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Gothtober Awards 2020

Thus, Gothtober is proud to present the VERY FIRST Gothtober Awards, featuring the coveted Citrouille d’Or!!!! We are pleased and proud to present the following categories and the winner for each for Gothtober 2020.

Citrouille d’Or – Golden Pumpkin – Best Gothtober Piece
Le Globe Oculaire Flottant – Best VFX or technical piece
Prix Countess Vampiress Innovante – Innovative and audacious works
Prix Lugosi – Best Acting
Queer Goth Palm – Best LGBTQ+ related work
Helen Hill Romance Activist Award – Sweetest or most Romantic piece
CraftNight Award – Best craft project + download
Panushka d’Or – Best Animation or Puppetry
Gothtober Lifetime Achievement Award – for longstanding Gothtober participants through the years

Citrouille d’Or – Golden Pumpkin for Best Gothtober Piece
DAY 31 – Lisa McNeely for Full Moon Rising
Stephen McNeely as Satan, Lisa McNeely as Spittle
Director of Photography – Zachariah Dalton, Editor and Special FX – Nina McNeely


Prix Countess Vampiress Innovante – Innovative and audacious works
DAY 19 – Asher Slasher for the first ever ASMR piece Gothtober has ever seen!


Le Globe Oculaire Flottant – Best VFX or technical piece
DAY 31 – Lisa McNeely for Full Moon Rising
Stephen McNeely as Satan, Lisa McNeely as Spittle
Director of Photography – Zachariah Dalton, Editor and VFX – Nina McNeely


Prix Lugosi – Best Acting
DAY 17 – Dominique Dibbell for acting with HERSELF and having us believe she’s 4 different people!


Queer Goth Palm – Best LGBTQ+ related work
DAY 27 – The Witchy Witches for SelfCare TimeOut Quaran-Ween Guided Meditation
Ian MacKinnon, Travis Wood, and Mystery Witch!


Helen Hill Romance Activist Award – Sweetest or most Romantic piece
DAY 3 – Ollie Paige Linden – for original illustration of two kitties under the desert moon


CraftNight Award – Best craft project + download
DAY 21 – Federico Tobon aka Wolfcat Workshop for his lovingly complex and kickass pop-up moving card download! Print it! Make it!


Panushka d’Or – Best Animation or Puppetry
DAY 10 – Sibyl O’Malley for Love and Hate in the Time of Covid
Tom Moose – Music

Gothtober LifeTime Achievement Award – To DAY 23, Jenny Walsh, who has participated in SEVENTEEN consecutive Gothtober Calendars, making her the most seasoned Gothtober Artists in existence! THANK YOU, JENNY!!!!

I am a thousand pumpkins grateful for every last bit of effort that’s been given in the name of The Gothtober Countdown Calendar. Every participant gets treats in the mail, and a party (when we’re not having a worldwide pandemic) and perhaps the feeling of achievement of doing a thing. Thank you for joining us and we hope to see you in 2021!

In lieu of not having a whole lot of preparation for this prestigious festival, the judges are the creator of Gothtober, Julianna Parr, (that’s me) and her trusty science officer, Cristin Pescosolido, both of whom have pieces in Gothtober and are disqualified from consideration. We expect to have a larger panel of judges next year, so get ready!

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Day 17 with the Bordens by: Dominique Dibbell

A “making of” photo from The Bordens in Pandemic

As you know, we LOVE films made on location, and this is one film but MANY personas, all portrayed by Dominique Dibbell! We’ve never seen a person play an entire family before, and hats off to Dom, she (all of her many characters) nailed it! Here are some questions she answered for Gothtober about how she made her film:

Who was the ketchup wrangler?
Johary was ketchup wrangler. We had one shot at this, and I laughed. Oh well. 
Also, after shooting, I threw the shirt in the garbage. A few days later when I reviewed the footage, I realized we missed a few shots, so I had to fish the shirt out of the garbage and clean all the ketchup out. I now know how to remove ketchup stains.

Were there any concerned locals watching you run down the street covered in ketchup? 
The only people on the street were a neighbor teen and his friends who were working on a car. This is the bad teen who’s had the cops to the house a few times, so he didn’t bat an eye.

 Where was this filmed?
Filmed at our house.

Who’s axe?!? (very nice quality) 
The axe is ours, of course. We camp!

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Creepy Day 16 with Anne Yatco!

Do you hear the song Ring Around the Rosie in the background? Oh… yes. How unsettling.
Enjoy this extra eerie moment with Anne Yatco!

FUN FACTS
1.) It took her about 40 minutes to do her makeup
2.) She shot her film in her apartment (her husband Zach was gracious enough to be her DP).
3.) And as for the title of the film, yes, it’s meant to refer to the Spanish Flu.

It’s like she had pandemic on the brain or something…

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TRAPPED with Lori Meeker for Day 15!

Today for Gothtober DAY 15 we’ve got quite the wild interlude with Lori Meeker! Follow along with Lori as she uses her wits to do some hunting in the big green forest! Here are some words from the filmmaker herself:

There are a whole lot of creepy crawlies that roam in the forest. Bats, bugs and the occasional Sasquatch top the list, but have you ever heard of a Chipalope?
Inspired by the legends surrounding the California Redwoods and a little roadside attraction called Confusion Hill, comes a new story all about this little horned woodland creature.
This tale is a part of a larger universe called Welcome to Meadowlark Falls, a theatrical experience that creates the feeling of a Hallmark Christmas movie and puts YOU at the center of it. Honoring the genre, and spoofing it too, our friends at Meadowlark Falls General Store create a story filled with Christmas, cookies, love and a Chipalope here and there.
This year we are offering a limited amount of an at-home experience that is sure to set your holiday season off right. Check out more at welcometomeadowlarkfalls.com and find us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter under the same name. Merry Christmas…. er uhm I mean HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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Lucky 13 with Martini & Bob Rossi!

