Edward Martin III is a writer and filmmaker scrabbling together a semblance of home in the Pacific Northwest. He’s responsible for four feature films, 40 or so short films, and seven different web series, totaling around 300 episodes. He’s also published two novels, and several other books. He’s surrounded by looming evergreens with sullen boughs, mountains that ponder the nature of death, and a relentless sea that dissolves everything it touches. Also, there are two cats. Big cats.

Edward’s books and films are available via HellbenderMedia.com. Finally, you should probably get some rest.

• Films
  • The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
  • Flesh of my Flesh
  • The Dead
  • Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (web series)
  • Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse for Zombies (web series)
  • The Creative Draw (web series)
• Books
  • The Blood-Red Night of Hatchet Valley
  • The Violet Furnace
  • Terror Stories from the Territories
  • Tales from the Blinkspace
  • Tooth, Claw, and Heart
  • Fully Functional

Ryan K. Johnson is an independent cameraman and editor living in Seattle.

He has produced two dozen shorts, ranging from parodies to thrillers. He has shot every Let’s Make A Movie workshop since 2000, as well as three feature-length films.

His work has been shown on the BBC, TLC, and at the Seattle International Film Festival. Lately he has been digitally remastering his 16mm films from the 1980s in high definition. He is married to Kate Waterous.

Brian Oberquell is a SPFX Technician/Pyrotechnician who works with, and is certified to teach courses for, SPFX Pyrotechnics and Display Fireworks (and as far as he knows, he’s the only instructor who has taught and certified a blind pyrotechnician).

His pyrotechnic credits include 23 years of experience in setting up world-class pyro-musical firework displays as well as working with Rammstein, KISS, Motley Crue, and the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience.

His SPFX screen projects include RIVERDALE, LOST IN SPACE, HENRY DANGER: THE MOVIE, HAPPY FACE, THE WEDDING BANQUET and A MIDNIGHT KISS (yes, he’s even worked on a Hallmark movie).

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Eric Morgret is a podcaster on Strange Aeons Radio. We’re movie buffs who have a blast discussing films and finding ones that fit a particular theme.

Eric is also the festival director for the Crypticon Seattle Film Festival and a filmmaker with several films and shorts he’s produced, directed, and edited.

Taunya’s been acting professionally for more than 50 years, and has continued in that field. Lately, she’s also been directing, writing, and producing.

Taunya sings with the band Puzzlebox, having just recorded their second album Tumbleweird.

She’s a professional science fiction/fantasy artist for video games for over a decade.

Screenwriting:

• Raising Kayn
• Love 2 Hate
• The Song at the End
• Calamity and the Cowboy
• La Belle Dame Sans Merci-Hate
• Diablo’s Crow
• Temptation
• Water Under the Bridge

Check out more of Taunya’s work at Metal Rat Media.

dQ Kaufman is a filmmaker and graphic designer. A more bearded version of him can be found in workshop panels, or wandering the halls.

Learn more at Blue Powder Monkeys Design.

For more than two decades, we’ve been making movies every workshop, like some sort of terrifying clockwork monkey. Be a part of history without actually burying yourself in the desert for a thousand years! In this introduction, watch a choice selection of movies made as part of this ground-breaking workshop, including hilarious introductions by the filmmakers. Here’s the best place to watch all these movies at once, and behold the genesis of one of the weirdest and funniest workshops ever! Hear heinous behind-the-scenes stories! Feel free to ask the filmmakers questions afterwards, if they’re brave enough to stick around! Be inspired for the other parts!

Schedule: Wednesday, August 13: Room 331-332, 3–5:30 p.m.

Panelists: Edward Martin III, Brian Oberquell, Ryan K. Johnson, Eric Morgret, Taunya Gren, dQ Kaufman

Special notes:

• If you have a favorite you want to watch again, now’s the time to ask!
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Yes, we all bought Powerball tickets, but the sad truth is that none of us won, so we get to figure out how to do special effects on what a shoestring would be embarrassed to call a shoestring budget. Join our intrepid filmmakers for our infamous coast-to-coast workshop, and learn how we’ve solved a wide variety of tricky effects problems.

Even better — bring us your own puzzlers and problems and let’s see if we can help you with your next movie project!

Schedule: Thursday, August 14: Room 327, 9–11:30 a.m.

