Author: Head Candy Corn

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Gothtober Eve 2017

We’re throwing the last minute ingredients into the cauldron: Marinated marmot meat, a cheet-o with lots of pins stuck in it, canned nightcrawler worms, deep-fried kitten hearts, some dragon gizzards, some pipe organ parts, and a jar of queso! It’s gonna be a GREAT year of dreadful delicacies, tonight at midnight, if you’ll be so inclined, check it out the second it launches, and if you’ll be asleep… well then check out while sipping your pumpkin spiced coffee on the morning of Gothtober 1st! See you on the other side!

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Gothtober Contributors Announced!


The Jack o’ Lantern has SPOKEN!

The orange smoke from the smokestack of Gothtober Headquarters flew up and swirled about the almost full moon, announcing that the Gothtober Contributors have been chosen! The bats will scurry in a hurry, the chattering, clattering, giggling and scrambling continues until the last bit of September is over, and we unveil the first of our participants’ efforts!  Here is the list of THE CHOSEN, their long shadows dance in the moonlight mellow, as will o’ the wisps fly in the chilly meadow!

Look forward to our FIFTEENTH autumn assemblage containing crafts, films, treats of all kinds bringing a cornucopia of strange delights to you phone, your tablet, your desktop screens!

[column-group]
[column]
Fonzie
Cristin Pescosolido
Odious Ari
Roasted Udon Fisher
Danny Torrance
Yuki Okada
Leah Harmon
Nora R
Pauly G
Jenn Paige Gordon
Rick Orner
[/column]
[column]
Sabine Maxine
Federico Tobon
Mike Rainey
Ian MacKinnon
Kendra and Miles
Stephanie Abler
Chambers Family
David LeBarron
Barry Morse
Emily Hansen
Lush Newton
[/column]
[column]
Jenny Walsh
Ignis Fatua
Kimberly Kim
Michael Gump
Yuki Okada
Ananda and Kierston
Del Norte
Waller Family
The Stig
Bona Bones
[/column]
[/column-group]

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Gothtober Applications Close at MIDNIGHT TONIGHT!!!

Ask not for whom the bell tolls… it tolls for THEEEEEEEE!!!!

Midnight TONIGHT the door creeks closed, the vault is locked, the tomb is shut, there is NO TURNING BACK.

When witches go flying,
and black cats go MEOW
the moon laughs and whispers,
“Apply for Gothtober NOW!”

Join your fellow autumnal enthusiasts! Share your pumpkin collection, your autumn gardening tips, a recipe for severed finger soup!

Here’s the FAQ for 2017 (theme, tech specs, etc.):
 
READ THE FAQ!
 
Here’s how to fill out the Gothtober Application by August 29th:
 
APPLY TODAY!
 
Participants will be notified of admission on September 1st, 2017.

Upon acceptance, a $25 registration fee is required.

 

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Gothtober’s Application Deadline EXTENDED to Sept. 1st!!!

GOTHTOBER APPLICATIONS EXTENDED! 

 

We’re so close to our roster being complete, but we are still seeking new blood!

Make Public Internet Art and achieve worldwide FAME!!!

APPLY BY SEPTEMBER 1st!

Learn about and Apply for Gothtober, here’s the FAQ for 2017 (theme, tech specs, etc.):
 
READ THE FAQ!
 
Here’s how to fill out the Gothtober Application by August 29th:
 
APPLY TODAY!
 
Participants will be notified of admission on September 1st, 2017.

Upon acceptance, a $25 registration fee is required.

 

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5 Reasons You Should Make Art for Gothtober 2017

AUTUMN WANTS YOU! 

Less than SIX days remain for you to join this happy haunted hovel of depraved creative souls called GOTHTOBER! Why should you sweat and toil to make some kind of artistic offering for the Gothtober Countdown Calendar?

1.) It’s ALL Art! Music, Photography, Recipes, Singing, Dancing, Acting, Gardening, Performing, Fencing, Drawing, ANYTHING can be art! The definition is wide open, we have some perimeters for movie and slideshow length, but other than that, there’s nothing to keep you from being as fabulous and weird as you want to share!

2.) Yes huh you can do it! You’re a human being, which means you’re just naturally curious about stuff, and creativity is an inherent part of your nature. Making, doing and sharing things is your legacy as homo sapiens. You were born to create, use those opposable thumbs and give us a whirl!

3.) Find “You Time” Who has time to make things anyway? NOBODY. That’s where getting your butt kicked by me, Gothtober’s Head Candy Corn, will help you figure out how to carve out time like a pumpkin to meet your Gothtober deadlines. You’ll begin and finish to completion something of yours, for you, for the good of the Halloween season.

4.) Fire Up Your Passion Is your guitar gathering dust? Did you forget what it’s like to spend hours working on paper puppets with joints made of dental floss? When’s the last time you shared that awesome recipe for Fall Flavor Allspice Cookies?  What happened to those ghost throw pillow crafts you were going to make and share? Get back into that feeling of making something from your hands, and feel profoundly alive and happy.

5.) Give Something to the World When you make art for Gothtober, along with your fellow Gothtober contributors, you bring something new to thousands of spectators waiting to see what you made! You might get fan mail, you might get weird comments about your work, you might inspire someone, you might surprise yourself with what you’re capable of making!

So come on down, send in your application, commit to a thing even though everything’s crazy and there’s no time! We wanna see what you will do!

Learn about and Apply for Gothtober, here’s the FAQ for 2017 (theme, tech specs, etc.):
 
READ THE FAQ!
 
Here’s how to fill out the Gothtober Application by August 29th:
 
APPLY TODAY!
 
Participants will be notified of admission on September 1st, 2017.

Upon acceptance, a $25 registration fee is required.

 

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Apply for Gothtober by August 29th!

