An astonishing amount of meticulous movement went into “16 Letters” by Stephanie Abler, you’ll see the arrival and transformation of many words in this piece dedicated to some specimens of the modern English alphabet.
About this piece, Steph says
This impish six-minute stop-motion animated piece plays with moveable letters that represent a partial selection of the alphabet, morphing a few letters at a time into a succession of words. Reflecting on the malleability and abstract power of language and thought, I expanded on the meaning of and my personal associations with each word using sound and images, with sometimes rather quirky results.
If you’d like to know more about the piece, and Ms. Abler’s other wonderful works, check out her blog!
Kevin Kidney flying the Sasser to Ruby’s for a Pumpkin Shake
Hip Hip Hooray, it’s the Anaheim Halloween Parade TODAY! Click on Gothtober Pumpkin #27 and enjoy Kevin Kidney’s tell-all tale of a city that knows how to dress up for All Hallow’s Eve! The very first Anaheim Halloween Parade was in 1924, with home run baseball superstar, Babe Ruth, served as grand marshal! Kevin Kidney drove the “Flying Sasser”down the street today, the Sasser has a lot of wonderful facts and history, it’s original debut was in 1953 when the parade’s theme was “Out of this World.” The Anaheim Historical Society went to work re-creating the Sasser in all of its glory, you can read all about Anaheim’s history and see a step-by-step photo essayshowing how to build a Sasser, in case you need to escape from any body snatchers or little green men!
Kevin is part of the fabulous duo Kevin & Jody, they are Anaheim and Tiki enthusiasts, and you can find them doing crazy awesome things like painting the interior of Trader Sam’s at Downtown Disney, sporting lederhosen at Oktoberfest, or making incredible paper art and paintings.
Pat-a-Cake, Pat-a-Cake, playing with ARMS! Eeeeeek!
Hold the phone, did I just see someone playing jump rope with intestines?!? Must be very close to Halloween, and Dapper Cadaver’s Day 25 is a nice reminder that you really need to let out that inner child… or die trying. Eileen Winslow’s directorial debut is playful and horrifying, just the way we like it! You’ll be delighted after the nightmares subside!
Listen to the melodious accordion and various sound sensations as a vaguely robotic and gauze-covered voice sings you a childhood favorite, while a pair of sisters (? just guessing) help us revisit a time when everything was sweet and perfect. When is the last time you played hopscotch? How about a fun game of catch? A tear may glisten in your eye as you recall the pastimes of yesteryear, when things were simpler, less complicated. Or you may have a completely different reaction to this piece altogether, though it is a headless piece, it’s full of heart (and arms… and uh… bones… um…)
If you’ve never been to Dapper Cadaver’s unassuming building on San Fernando road, and you are in need of bizarre items in decorative glass apothecary jars, or perhaps you need a foam pick-axe that will fool even the most discerning weapons master, or even if you just need lots and lots of HEADS, this is your place. The work and care taken by Dapper Cadaver to make the most authentically macabre props for television and movies (Dexter, Bones, Law & Order) as well as countless haunted houses (including The White House) could be described basically as “beautifully awful.” Even though everything fabricated here is totally fake, you will nevertheless experience a creepy unease that is absolutely involuntary and thrilling. Dapper Cadaver is unsettling and wonderful because it is haunted with not only terrifying specimens, but the energy and aura of a fiercely creative and innovative mad laboratory and factory working at a feverish and depraved pace. Sometime, just for fun, tell a good friend you have some “errands” to run, and have them tag along with you to Dapper Cadaver, watch them freak out in horror and wonder.
If you like birds, projection booths, lonely castles, hot air balloons and disco dancing zombies, never fear, DAY 22 is here!
Kristen Pepe does it again! With a wonderful little film absolutely packed with really cool monsters and cats, skilled and pretty color combinations, and some totally fantastic pop culture reference clues that make this short film enjoyable for everyone! For instance: did you notice the Night of the Cometmovie poster in the theater where the projectionist bird works? There’s also reference to a certain teen witch, as well as some zombies who come out to play.
This piece is not unlike the sitcom Three’s Company in that there is a misunderstanding of a situation (in this case, Blue Monster doesn’t understand that Halloween isn’t about getting bullied, it’s about dressing up and having mischievous fun) and calamity ensues. There is plenty of calamity, and heartwarming selflessness as friends help each other, and there’s even a few spells you want to remember.
If you’re hidden away in your lonely castle, don’t end up like the Phantom of the Opera, come out and play with us this Halloween!
Dazzling ghouls are out to get us!Click on Gothtober’s Pumpkin 21 and find yourself in the midst of a dark and dreamlike realm where perhaps you shouldn’t have decided to investigate what goes bump in the night! These otherworldly apparitions are not shy, they are in your face, they will playfully scare the wits out of you, maybe even poltergeist a few things in your abode just to make you jump.
They might be demons, they might be sprites, they may even be creatures that scare away dark magic, only the spirit world knows for sure! Through the swirling purple smoke is a choreographed seance of movement and dissolving realities, laughter that may be directed at you or in spite of you. Whatever you do, just make sure you don’t make ’em mad, they look like absolute trouble! It’s Rainbones!
Rainbones, also know as Lok Hwa, Wileen Rungsiridacha, and Teri Osato had some exciting challenges in this piece that they’d never done before:
Recording everyday objects and their voices to create a song
Painting their bodies with fluorescent tempera paints
Filming in blacklight!
