoke-on-set/

Cocaine 
Sitting on a table or in lines:
Corn starch and baby powder

Snorted:
Powdered Lactose or Vitamin B powder

Protect the Actor's nasal cavities from multiple takes:
Coat the inside of the straw with Vaseline, so most of the powder gets caught before it gets inhaled

Heroine

Powdered:

The same recipe for faux-caine will work

Boiled:

Sugar and baking soda,

or Bouillon 

or Gelatin

Retracting Needle or Stunt Needle

Rent or Purchase:

http://www.thespecialistsltd.com/stunt-kit-retractable-hypodermic-needle - I've used their kit before and it worked spectacularly - I highly reccomend this if you have the budget for it

http://www.newrulefx.com/products/retractable-syringe-needle - I haven't tried their needle specifically, but I have purchased other stunt props from them in the past and I am always pleased with the quality of their products and their customer service.

Marijuana

Entirely fake:

Oregano

THC free, but otherwise, the real thing:

Buy the real thing without getting the actors high with product bought on legalbuds.com. 

Dress that Bong:

Add coca-cola to the water to dirty it up, add crushed cigarette flakes to float in top.

Ecstasy

Purchase: 

Apparently you can buy stamped sugar pills from a prop house, but I have yet to find the prop house. I'll update this post once I figure it out. Otherwise people recommend Altoids or some other candy with food coloring stamped on it.

Crack Rocks

Not to ingest:

Krazy glue dropped into a pile of baking soda

Magic Mushrooms

Safe to ingest:

Purchase some freeze dried mushrooms from your local asian market

Happy propping everyone!

  

Long time no see

Hello Artful Pursuiters!

Sorry for the hiatus, I've been mildly obsessed with my horror themed blog lately - horrormade.blogspot.com - But now that 2015 has arrived I'm back into the land of writing here as well. I'm aiming to have a new post up every week. I haven't decided which day yet, but I'll keep you in the loop.

For this upcoming year I plan to use this blog to post even more about the how-tos of the filming world, but I am going to start branching out a teensy bit from the holy house of art department and allow a few more aspects of my film-making interests into the mix. More about photography, editing, and sound design for starters. But the production design, and explorations into digital design will continue as well. My work-life in the non-digital world has become a little more diverse lately because Alexander and I have fully embarked on creating our own production company, and finally launched our Haunting TV YouTube channel and all-original web-series.

It's been a ton of fun so far, doing reviews, covering concerts, and I'm especially proud of my book excerpt and author spotlight show The Spider's Nest. So now that I'm apparently morphing into the skin of a producer my interests have started to grow even more.

So, stay tuned to hear more about my adventures in the land of  YouTube and entrepreneurship. :-)