SI.003 Evil Mask

Posted on March 10th, 2010 by dan

History: This is an item that was transferred from my personal collection to the Strange Ink Prop department. I picked this up a few years back at a renaissance festival, but you don’t have to suffer that kind of humiliation to get one of these. There are lots of places online that sell all different kinds of leather masks (regular or evil). Why did I buy an evil leather mask? Well, I can’t say for certain that it was evil when I purchased it. Perhaps it was the evil that drew me to it. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a half full/half empty thing. Maybe it’s a good mask if you want to see it as a good mask. Maybe this is saying more about me than it was supposed to. Let’s move on…

Application: There’s really only two uses for this: superhero or fantasy flick. It’s either concealing a hero’s secret identity or outwardly expressing the twisted inner psyche of some dark sorcerer. Although, I suppose we could use it in a romantic comedy that has a Halloween party scene where someone dresses up as a superhero or a dark sorcerer. Now that I think of it, we could use it if we were going to make a movie about my English teacher from High School. It looks just. Like. Her.

Value: Tough call. I don’t have the receipt and it’s been a few years. A mask of this size goes for anywhere from $15.00 to $40.00. I didn’t have to pay extra for the evil, but I can’t guarantee that you won’t.

Is the evil in the mask... or the man?

Previously… SI.002 Mtv Microphone

Up next… SI.004 Sheriff Badge

Tags: evil mask, films, Props | Category Props, films

Reflections on Today’s Short Shoot

Posted on March 7th, 2010 by dan

Well, that shoot didn’t last nearly as long as I hoped it would. After amazing last minute performances put forth by Aimee and Carlton (who didn’t even see the script until the were delivering their lines), I had to call it a day around hour 5. Even though most of my performance was lying down on couches disguised as beds, the whole day of activity pushed a little harder on my still healing back than I expected.

Greg has assured me that we actually did get some quality stuff today (we never really know with our tiny little camera). There are some pictures on the tweetfeed (or whatever the kids call it)… but it’s probably going to be a week before we can return to shooting. Ultimately, I think this will be for the best as it gives more time to make some of the less conventional props.

Tags: films | Category films

Shooting Short

Posted on March 7th, 2010 by greg

This is just a real quick blog post letting everyone know that we are going to be shooting a short film today fictionalizing Dan’s injury and subsequent recovery. We are hoping to have it shot today, edited over the next week and posted by next Sunday which is the eight week anniversary of his fall.

If you’re interested, you can follow our progress throughout the day by following us on twitter: twitter.com/strangeink.

Thanks for stopping by…

Tags: films | Category films

SI.002 Mtv Microphone

Posted on March 1st, 2010 by dan

History: This item has been in the Strange Ink Pictures Prop Department less than a year. I think I picked it up at a yard sale last summer. As I recall I had gone to the yard sale hoping to pick up some action figures and didn’t want to leave empty handed once I saw that some early bird had beaten me to the score. I definitely didn’t go there with the intent to buy it but once I saw it I figured we needed to have something in our prop department other than swords (we have a lot of swords) and Chef shirts (we only have 1 chef shirt as of this writing).

There’s no particular reason that we needed to have an Mtv microphone. I mean, it’s cool to have a microphone in our prop department, but it doesn’t have to be Mtv. I can’t imagine we’re ever going to put a film together that requires one of us to play ‘Downtown’ Julie Brown  (if we do, I think Bryan is the best fit… given how tall he is).

Application: The little box that says Mtv could easily be removed or covered to make this into a television reporter microphone or Presidential press corps microphone or we could even use it for what it was created for: karaoke. Or a movie about karaoke. If we do a movie about karaoke I think Bryan is the best lead… given how tall he is.

Value: The short answer is: $.50… ‘cause that’s what I paid for it. The stupid answer is $12.99 because that’s what people are apparently charging for this item on the ebay. If we lost this item tomorrow I don’t think Bryan and Greg would even notice. *I* might be a little disappointed, I could have spent that $.50 on candy and comic books.

Survive with the story. The world must know!

Previously… SI.001 Chef Shirt.

Up next… SI.003 Evil Mask.

| Category Props, films

SI.001 Chef Shirt

Posted on February 22nd, 2010 by dan

Welcome to the first in a very, very long series of entries cataloging the inventory of the Strange Ink Pictures prop department. As Prop Master (and Props Master) I will be your host as we document the history, application and value of the multitude of items that fill the trunks and closets of our production warehouse (my basement).

