Gothtober Contributors Announced!

caligari

And so it begins! Up from the smokestack of Gothtober Headquarters went the blue smoke into the smoggy starry night, letting us know that the Gothtober Contributors have been chosen! For the rest of this month, they shall boil, toil, bubble and trouble, and only when September is finished shall the endeavors of each maker become unveiled, day by haunted day. Here are they are in all their glory, poised to deliver a veritable smorgasbord of strange and wonderful delights!

Will it be creepy? Will it be funny? Naughty? The answer is yes! Will it be photos? Music? Crafts? The answer is YES!

[column-group]
[column]Barry Morse
Christine Panushka
Ordinary Oliver
Bona Bones
Del Norte Present
Christine Marie Nockels
Ian MacKinnon
Oon & Company
Movingarden
Lori Meeker
[/column]
[column]The Chambers
Jenn Paige Gordon
Ichabod Brain
Jefe
Jo Harris the 13th
Rosalind Helfand
Michael Gump
Danny Torrance
Trixy Sweetvittles
Pauly
[/column]
[column]Harold
Billy Kheel
Federico Tobon
Cassils
Kimberly Kim
Triple T
Richert Gordon Salondaka
Waller Family Singers
Pete Levin
Nora R
The Stig
[/column]
[/column-group]

August 30, 2016August 31, 2016

Gothtober 2016 Applications CLOSED!

Bridal-Fever-movie-stills-1

Gothtober 2016 Applications are now closed.
The Gothtober team will now begin an intensive period of rumination, with the final selection of contributors for this year’s calendar being posted in just a few days.

Many thanks to all creeps, cryptkeepers, golems and ghouls who have applied! – Gothtober MGMT

August 29, 2016

Gothtober Application Deadline is MIDNIGHT TONIGHT!

waxy_bloke
Okay I’ll tell you something. Sometimes Gothtober doors don’t always get filled by contributors. Life happens, people don’t turn their stuff in, and I’m faced with empty space and I have to fill it before midnight.

I design, maintain, and curate the Gothtober Countdown Calendar, and I am also one of the contributors. Maybe you saw a singing skull puppet, or a recipe for peanut brittle? Maybe there were some weird shapes moving around in the dark, or a creature dancing near the LA river? Perhaps you saw some pumpkins and some powerlines? I did those.

Whatever you make doesn’t have to be full of pre-planning and tons of perfectionist geegaws. You can make something simple, you can play the banjo for 30 seconds, take footage of the spider in your bathtub, sing a song to a bag of candy. These are acceptable forms of Gothtober goods.

If you’re sitting there thinking “I don’t know what I’m gonna make” or “I wanna do it but I’m scared” that is EXACTLY what we could use from you.

Make a thing! Fill out the application and scare the crap out of yourself!

xo Chief Candy Corn

August 26, 2016August 27, 2016

3 Days Left to Apply for Gothtober!

THREE DAYS!!!

[epiclink link = ‘http://www.gothtober.com/gothblog/gothtober-faq/’ color = ‘btn btn-warning’ ]Read the Gothtober FAQ[/epiclink]

[epiclink link = ‘http://www.gothtober.com/gothblog/application/’ color = ‘btn btn-warning’ ]Apply for Gothtober NOW![/epiclink]

You don’t need to be an artist with a paintbrush to be a Gothtober contributor, as the calendar is comprised of recipes, slideshows, photography, live action, music, drawings, videos, recorded nonsense, crafts, and more!

Often it is said that art is for dealers and galleries when really, art is for you and I.

Art is for everyone, and everyone can make art. All ages can contribute.

Gothtober itself is creative love: a human endeavor that pokes an everyday person to experience risk, change, generosity, connection, and creativity. If you think you don’t have time to do something for Gothtober, you are probably right, which also means you should do it more than ever. You make something that goes out into the world, and it changes the world in teeny tiny ways, and maybe even in larger ways you could never foresee and cannot control.

This is the critical statement that Gothtober makes to the world: a platform for contributors to have the creative freedom to bring forth an attempt at connection with our fellow humans. You might not like what all of our contributors have to say, but that is part of its impact, and we stand by it 100%

We ask you to commit. We ask you to make a leap of faith for yourself and your creative process. We ask you to quit making excuses and make a thing. Ignore the naysayers, the doubters, the doubts, and overcome the resistance!

What can Gothtober provide for you? We can provide a little piece of real estate with some pretty lax rules, and we can give you a hard deadline. We host everything ourselves on our private server, protecting you from censorship and the shackles of paid sponsorship.

Gothtober calls to you, it’s a collective project that is strange, sharable, and free. It doesn’t have focus groups, it doesn’t make money, it’s pure nonsense, and it is what’s desperately needed in the here and now!

August 5, 2016August 5, 2016

Gothtober Applications are OPEN!!!

apply_gothtober_aug_29

The sleuce gates are OPEN! Let the glorious pumpkin orange sewage BEGIN!!!

Gothtober is an online countdown calendar to Halloween, it’s got 31 doors, behind each door is a contributor. We hope one of those contributors will be YOU! The calendar is filled with creepy crawly goodies, from short films, to print-outs, to slideshow presentations, music, crafts, recipes and more!

