Blackwell gave us the footage for episode nine, filmed entirely with green screen background. David chose to do physical models for these shots instead of digital. I was in charge of making the models, while David was responsible for prop designs and postproduction effects.

Our assignment was to create a columned great hall similar to one in Star Wars and a large impenetrable door. We had a few recyclables to choose from so David decided that Gatorade bottles might work.

While he got busy designing the concepts for the door, I began cutting the bottles to form the base of the columns. We were going to use 2” PVC pipe and caps for the columns from Home Depot. I figured we were only going to use the top part of the bottle until I tore the labels off and discovered a more interesting top for the column.

After cutting and painting the various parts of the Gatorade bottles, they looked like this:

The door was constructed of mainly foam core, matte board, balsa wood strips, and various parts from a plastic model tank kit placed on quarter-inch masonite for strength. It had three height layers for dimension and the appearance of sliding open.

Once the door was painted, it was photographed for postproduction.

All the parts to the hallway were now finished and needed to be assembled.

David wanted to do that on top of a table so he could get the proper angles for the shoot. I was a little nervous for fear that we would accidentally knock one or more of the columns off the table. The columns looked good, but they were quite fragile and barely put together with super glue. We carefully spaced each column in two rows and hot glued a 1″x3″ board with decorative trim across the tops…so far, so good. Next, we placed the ceiling arches and hot glued them. Once we did that, we felt fairly safe that the whole thing wasn’t going to fall.

Several sheets of poster board were layered across the arches to enclose the ceiling. More foam core was painted and added behind the columns as walls. A 2’x8’sheet of Masonite was placed for the end of the hallway. Now were ready to set up the lighting for the hallway shots.

After weeks of running around in the Arizona heat for supplies, much hard work, and a few other minor setbacks, we finally got the shots we needed (at least David thought so). Now it was time to carefully deconstruct our model to be used possibly in the future for another project. Unfortunately, sometimes your greatest fears come true. As David was removing the arches, he hooked one up on the column bridge. The whole thing fell! Oh well, easy come… easy go!

Episode nine of Voyage Trekkers with hours and hours of David’s postproduction work will be up beginning September 12. We invite you to come see our efforts at: http://www.squishystudios.com/voyage-trekkers-web-series/

Three days before the shoot, I was sent on location to view our prospective time machine. A grimy, un-restored Austin Healey Sprite needed to be rolled out of the garage, hosed off, and cleaned out before we could even begin to figure out what we were going to do with it.

After clean-up, the ideas began to flow…

David had a lot of ideas, but since we had a limited budget, whatever we could recycle was what we used. As with the death ray, we scavenged the trash bin for parts looking for interesting shapes and sizes. Small plastic bowls were sprayed with glass frost paint (a tip from my son, Todd) to cover holes in the dashboard. Lights were then hidden behind the dash.

I was busy covering the bare console with fun foam and distressing any “metal” pieces to look old. Sitting on hard concrete and bending over for hours can kill your back. OMG! I just had to rest for a minute! The pipes were now ready and glued in with hot glue making everything easily removable later.

Quarter-inch foam core board was painted and added to the roll bar along with anything else we could find that looked interesting. A spiral disc attached to an invisible hand crank gave the appearance when it turned that the car was going back in time.

David wanted to keep the continuity between the death ray and the time machine by creating parts to be swapped out. The night before the shoot, David and his son, Nathan, created a generator looking piece complete with lighting to fill the empty passenger side of the car. The duel canisters from the death ray would be placed on top of this when the scenes using the ray gun were completed. Unfortunately, the shooting schedule was such that these were never used in the actual scenes of the time machine.

The web series “Normally This Weird” is scheduled to resume airing in October. It will be exciting to see how Nathan Blackwell creates his magic on these shots. Until then, the first two episodes are up at http://www.normallythisweird.com/

I wanted to share my story opening because this begins a book I will hopefully write;  it has been about three years in the preparation.

The Mushroom Tree

Zachariah stomped out of the house slamming the back door. He headed for the forest grove; his refuge and the only place he felt comfortable in this rural heartland. So many thoughts rumbled around inside his head about leaving the only friends he knew and moving from Arizona to this small Midwest community. I don’t want to live in this hick town. Why did Mom have to be the one to take care of sick old Aunt Elizabeth? When are we gonna go back home to Phoenix?