CALL FOR GOTHTOBER PARTICIPANTS!!!

Halloween stuff is starting to appear in overzealous stores, and you know what that means: It is time to apply for Gothtober’s “Quinciniera” commemorating fifteen years of bone-chilling, neck-hair raising, eyeball widening, throat-screaming, frightening, funny, strange, mysterious and hideous/beautiful artworks from all across the ghoulish globe.
Want to know more details?
 
READ THE FAQ!
 
Fill out the Gothtober Application August 29th:
 
APPLY TODAY!
 
Participants will be notified of admission on September 1st, 2017.

Upon acceptance, a $25 registration fee is required.

Get more details about this year’s theme and technical details by reading The Official 2017 FAQ.

 

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Madea is BACK to Haunt your FACE with Boo2!

This Halloween just keeps getting better and better, with Stranger Things Season 2, SpongeBob’s Halloween Special, and Madea in the mix makes for another reason to just keep watching all the fims and TV shows in October! This is the TENTH Madea movie, something to think about while you wonder where your life is going and what you are doing.

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Stanger Things Season 2!!!

Hope your Upside-Down is right side up for watching your monitor, because something’s back in Indiana… or well, something never left. October 27th will be prime time to lock all the doors, pop all the popcorn, binge watch and FREAK OUT watching Stranger Things Season Twooooo!!!! This trailer has oh, about a bazillion wonderful nods to various other movies such as Close Encounters, Goonies, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Lost Boys, Firestarter, Alien, and how about Dragon’s Lair?!? This is gonna be a fun ride…

By the way, Gothtober Applications are open… wanna make somethin’ strange? Read the FAQ and apply if you’re up for it this 2017!

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Yes, Dracula, There WILL be a SpongeBob Halloween Stop-Motion Special!

I’m trying really hard not to hyperventilate while typing this because I’m just SO EXCITED to learn that The Legend of Boo-kini Bottom is coming to your television (via Nickolodeon) this October AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! While I was a wee bachelor’s student, running around CalArts and learning the joys and rigors of Experimental Animation, there was this GUY.

His name was Steve Hillenburg, and every time I was running in and out of the lab, he was working on his stuff. 

He was eleven years older than me, which felt super OLD, and super SMART. People even FIVE years older than you when you’re 18 seem like demigods. Where I felt pulled in all directions and trying to hush my overwhelmed mind, Steve’s presence in the Experimental Animation department was quiet, strong and steady. He did not mess around, he put pencil and pen to paper everyday to build his film, frame by frame. I watched it happen, wondering what he was up to, and then one day, it was ready! Here’s one of the films I saw him hand-drawing all those days at his desk, it’s called The Green Beret. 

So anyway, that GUY I went to school with invented SpongeBob Squarepants, and you can just SEE in the style, the humor, every last pitch perfect observation of a hilarious cartoon underwater weirdo world just couldn’t come from any brain but Steve’s. If you haven’t seen the Spongebob Squarepants Holiday Special, it’s well done, and such a love letter to the Rankin Bass stop-motion animation specials of old. I can’t wait to see this Halloween Treat from an ol’ school chum!  

(From L-R) Mr. Krabs, Flying Dutchman, Plankton, Squidward, Sandy, SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick in Nickelodeon’s stop-motion special, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Legend of Boo-Kini Bottom. Credit: Screen Novelties/Nickelodeon© 2017 Viacom International, Inc. All Rights
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An Old Film/Music Treat for You!

Well well well, whaddya know, it’s 2017, and the Gothtober worm turns! Time to gather some wood and start a fire for the cauldron. While we’re doing that, we’ve got something for you to watch.

From 1937, here’s a little something to share, a somewhat pastoral and stressful animated evaluation of an abandoned windmill’s structural integrity during a passing storm. Will the windmill’s delicate eco system of residents survive the weather’s blustering braggadocio? Well we honestly just don’t know!!! It’s a stressful movie, because there’s a whole situation involving a mother bird and a water wheel that is not for the faint of heart. This film, a favorite of  Hayao Miyazaki’s, is beautiful because of it’s lush colors and painterly style, along with an appreciation for creatures of the night and their engrossing nocturnal antics.

Johann Strauss II (1825 — 1899)

The Silly Symphonies cartoons were intended to accompany larger features, all of them set to compelling musical soundtracks. This film uses “One Day When We Were Young” from Johann Strauss II’s operetta The Gypsy Baron. The Gypsy Baron is quite a fun operetta featuring mistaken identity, young lovers, old lovers, comic rustics, and buried treasure! It still gets played quite a bit today. Strauss the younger is possibly the most popular composter of all time, his nickname being “The Waltz King.” If you’d like to see this piece conducted by one of the 20th century’s greatest conductors (Carlos Kleiber) lead the Vienna Phil in performing it, by all means, check this out! At 6:13 you can hear the clarinet performing one of the most difficult excerpts in the history of the instrument, a sassy A-G#-F#-G#-A-F#-B-F#!!!

But THIS Silly Symphony is different than all the others because it is the FIRST to use the multiplane camera! It was a huge game changer in the industry that opened doors to special effects as we know it. Multiplane is basically shooting downward on a “layer cake” of backgrounds and elements on transparent glass platens. Pieces are tracked and animated at different speeds and distances, giving the impression of 3-D, although not stereoscopic (to be clear). It was invented by the largely overlooked and terribly under-appreciated animation titan, Ub Iwerks, then of Disney studios. The technology was further refined throughout the late thirties, officially tested on The Old Mill (seen above) which won an Academy Award for Animated Short Film in 1937. Multiplane was then used to make Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Pinnochio, Cinderella, Peter Pan, and many other films. Now we have digital multiplane cameras, the last animated film to use multiplane the old-fashioned way was Disney’s Little Mermaid.