This year’s theme: Metamorphosis

Check out our Frequently Asked Questions page to read up on the theme and get your questions answered about all things Gothtober.

[epiclink link = ‘http://www.gothtober.com/gothblog/gothtober-faq/’ color = ‘btn btn-warning’ ]Read the Gothtober FAQ[/epiclink]

[epiclink link = ‘http://www.gothtober.com/gothblog/application/’ color = ‘btn btn-warning’ ]Apply for Gothtober NOW![/epiclink]

October 31, 2015July 10, 2016

Throw the White Pumpkin at The Earth! • Day 31

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!

Our final treat in the Gothtober Line-Up this year is from the Family Waller in Los Angeles, California. There are three Waller kids, and each one in this film has a dream after having too much candy. Footage from these miraculous dreams involves sweets, dolls, space travel, dirt, and a white pumpkin. The Waller family came together to make this film to let you know that if YOU eat too much candy, you might also experience vivid, sugar-laden visions, so be careful how many Junior Mints you eat before going to sleep! It’s kind of a cosmic cowboy PSA for the times we live in, feel free to sing along at the end!

We’d like to thank all of you out there who followed us until the very last day of October, and we’d like to pat on the back every skeleton, ghost, monster, and all of the other crawly screamy freaky things who made this year a great success. Thank you for being part of our 13th endeavor, dirt and worms for you all!

Head Candy Corn, JP

October 30, 2015July 10, 2016

A Downtown Departure • Day 30

Screen Shot 2016-07-10 at 6.52.38 PM

Aunt Connie has been in Gothtober films before, we’re happy to have her again! Barry Morse put it all together, we follow Aunt Connie all over town, but someone is spying on her! Someone’s got a camera, what are they doing?

Aunt Connie has plans of her own, a type of departure some of us know about, and some of us have yet to know. Normalizing the difficult and the morbid is tough in a society that doesn’t really want to dwell on such subjects. Aunt Connie approaches such subjects approaches such things in a way that is hers, a way that is different. We need more of this.

She doesn’t really seem to give a hoot, whatever we think, galavanting along MacArthur Park, balloons in hand, feather duster at the ready, there goes everyone’s favorite Aunt! Aunt Connie! More power to her!

October 29, 2015July 10, 2016

Don’t Mess With the CAT! Day 29

From two young film maker brothers arrives a cautionary tale about how NOT to treat your feline friend!

When Max and Jay decide to mess with the cat, Children of the Corn, they learn the hard way that cats do NOT take kindly to human shenanigans! KP Pepe produced and directed this collaborative film, it’s got some sweet stop motion and some expert animal wrangling! I asked KP the inspiration for the work, and here’s the scoop:

We pretty much let Jay come up with the story with some assistance from Max and me and Candi. The boys/Candi made the bulk of the sets and we took turns animating it. They had a big role in the story and dialogue.

This is a fine family project, big props to everyone who worked so hard on it, especially Mama Candi, who was production designer! And very big thanks to Children of the Corn, who is a BIG Gothtober Star, we hope you get all of the fish you like!

October 28, 2015July 10, 2016

Horrific and Fantastic, Mellowcreme Style! • Day 28

Screen Shot 2016-07-10 at 7.22.12 PM

Mellocreme Fairchild III invites you to gaze upon 13 paintings from the human race that explore the horrors, the darkness, the eerie and the depraved. Please look, take a gander, dance with your fears in a safe way upon this little gem of monstrosities and unsettling moments. Some of these images are freakishly weird and threatening, others are more subtle, but explore deeply important themes of our times: past, present and future.

For to see these things is to see a truth that is sitting just below the surface, the patina of contentedness can only last so long, and the sheer terror of breathing in and breathing out bathes you in a cool, terrified sweat. In a world constantly trying to lie about the terrors of living and making everything appear to be “just fine” here instead is a refreshing collection of reminders that maybe every cloud has a bloody lining, not a silver one.

October 27, 2015

Just the Facts for Day 27 with Ian MacKinnon and Company

Visit Gothtober Day 27 if you want to be smarter.

It’s time for mid terms, or rather, it’s time for 13 teachable moments in the form of three witchy sisters who have a thing or two to teach you about Halloween. Prepare yourself for a list of stone cold snopes-proof fact about our favorite holiday, and yes, there will be a test.

You’ve never seen this much make-up and attitude crammed into one educational presentation, your brain curds are going to leak out your ears, they’ll be so smart! Never fear, these three damsels in excess will make sure you’ve got enough brains for everyday living.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste, especially if you have leftover BBQ sauce.

Ian MacKinnon is a gay based performance activist in Los Angeles, the writer and performer of The Gay Hist-Orgy series of shows that has played all over California. If you haven’t seen his time traveling hot pants, well, please do yourself a favor and let Ian take you on a romp down memory lane as soon as possible.

He teaches workshops, he makes new shows and performances constantly, he’s a never-ending power source of fiery flaming inspirational awesome that will make you feel like your underwear is made out of 5,000 tiny peppermints!

You can also catch Ian at Planet Queer, along with other interstellar performers, it’s the first Monday of every month at Akbar on the corner of Sunset and Fountain.