Have you ever wanted to learn how to paint? Look no further than Martini and Bob Rossi, where your martini gives you the liquid courage needed to paint a haunted masterpiece sitting upon a hill! All you need are some paints, some brushes, nothing fancy, and some kind of thick paper, and you’re already there!

Now… funnily enough, people have noticed that there’s an uncanny likeness between Bob Rossi and our good friend, Liz Hogan. Understand they are NOT the same person, but wouldn’t it be weird if they were long lost cousins or something? They both have such creative DNA. Huh. Weird. Oh well.

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Ascent! Christine Panushka for Day 12

What is great love, the kind of love that lasts a lifetime? Christine and Marilyn were partners and shared a life together that radiated a sweetness of spirit.

Christine is an animator, a professor, a teacher, a mentor. She and Marilyn were together for over three decades. Marilyn passed away this year, but in this piece, you can hear her voice, as a bold singing pumpkin, ready for its moment. And you can see the love in every pen stroke of this animation that Christine built.

Rest in Power, Marilyn, please leave the light on for us, we’ll be partying with you before you know it.

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Yuki Okada’s Day 11 Recipe Yum

One of the perks of being Head Candy Corn of Gothtober is the occasional “quality control” delivery of baked goods. Yuki dropped off a sample of her Pumpkin Spice Latte Cake… and WOW that was delicious and there is none left.

As we all scream inside our hearts and eat our feelings, why not do it in quality style? You’re gonna want this recipe, it’s the perfect treat to cram into your face while watching debates and preparing for the 2020 election. It’s also got a nice ribbon of espresso winding through it, so you’ll be able to get lots done after eating some of it.

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Love in the Time of Covid: Day 10 w/Sibyl O’Malley

The Patented O’Malley Bloody Chainsaw

Visit DAY 10 on the Gothtober Calendar!

It’s one thing to deal with quarantine, and then it’s another thing entirely to suffer a broken heart during quarantine. It’s a double dose of crap sandwich. It’s a challenge to prevent hardening into a perpetually pissed off burnt little pebble.

Ugh. How to process.

We start with some charming ukulele strums from Tom Moose. The animation is sweet and loving… and then everything just like… explodes. But is that all? Nope. We asked Sibyl about her film and this is what she had to say:

Sibyl’s Words: There’s so much happening in the world to be angry about. I’ve lost whole days to rage in the past few months. Sometimes the anger feels great, adrenalizing and powerful, but it’s also exhausting and leaves my heart hate sick.

What’s helping me are revenge fantasies. Creative acts of vandalism. Riots of righteous joy. Making this stop motion gave me a way to express my fury and leave room for my silly little heart to do what it can’t seem to stop doing –  loving you and this stupid world we’ve made. 

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Pauly G Gives Us a Song for Gothtober Day 9

Turn your lights down ALL THE WAY, and turn your speakers up, so that you can experience California’s Crystal Cove and the Malibu State Park, among other points of interest, and you can hear Paul’s song as the camera saunters.

Malibu State Park, CA

“The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country”
K A M A L A H A R R I S

“8 months since we’ve been in the same room
8 months of destruction and gloom
8 months since I gave you a hug
8 months…. WTF”
P A U L Y G.

We WILL be together again, but boy… right now… this sucks.

I don’t want to give away anything in the film, but since hiking and walking is one of the things we CAN do during quarantine, visiting the spot where Paul filmed DAY 9 makes a great day adventure! Check it out and plan your adventure!

Considered the recreational crown jewel of the Santa Monica Mountains, Malibu Creek State Park has over 8,000 acres of rolling tallgrass plains, oak savannahs and dramatic peaks. It’s no wonder many call it “The Yosemite of Southern California”. 

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The Honeylabs for Gothtober Day 8!

The Bradbury is the city’s oldest landmarked building.

Gothtober DAY 8!
From Downtown Los Angeles, in ghostly form, it’s THE HONEYLABS!!! If you’ve a hankering for some well known tunes from one of the most celebrated song duos of yacht rock fame, you’re in for a treat! Follow the Ghost Detectives to solve the mystery of what’s going on with Sarah Smile! Starring Linda Santiman and Nancy Kissam, these two play aspirational apparitions on a quest for better supernatural communication skills!

So how did they go about making their Gothtober piece? All is revealed:

We know you used a LOT of Hall and Oates songs, were there any you left out, or is there one that is your favorite Hall and Oates song of all time?
We did not use “She’s Gone!” That would have worked here too! 


Where did you shoot your movie scenes?
We shot around the Bradbury Building downtown, my favorite DTLA building because of Blade Runner! 

Built in 1893, the five-story Bradbury building is best known for its extraordinary skylit atrium of access walkways, stairs and elevators, and their ornate ironwork.


Did anyone bug you or try to get in the shot or ask you questions or try to bust you for a film permit?
This guy cleaning the courtyard in back said we couldn’t film on the steps of the building behind it because of its famous location. But we filmed all around it.
One guy came around the corner and thought Nancy and I were mannequins in our vintage hats! We startled him a bit when we moved! 

What did you make the puppet sticks out of? Popsicle? Chopsticks? 
Puppet sticks were rulers I stole from school because I’m a teacher.  I intended to return them but then Covid.  So yes, I guess I stole them.