A firefly flitted over the small creek as Zachariah crossed the stone bridge and moved closer to the woodlands. A tiny glow reflected above the clear water as the firefly switched on its lamp for the coming sunset. These mystical insects reminded Zach of fairies, but at eleven, he didn’t believe in such things.

“I won’t go near the mushroom tree,” Zachariah mumbled to himself. He had sensed strange things around it that made the hair prickle on his arms and his stomach leap. The tree bark was peeled away, exposing the inner guts all sticky and oozing. Large mushrooms grew like awnings over chipped out woodpecker holes. Once he thought he saw something move out of the corner of his eye… no, he would not go that far as it would soon be dark.

As Zach walked farther away from the clearing, a clammy mist enveloped him. The unnatural fog seemed to have come out of nowhere, aromatic of almond butter snickerdoodles, leading him deeper through the thicket. He could barely see the winding path; the leaves crunched beneath his feet as he traveled. Calmness came over Zachariah as he felt himself disappear into the scenery. That’s how he felt most of the time…invisible.

It’s All an Illusion

      Thick, dark, red blood oozed from the victim’s neck trickling onto the floor.  The pungent odor of a fresh kill wafted in the air.  “I knew it was a mistake the moment it was over,” the special effects technician quietly said as he cleaned up his wares.  I’ll show my Dad.  He never thought I would amount to anything, Jason mused.  This gig could possibly net him an Academy Award or, at the very least, lots of money.

     Just that morning, Jason and his dad discussed the freelance jobs that paid little or no money.  “You need to get a real job that pays actual cash,” said his dad.  “How are you ever going to pay your bills?  You’ve played around too long.  I can’t just let you keep living here for nothing.”  On and on, it seemed like he would just never stop, Jason’s mind kept telling him.

     Jason picked up the jagged, glistening chard of glass next to the body.  These effects props are made to look so realistic these days.  The sound stage was dark except for a filtered light streaming through a crack in the door.  Everyone had gone home for the night.  Making zombie movies and hanging around on a movie set was the best job in the world; lots of parties, booze, drugs, women, you name it.  As long as he had somewhere to crash free, he could do this until he hit the big time.

     Voices from the overnight cleanup crew penetrated the door from the outside air.  “I’ll just be a minute longer!”  Jason called out as he quickly stuffed the body next to some damp rags behind the artificial landscape trees.  He could still hear his dad’s voice in his head, Jason when are you ever going to become a responsible adult?

      “I’ve done a lot of the work around the house you wanted me to do!”  Jason yelled back at the ceiling.  “Why does it never seem to be enough?  For God’s sake, I spent all day yesterday sorting through mounds of garbage papers in the file drawers.”  Instantly, everything became quiet.  For a second he realized the night crew might have heard him.  He cleaned up quickly and looked for another exit.

     As the stage crew entered the side door, Jason slipped out the back.  His hands began to shake slightly as he reached in and pulled the folded papers from his pant’s pocket.  Again he thought about what he had done, a mistake, well maybe not.  Finding this gem was going to make the act worth it.  Luring his dad to the lot today was difficult, but necessary.  Jason lit a cigarette to calm his nerves.  There was no way he was going to let his dad cancel this life insurance policy.  I could hide out for some time on six hundred thousand dollars; maybe even begin a career in Europe.  It would be years before the authorities would catch up to me, he thought as he opened the back door and flicked in the match.

Yesterday was my day for errands.  Although it is September, here in Glendale the temperatures are still hovering around 104 degrees. A couple of everyday practices, such as keeping the blinds closed to keep the house cooler and getting out early before it got too hot, collided with my intended fashion sense. Having used the headboard lamp in order to see the grocery ads in my bedroom, I was temporarily blinded when I flipped the light off and grabbed my shoes. I wandered the house for a few minutes while I gathered up my essentials for my outing and headed out the door. 

I had to make a couple of quick stops, so I decided to have my prescriptions filled at the local pharmacy first. The drug store was busier than I had normally encountered it because it was now lunchtime. After turning my prescription over to the pharmacy technician, I decided to cruise the store and price some items.  Eventually I wandered my way out to my car and drove to the next stop.  As I was leaving, I noticed a young man looking at me with a slight smile on his face.