Learn more about Wileen, her mad lab of experimental projects and crocheted cactuses at Frogafish
Find out more about Lok Hwa the nocturnal special effects artsy-fartsy guy by visiting LokHwa.com
Order awesome cards from Teri the graphic designer mustachio superstar at Osato Design
Pumpkin Pumpkin 17, show us riddles unforeseen!We’ve gone from psychedelic to experimental this week, featuring the fast-paced, intricate and strangely wondrous stylings of artist and experimental animator, Alyssa Sherwood!
Alyssa says her piece is about:
Lots of incomplete ideas about Victorian people, molecular biology, lacework, DNA burrowing worm holes, child laborers and photos by Lewis Hine, Industrial Age carried forth through the work of tiny hands and mistreated children, Victorian women/fashion, the Fox sisters and the spiritualist compound, Lily Dale in upstate New York, ectoplasm, the earliest sound recording from1860 sounds like bees inter-mixed with what the song really sounds like.
I recommend watching it a few times, since you’ll probably notice different things with each viewing, at least that’s my experience.
Ghost Dad in principle shooting for Gothtober Day 16A Still from The Waller Family Singer’s Day 16
Arriving (or departing?) via Crystal Ship today are The Waller Family Singers! Click Pumpkin 16, and don’t be surprised if your consciousness is raised by 20% after seeing it, there are secrets and symbols we may never understand, but this is how it is when the mysteries of October are revealed. There are many many things to see in this piece, and the voice of “Ghost Dad” as I shall him for the sake of not exposing his identity, is as lovely as ever, but especially haunting for such a friendly spectre! Take a trip into a situation where acorn tea doesn’t need as much water as you thought, rabbits get hugged, pumpkins push strollers, figurines and gems connect with each other, and beards come in florescent colors.
The more I looked at the Ghost Dad, I had a weird feeling he might exist in another realm, a place where he might materialize in this waking physicality. It’s probably just my mind trying to make sense of alternate realities, because I could also swear that I saw his likeness flit by in Gothtober Pumpkin #9… I think managing all of these Gothtober contributors has me going batty. Anyway, we seem to be on kind of a psychedelic path this week, and I like this song, so I just thought I’d share it with you.
Mother/Daughter team Miss Lori and Madame Rose strike a pose… or two or three poses, actually!
What goodies are in store for you today from the Gothtober Postal Service at Pumpkin #15!!!You can get three, count’em THREE FREE downloadable printable wonderful Halloween cards that have been hand illustrated by this high-powered and enterprising family duo! Lori Meekerstarts things off with a stop-motion animation piece, you can watch the red sky and the murky olive-colored hills, when what comes flapping o’er the horizon but a batty little creature carrying goodies for everybody! Nope, it certainly isn’t Santa, because Santa, to my recollection, doesn’t eat bugs or make high-pitched squeaky noises. Oh right… and Santa doesn’t have wings.
The cards are available for download at the end of the movie, and you can get an owl, pumpkin or bat, and there are two sizes of each! One size is for an automatic “print-and-go” so you print it, fold it, write something on it and give it to a friend. The other size available is for perhaps cutting out and sticking in your scrap book, or in a letter to a friend, or on a very fancy card that has taken you lots of time to make!
Well look who washed up on shore for Gothtober Day 14, it’s our old pal, Spooky Bonercle of Barnacle Bros! He’s dolphinately up to the usual te-reef-ic tricks, this time starring as himself in “Spooky Bonercle Jumps the Shark!” and getting beach slapped. It’s a kriller whale of a surfin’ tale with REAL SURFING and and it’s urchin for you to sea it. Just squiddin’ that’s not the ray we do things, you’ve got plenty of time to shrimply visit the calendar whenever you like. If you see anything extra weird, let minnow, don’t leave the news to salmon else. We trout there’s anything weirder than Gothtober, we’ve been herring about it for ten years, it’s very ofishal.
It’s death-defying, it’s stupefying, it’s THE MOST INCREDIBLE SHOW YOU’LL EVER SEE! And it’s all visible by clicking Gothtober Pumpkin #13!!! The Gump Family has done it again with a spectacle you’ll not want to miss this Spooky season!
Michael Gump of BananaBee Lab has wrangled the Gump household and friends into making a marvelous pageant of colorful Halloween Circus display. You’ll see trained spiders! (I think they’re saying “yummy yummy” is that correct?) You’ll see the Strongest Monster, you’ll see the funny clowns and SO MUCH MORE!
The master of ceremonies is voiced by the young and amazing Arrow Gump, and you can hear his (also quite amazing) younger sister Pixie in the background providing dynamic fanfare! Daddy Gump can be heard as various characters, and Mama Gump was doing a bit of puppetry here and there.
Joel and JJ Day Departments helped with the camera magic, and Grapejuice helped edit the thing into the fast-paced, action-packed showstopper that it is today.
Apparently, Arrow walked up to his Dad and said “Dad, we’re doing The Halloween Circus this year” and so the project began with all the making and doing that goes along with building a circus! Gotta put up the tents, water the um… crocodiles and get those skeletons and spiders in line! This family really knows how to put on a show.
I hear that Halloween circuses are especially challenging since half of the staff is nocturnal, which is also something that Gothtober has here at the headquarters, a succinct inability to regulate decent circadian rhythms, and such is the life of vampires. Anyway, go see The Halloween Circus, it’s a rousing success, you can watch it over and over again and it just keeps getting more exciting!