Panelists: Brian Oberquell, Ryan K. Johnson, Edward Martin III, Taunya Gren

Special notes:

• We love helping you solve your effects puzzles, so please feel free to bring ’em. Even if we can’t come up with something that’ll work, we’ll probably give you good ideas!
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It’s so tempting to use explody boom-boom in a movie. Why not? But hold on, pardner — we want you to do all this as safely as possible! Spend some time with our pyrotechnics expert so that you have the safest experience possible.

Schedule: Thursday, August 14: Room 327, 1:30-4pm

Panelists: Brian Oberquell, Taunya Gren

Special notes:

• All film projects should start and end with the same number of fingers.
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Look, if we didn’t love genre stuff, we wouldn’t be here, and with genre filmmaking comes props and gizmos! Sonic allen wrench? Electric poodle thrower? Anti-magnetic boots? Tiny houses made out of ham?

Let’s talk about how to build good-lookin’ props fast and cheap so that you can get the shots you need to tell your story!

Schedule: Thursday, August 14: Room 327, 6–8:30 p.m.

Panelists: Brian Oberquell, Edward Martin III

Special notes:

• If you have a special project you are building props for, run it by us — maybe we can make good suggestions!
• If you crib something already in your garage, and dress it up just a little, it’s Low-Budget Magic!
• Props can be made out of wood, but unless you want it to look like wood, you have to get the grain out. An easy way to do this is paint and sand and paint and sand and paint and sand and so forth until the surface is smooth as velvet. This also helps with furniture, too, but you didn’t hear it from me.
• PVC can be softened enough to work (wear gloves!) by hitting it with a heat gun. A blow dryer on high heat might work, also.
• Even if you paint it, corrugated cardboard will always look like corrugated cardboard. It’s the corrugations. You can somewhat hide that by adding layers of decor on top.
• Greeblies are little detailed bibs and bobs added to a prop to enhance its detail without adding function. It makes the model look more busy. Very common with spaceship props and building miniatures.
• For an all-body costume, modding onto a backback can be an easy stepping stone, but in the future, you might gain enough experience that you straight-up shift to building your own strap frameworks out of PVC.
• If you see a roll of fake fur on sale, buy it.
• If you build a large-scale costume or rig that has a human body inside operating it, always make sure that the body and the costume can be held “at rest” when not filming. Don’t allow your actors to get exhausted just waiting to hear “action.”
• Props such as spaceships need to be supported at several angles if you want them to be used flexibly.

You were there for the previous parts, right? Quick! Time travel (or step into the flow now, if you like)!

In this part, we go over the plan, figure out the gear, work up a story, write the script, plan the shoot, and pretty much anything else we can think of. That’s right, from soup to nuts, we’re going to make an entire movie here at the convention. This is your chance to be a part of this unique workshop and learn how to make a movie on a budget so tiny calling it “tiny” makes people who are tiny feel insulted. The key to making a movie, of course, is good planning!

Schedule: Friday, August 15: Room 329, 9–11:30 a.m.

Panelists: Edward Martin III, Brian Oberquell, Ryan K. Johnson, Eric Morgret, Taunya Gren, dQ Kaufman

Special notes:

• In “the real world,” movies that all take place in a single small location are great, but for our workshop, movies that have lots of parts are better, so we can all play!
• If you have a group of friends who want to come along and be in a movie, this is where y’all bring ’em!
• It’s not uncommon for us to duck out after this workshop and sit somewhere and bang this idea into shape. If you want to join us, you can, but it’ll be a more intense “working session” and be prepared to learn a lot about assembling a movie project. Think of this as an AP bonus course.
• An important, yet commonly overlooked, aspect of filmmaking is making sure your paperwork is in order. Here are some sample files to download and adapt to fit your needs:
  • Writer work-for-hire agreement
  • Stunt talent release
  • NDA form
  • Location release
  • Independent contractor agreement
  • Actor agreement
  • Time card
• B&H eXplora is a great place to read and watch lots of terrific tutorials on filmmaking.
• A nice blog post on what an ND filter is and why they may be useful.

You were there for the previous parts, right? Even if you weren’t, you can jump in here, if you like. In this part of the workshop, let’s talk about writing a script. It’s more than simply having the right software.

Writing a script is constructing a visual story, with a balance of highs and lows, of setups and payoffs. We use super low-budget tools such as index cards to help organize a story, and to help you see just how to do the same thing for your own projects.