The bank inside the local grocery store was where I was going next.  As I was hopping out of the car, a flash of color caught my eye.  I looked down to notice that I was wearing one each of the same shoe in different colors.  I was horrified that I was in a public place and people could see my mistake.  What would people think? That I am an idiot, someone eccentric trying to make a fashion statement or a person who really doesn’t care what she looks like?  My first thought was that maybe I should hurry home and change into the correct shoes.  I decided to abandon my ego and just laugh at my error whether anyone noticed me or not.

The bank teller was alone so when I approached her, I mentioned how I was laughing at myself because I had left the house with two different shoes on.  I tried to explain that my bedroom was dark and I hadn’t noticed the difference in colors.  She laughed and tried to be sympathetic by asking, “One blue and one black?”

My response was “Not even close, one black one red.”

What a humbling experience this was.

My mother also loved roses and birds.  She must have planted more than thirty roses of all different hues and fragrances around the perimeter of our home.  The smell of roses in the air would almost knock you over on a lovely spring morning.  In a way, the rose, could actually be an analogy for my mother.  She could be very beautiful and engaging on the outside, but she definitely had her thorny side. I think she loved birds because they were free to spread their wings and she always felt tied to her responsibilities.

In June of 2002, Mom became ill at the nursing facility where she was being rehabilitated from a recent hospital stay.  They rushed her to emergency at the nearby hospital.  When I got there she was being her worst prickly self, acting rudely to the hospital staff as well as to my sister and me.  I decided to give her some space and let her cool down before I went back to visit her the next day.  I didn’t even know what room they had put her in, so I had to call the hospital to find her.  After seeing the condition she was in, I felt really bad that I had not come sooner.  I spent the next two days over the weekend by her side in her room because the nurses seemed to have abandoned her.  By Monday, she was being quarantined and her vital signs were slipping.  After the last three years on and off in several different hospitals when I didn’t think she would survive, this was the one time I thought that she would be back in the nursing home recuperating.  It had been a painful journey for both of us and now it looked like it was coming to an end.  The nurse suggested I find a hospice to help ease my mother’s last hours in a more pain-free state.  I opted for the one within the hospital to cut down on moving her too much as she was in extreme pain.  With my husband at my side, we walked by my mother as they wheeled her bed downstairs to the last room she would ever see.  The birds outside the windows were singing especially loud and I watched Mom try to turn her head to see them. As we entered the hospice, the nurse informed us that Mom’s room was ready. My husband and I looked at each other and smiled.  Somehow my mother had intuitively known that the last day of her life would be spent in room number “five” also known as the “rose” room at 5555 W. Thunderbird Road.

Two days later, I noticed a couple of my indoor cats hovering around the back end of the arcadia door. I shooed the cats away to see about ten flies flitting around on the inside of the glass door.  I grabbed the can of insect spray and blasted them.  The cats had now found something else to grab their attention in the nearby window.  As I pulled the blinds away, there were several more flies.  What is going on here?  Where are all these flies coming from?  There were lots of flies outside, but how are they getting into the house?  With this many flies in the house, I would think I would have seen one buzz by me.

When my son, Todd, came home later that day, I told him the creepy story of the flies before I went to lie down.  My head never hit the pillow when I heard, “Hey Mom, come here and see this!” As I rounded the corner, I could see my son over by the arcadia door.  I couldn’t believe my eyes!  There were about twenty more flies crawling on the glass.  As the last fly succumbed to the insect spray, I cautiously moved towards the living room window.  The wooden shutters were closed with a couple of slats open.  A scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds crept into my mind as I slowly opened the shutters.  I slammed the shutters closed and ran for the bug spray.  When the toxic fumes cleared, I had annihilated over thirty flies just in the living room.  We estimated the body count was somewhere around sixty plus altogether.

So are flies lucky?  Well obviously not for them, but the next day I received the papers in the mail telling me the loan that I had tried for over fours years to refinance was now paid in full.  Somehow through all the goofs and delays, I managed a five percent interest rate.  My monthly mortgage payment has almost been cut in half.  Along with the papers was a big check I wasn’t expecting.  A week later, I got another big check from the escrow account.  Where did all the flies come from?  We never found out and they never came back.  Be careful when you ask God for a sign, you just might get one (or sixty).

