Christopher Moonlight Productions: Face Off

Monday, February 23, 2015

The Quantum Terror IndieGoGo, The Practical People, and Beyond!!!

So far 2015 has been one of the busiest and more exciting years of my life. As you can see from the above video, I'm in the middle of crowdfunding and producing an independent horror movie called The Quantum Terror. I've also become the host of a new podcast show on Leglesscorpse.com, dedicated to raising awareness of practical effects, which are the in-camera makeups, animatronics, and puppets that bring so much magic to cinema. I call it The Practical People, based on a documentary that I've been working on over the past few years, by the same title. I've also been doing a lot of writing around the internet for Legless Corpse, Movie Pilot, The Austin Film Meet, and of course, my own Moonlight Art Magazine.

The Quantum Terror is going really well. Unlike many crowdfunded films, we're not waiting until the end of our campaign to launch production. We're already drafting our script, building monsters, and casting. If you'd like to follow along with our progress, you can follow along on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Blogspot, and of course by getting our updates when you pledge to our campaign, which you can do by CLICKING HERE. Check out the newest WIP video, which shows our undressed tentacle puppets.

The Practical People had a really strong debut, when my co-host Jack Ritchie (www.darkestjack.com) and I interviewed special effects legend Shannon Shea. We talk about everything from Neill Blomkamp's Alien Movie, to Shannon's work on T2, Jurassic Park, Evil Dead II, Predator, teaching for Cinema Makeup School and his new book I'm Rubber, You're Glue by Shannon Shea. Next episode Matt Winston of the Stan Winston School of Character Arts. CLICK HERE to listen and enjoy.

My writing has been coming along, and I'm pleased to be featured in more and more places on the web. Click on MoviePilot.com and Leglesscorpse.us to see the articles I've written for them, which I'm very proud of, and also check out my first article for Austin Film Meet called 6 Tips For Creating An EPK For Your Film. That was a fun one to write, and I look forward to creating more content for them in the near future.

Is that all. NO! Oh my gosh, no. Within the next few days, I should have information on publicity stunts for The Quantum Terror, which if you're in Austin TX, you can come out and see. I'll also have info on a fundraising event for the film, at the beginning of next month, in Downtown Austin. I'll also be included in some of Out Of Step Books art anthologies, and have been asked to help put together an art book for someone else. I can't say anything more about that one yet. All in good time, and one step at a time. As anyone knows, you can't do all these things at once. In fact, I have a feeling that all of these things will see me strait through, to 2016. Stick with me. It's going to be a hell of a year. Thanks.

~Christopher Moonlight

Friday, January 16, 2015

The Quantum Terror: A Christopher Moonlight Production

A twin sister lost. An underground maze. A nameless insanity from outside of time and space awaits.

It's no secret that I'm very passionate about what I do. Film making has always appealed to me, because it allows me to engage my creativity through writing, drawing, building, and working with other creative minds, as a team. In my quest to pursue projects on micro budgets I have been humbled, but my commitment to finishing them have only strengthened my creativity and problem solving abilities. There for I am happy to announce that my four projects, the all green screen sci-fi short Girl In The Window, my documentary The Practical People, short film My Little Zombie (which I will talk about more, in future posts) and my first feature length horror film as a producer, The Quantum Terror will all see completion of their productions in 2015.

What Is The Quantum Terror?

When I came to Austin, TX in 2012, I was fortunate enough to make some wonderful friends, including director Frank Papa III, special effects artist Jenna Green, and film composer Lauren Morris, and before long I convinced them that they should work with me to produce a work of indie horror, the likes of which no one has ever seen, or dreamed possible on such a micro budget. We tried to run a Kickstarter in the month of December, which was really the wrong time...

...but it was a great way to A) learn that Kickstarter isn't the right platform for us, no matter how near or far from Christmas we try to raise our funds, and B) gain a tremendous amount of enthusiastic and supportive followers who want to see a movie like this made. And why wouldn't they?! We love movies full of strange alien shapes, tentacles, and mind blowing scientific ideas of interdenominational beings so incomprehensible to the human mind, that one would go crazy, just from seeing one. (takes deep breath) It's easy to see that other people love them, too. We also love seeing awesome practical effects, like the ones in John Carpenter's The Thing or James Cameron's Aliens, so when we started doing test videos for our own effects, we and everyone else could see that it could be awesome.

By the way, those creepy sounds were provided by the before mentioned Lauren Morris, who's passion and deep understanding of her craft make it obvious that she's going to be a huge asset in making this movie as spine chilling as it can be.

Of course, these are just some of my own humble effects tests. As a producer, my job is to bring in people who know better than I, and I think I've scored a pretty amazing talent in makeup and creature effects artist Jenna Green, who is responsible for the more impressive effects on the film Army Of Frankensteins. You may also remember her as a contestant on season 4 or the SyFy monster makeup competition show Face Off. Here she is talking about one of the higher end rewards we came up with for our crowdfunding.

We're also courting some amazing actors. I won't mention all of them here, because their availability is going to depend on when we raise enough funds to shoot, but they include the likes of Mike Gassaway (Magic Mike XXL, Dallis, Bad Kids Go To Hell) and Paula Marcenaro Solinger (Blood Sombrero, Salem, Flashes) who was also kind enough to record this video about why she wants to be a part of our movie.

So, what's this film about?

Our story follows a young woman in her early 20's named Sam, who is struggling with all the expectations that she believes she needs to fulfill within the chaos of modern society, and the confusion she feels after having an unexpected romantic relationship with another woman. Things continue to break down, when her twin sister goes missing, and the search for her leads Sam and her former lover into a dark underground labyrinth where a malevolent entity from beyond time and space, dwells.

Wow, right? I could go on, but I've got to get back to work on producing this film. As you can see, we're really passionate about creating something meaningful and unique. We believe that there's plenty of room in life for diversity, and really can't understand why people continue to chase after the same horror movie tropes until they evolve into meta, and the meta burns out. Let's take our love of creatures, practical effects, great acting, and solid storytelling, and show that the spirit of independent film making can bring new and original material to the screen.