How to make a character memorable within seconds? Let’s talk about that! How to establish environment, conflict, and the more esoteric elements of storytelling.

Schedule: Friday, August 15: Room 327, 1:30–4 p.m.

Panelists: Edward Martin III, Eric Morgret, Taunya Gren, dQ Kaufman

Special notes:

• We’re not gonna spend a lot of time on Platform Wars.
• Tools we might mention: Word, Notepad, Celtx, Final Draft, Movie Magic, and lots of notecards.
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It’s one thing to read a script and imagine epic space battles across thirty-five planets, seven historical periods, three different kinds of airship, and an underground lizard-man lair. It’s quite another to break that script down and figure out exactly what needs to happen to go from paper to “Okay, roll camera!” Our experts walk you through the process using examples from their own movies and maybe something we make up just for this event!

Schedule: Friday, August 15: Room 327, 6–7 p.m.

Panelists: Edward Martin III, Eric Morgret, dQ Kaufman, Taunya Gren

Special notes:

• Tools we’ll probably mention include Excel, stray note cards, and Gorilla.
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They are the heart and soul of your production and yet they also have feelings and desires and needs to make their own mark, too. In between tyranny and chaos lies the perfect balance of working well with your actors, and our panel will walk you through how they went from a character on paper to a Terrifying Screen Presence.

Schedule: Friday, August 15: Room 327, 7:30–8:30 p.m.

Panelists: Eric Morgret, Edward Martin III, Taunya Gren, dQ Kaufman

Special notes:

• Actors are welcome. 🙂
• For a new director, the actors represent that first moment when what-you-imagine might conflict with what-you-see, and a good director finds ways of handling that with grace and humility. We’re all bringing our own visions in. That said, the director is basically the final word on set, if the producer is off getting a doughnut.
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You were there for the previous parts, right, where we figured out what we needed and planned this movie all out? Quick! Time travel! Or, drop in anyway and become a Valued Actor Person.

In this part, we shoot like mad weasels, because there’s not much time and if we’re going to make a movie at light speed, then we have to move like light! So, don’t be late, or you’ll just see red-shifted versions of us.

The key to making a movie, of course, is to get the footage in the can! Or, “hard drive”, actually, because we’re shooting video. But you know what we mean.

Schedule: Saturday, August 16: Room 327, 9–11:30 a.m.

Panelists: Edward Martin III, Brian Oberquell, Ryan K. Johnson, Eric Morgret, dQ Kaufman, Taunya Gren

Special notes:

• If you had a group of friends you wanted to invite, this is the one to bring them to!
• We are being super-economical with our time, so you might realize we don’t do a lot of reshooting or different angles. Normally, that would happen, but we only have two hours, so we are moving fast!
• Many people assemble kits for filming that include often-used tools and equipment. Here’s a quick-and-dirty list that we’ve assembled for you:
  • Gaffer tape
  • Sandbags
  • Spare release forms
  • Emergency snacks such as granola bars, etc. (every shoot should be fed as normally — these are for emergencies)
  • Extension cords (“stingers”)
  • Pocket multitool

If there’s anything that marks out an amateur movie production as amateur, it’s the lighting and the sound. A simple lighting setup done right can do more for a mood than all the scary music in the world.

Come join our filmmakers for a hands-on demonstration of lighting tricks, a chat about good sound versus bad sound, and answers to almost every question you might have.

Schedule: Saturday, August 16: Room 327, 1:30–4 p.m.

Panelists: Eric Morgret, Taunya Gren

Special notes:

• If you’re filming fast-and-loose and closeup, you might find that your ultra-low-budget solution to a special highlight on your actor’s face is made from a handheld cellphone.
• Sometimes, using cell phones as small lights can help you quickly figure out, given a particular setup, the lighting you need to achieve the effect you want. Moving a cell phone is way quicker than moving a proper light.
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Directing is either eye-wateringly esoteric, or shamefully pedestrian, but that’s a question you can answer for yourself later. Meet with our group of film directors, where we compare notes on how to approach directing, how to solve issues, and how to get a movie across the finish line.

This is the first time this segment has been offered as part of the Let’s Make a Movie workshop, and we’re all very excited to welcome such a talented team.

Schedule: Saturday, August 16: Room 327, 6–8:30 p.m.