In September 1977, there was a book published called “The Amityville Horror.” I wanted to read this book, but with daily care of a young child, that seemed impossible so I passed on buying it. By 1981, my oldest son was two years old and I was pregnant with the second one. I found myself often tired and not wanting to get out of bed much, but it was around the holidays so I eventually needed to go shopping for Christmas items.  It was now a couple of years since the book was published in paperback and it was no longer prevalent on the store shelves, so I had quite forgotten about it. As I was standing in line at the cash register, I caught a glimpse of the book on a bottom shelf and decided to buy it.

George and Kathy Lutz moved into the house in Amityville on December 23, 1975.  This was close to the time I had actually bought the book…just a coincidence perhaps.

With my son playing quietly beside me in the bed, I was able to find some time to read.  As I was making my way through the chapters, I thought about the unusual stuff that had happened to us in our own house.  I kept thinking that if this Amityville story was true, then these people went through some weird experiences. One chapter talked about the house being plagued by flies despite the winter weather; another, about the Lutz’s five year old daughter who developed an imaginary friend, a demonic pig-like creature with glowing red eyes; and then, the priest who blessed the house would run a high fever whenever he would think about the house.

Naturally, these incidences made for an interesting story, but they didn’t really make an impression on me until the crisp December morning when I walked into my kitchen and found dozens of flies congregating on the inside patio doors.  It freaked me out to say the least as I managed to swat to death the last fly, only to come back an hour later to more flies.  A week or so later, my two year old told me he saw a pig looking in his bedroom window. I never talked about this book to my young son.  By now, all I could think about were the strange demonic happenings in the Amityville house.  I began to run a fever and got very sick with flu-like symptoms.  This lasted about 24 hours and no one else in the house got sick.  I wasn’t sure at this point whether I wanted to finish reading the book, but continued on.

One of the last lines of the book read, “On January 14, 1976 George and Kathy Lutz, with their three children and their dog Harry, left 112 Ocean Avenue leaving most of their possessions behind.” As I closed the book, I realized that the day’s date was January 14, 1982.

Ghost in NH cemetary?

I told Todd it kind of reminded me of when people see the Virgin Mary in a tortilla or just recently a couple claimed that one of their Cheetos looked like Jesus. These people named their new found prize “Cheesus.” Todd huffed and thought that sounded disrespectful to our savior.  I was surprised, yet kind of proud of my son’s reaction only because he never had any real formal religious upbringing and I didn’t know if he felt the deep reverence Christians have for Jesus.  Somehow, I had instilled this in him without really trying.  As I was patting myself on the back, Todd came back in the room and said, “Well at least they didn’t call it  “‘Jeeto’!”

James Marion Winter was in the Army during World War II and the Korean War.  The only stories I have of him were through my mother and I’m sure her memories became sweeter with time, painting him bigger than life for me. I know he was a captain and at one point used to run cable lines ahead of the troops for communication purposes.  There was a time during WWII that he was doing his job high above the ground when a mortar shell exploded nearby knocking him down.  He managed to live through that but sustained injuries from vertebrate crammed into his brain.  He either had a benign tumor already or developed one from his injuries.  He lived for years until the headaches became so severe that doctors at Fort Simmons Army Hospital in Colorado decided to operate.  Unfortunately, the doctors in 1953 did not have the skills and resources for delicate brain surgery like they do today.  My mother was nearly nine months pregnant with me and had an eighteen month old child back in Arizona.  It did not surprise me that she wanted to keep his memory alive as her knight in shining armor.

I had no real emotional connection with my Dad until Saving Private Ryan came out.  The opening scene took place at a military cemetery.  My thoughts were flooded by a similar memory of my sister and I in our twenties roaming the cemetery in Denver looking for my Dad’s grave.  From that moment in the movie, I began to cry.  Tom Hank’s character became the image of my Dad and the tears were non-stop as I held my son, Shaun’s hand, through the entire movie.  I found the emotional connection with my Dad that day as I literally sobbed for another two hours when I got home.  I have never been able to see Saving Private Ryan again.

The horrors of war take a toll on everyone.  Please be grateful for all of the men and women who serve this country so we can live the lives we have.  Savor your memories of those who have fallen and never forget that they did this out of love for this country and their families.