Panelists: Edward Martin III, Eric Morgret, Taunya Gren, dQ Kaufman, Ryan K. Johnson

Special notes:

• Every director is different, so expect some very exciting discussions!
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Let’s make a movie! You were there for the previous parts, right, where we shot video like crazy? If not, then now’s a great time to master time travelling! In this part, we show you a little about editing, how we put all that crazy footage down and make it into a movie that makes some kind of sense. Actually, we hope it makes some kind of sense. We never really know. If you bought a computer within the past two years, chances are excellent that you have more digital video editing power at your fingertips than has ever been subject to the hands of Ordinary People. Learn about using this power for Good. Or Evil. We don’t care, because we only use it for Fun. The key to making a movie, of course, is editing.

Schedule: Sunday, August 17: Room 327, 9–11:30 a.m.

Panelists: Edward Martin III, Ryan K. Johnson, Eric Morgret, Taunya Gren

Special notes:

• Although we’ll probably be showing you work on Adobe Premiere, be aware that there are a lot of different editing tools out there, and the vast majority of them can do the job just fine as you are learning.
• A simple-but-easy trick in editing is to learn to cut on action. This means that the two clips to either side of a cut have a particular matched item in action. It might be a character opening a door and stepping out, or a punch being thrown, or a fish jumping out of the water. The key is that the cut is made such that the action carries a narrative from one cut to the other.
• A director will be watching the actors, and paying especial attention to the main actor of each shot, but an editor watches all the actors in all the shots because there’s always a chance that a background actor will be doing something that makes the scene feel more real, and if the editor sees that, then they may design the whole scene around allowing that shot to remain in the scene.
• An editor might discover that the secondary actor in a scene is giving good reactions to what the primary actor is saying and doing, and a good editor acquires a feel for when it might be effective to cut away from the primary actor of the scene to show how that primary actor’s words are affecting the other characters.

Since 1999, the Fandance Film Festival has been a celebration of low- and no-budget cinema, brought to wondrous lurching life by amateur filmmakers from all around the Pacific Northwest. More than just the movies, this 120-minute extravaganza of entertainment also includes the filmmakers, to regale you with terrifying tales of their productions. Be there or be a regular right quadrilateral! The Fandance Film Festival is the final terrifying phase of the Let’s Make a Movie workshop, in which participants walk through every step of making a movie, from conception to the premiere of the finished product.

Schedule: Sunday, August 17: Room 331-332, noon–2:30 p.m.

Panelists: Edward Martin III, Brian Oberquell, Ryan K. Johnson, Eric Morgret, dQ Kaufman, Taunya Gren

Special notes:

• Watch for movies from all of our participating filmmakers!
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Here at Hellbender Media, we have an evergrowing list of low-budget filmmaker tips, all categorized and searchable. Enjoy!

First things first — this mixture is for external use only. Don’t let it get anywhere near a mouth, nose, eyes, or other body-holes. This recipe contains poisonous ingredients that look great on film, and terrible on a coroner’s report. If you want a version to use that is not-poisonous, then that’ll be posted after.

Recipe #1 (poisonous!)

Ingredients

• 1 quart white corn syrup (can substitute Invert Syrup)
• 1 level teaspoon Zinc Oxide (from a laboratory supply house, artist supply, cosmetics ingredients supply, etc.) (this helps create appropriate opacity)
• 2 ounces red food color. The official Dick’s recipe calls for Ehler’s brand, but that may be available only in the US.
• 5 teaspoons yellow food coloring (this will help with the correct color “smeariness”)
• 2 ounces Kodak Photo-Flo (available at photo supply stores, so might be tricky to find. Also note that this ingredient is especially poisonous. We’re serious about the danger, okay?)
• 2 ounces water

Instructions

1. Place the Zinc Oxide into a bowl.
2. Add an equal amount of water to the zinc oxide and mix into a paste.
3. Add Red food coloring until the color is a deep red.
4. Slowly add Yellow food coloring until the mixture leaves an orange tinge when a thin layer is smeared. (note that the mixing of colors sometimes requires a bit of creativity/flexibility because food colors aren’t a precise science).
5. Add a little corn syrup and mix well.
6. Pour into a bottle/jar that has a waterproof lid. Be sure to use a container that has plenty of “shaking” room, as it must be shaken vigorously before each use to remix ingredients.
7. Add the water and mix again.
8. This should produce an appropriate color and consistency.
9. Keep this substance refrigerated when not in use, or it will aggressively grow mold.