Prop Catalog # SI.001 – Chef Shirt

History: This item came from my personal collection of… shirts. That sounds weird, though. I mean, I didn’t (and still don’t) COLLECT shirts, per se. I have shirts the same way anyone else has shirts, to decorate my torso. Why did I have a chef shirt? The same reason anyone else would have a chef shirt… because it’s awesome (a point debated regularly by the staff at Strange Ink Pictures).

I don’t remember exactly when and where I acquired this piece. Sometimes items come from flea markets, sometimes they come from old roommates who have abandoned their culinary school supplies… there’s just no way to track all of the items (until now). So far this piece has been in the prop department since Strange Ink Pictures’ inception almost 365 days ago.

As of this writing it has yet to be used in a Strange Ink Pictures production. It is important to note, however, that there are several scripts currently in development that this prop factors into prominently. (Editor’s note: No there isn’t.)

Application: Unlimited.

“But Dan, surely the only use is for a chef character” you might say. To which I would certainly reply: “No. That’s wrong.”

Time-traveling cowboy? Eccentric, retired Naval deep-sea diver? Undercover, geisha assassin? Wise-cracking robot puppet? Why do I have to do all the work around here? (This should help our Google search results).

Look, if science fiction has taught us anything about the future it’s that shirts will button up the side. How we transition from strictly culinary uniform usage to entire militaries and scientific explorers  hasn’t been covered just yet.

Value: Who can say? How much is Freddy Krueger’s glove worth? Herbie the Luvbug? Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber? These are all props that have transcended their physical characteristics. Their value is greater than the sum of their physical properties. This shirt hasn’t been used in a Strange Ink Pictures film yet, therefore, its value is limitless. What film WILL it be used in? How important will that film be and how important will this prop be to that film? These questions are unanswerable.

(What a chef might look like)

Up next… SI.002 Mtv Microphone

Tags: chef shirt, films, Props | Category Props, films

The Store: The Greatest Hits

Posted on January 6th, 2010 by greg

In a few of our earlier posts we’ve talked about integrating elements of the old shirt store into this new version of the site. Well, we’ve taken a bit if a step in that direction with our new store page which you can find here. You can also get there by clicking on “The Store” in the menu at the top of the page.

I don’t want to keep saying the same thing over and over again but here it is: It’s not the most ideal solution and we will be tinkering with it in the future but for now, we just wanted to get things moving in that direction.

It’s not everything we have available, only 3 per category, but it is, as the post is titled, the greatest hits both in terms of sales and personal taste. As always, you can find the whole store by clicking here.

If you do check it out, thanks from the past, which is when I wrote this.

Tags: arrested development, futurama, t-shirts | Category cafepress, featured, t-shirts

The Year in Shirts in Review

Posted on December 28th, 2009 by greg

As the years end creeps ever so close we all like to take a look back on how the year went. There have been some changes around here mostly in the last month. After not updating the site for almost 2 years, we moved back in, rearranged the furniture and put on a new coat of paint. The one constant throughout those 2 years is that we kept selling shirts and while it may seem a little odd to then strip out that part of the site, as I’ve said in a previous post it won’t always stay this way. We are working on the logistics of folding some of that into this new site.

As a nod to a previous life, I present the top 10 sellers of the last year, complete with links if you are so inclined to help a particular shirt make it into next years top 10.

10. Vintage Cox

9. Springfield Isotopes

(more…)

Tags: arrested development, big lebowski, cafepress, futurama, printfection, t-shirts | Category featured, t-shirts

Top Movies of the Aughts That I Own

Posted on December 23rd, 2009 by greg

So here we are, at the end the decade referred to some as “The Aughts” and others as “The Decade That Ruins End of Decade Lists Because it is Referred to as the Aughts”. Anyway, over the last week or so I’ve been reflecting on my storied carrer as a professional consumer and started thinking about maybe doing my own end of decade list.

After reading countless top movies of the decade lists I decided to put my own spin on it. My list would be comprised entirely of movies I own, be it DVD, Blu-Ray or Laserdisc (Just kidding on that last one. While I still have many laserdiscs and continue to buy them, I have none that were released after 2000). So I looked through the collection taking note of any films released in 2000 or later and narrowed the list down to 20 because it’s a nice round number and I don’t think anyone else is doing that kind of thing.

We’re going to speed through 11-20 which are just going to be presented as a list because I don’t want this to take forever. I don’t get paid for this. So read on, friends, for the first (last?) ten…

(more…)

Tags: films, king of kong, primer, shaun of the dead, top 20, zodiac | Category dvd, featured

24 Pages Soundtrack Added

Posted on December 20th, 2009 by greg

Image by shankar, shiv used under the creative commons attribution license

So with the new film came the need for music for said film.  Because the film was being released under the creative commons license we headed over to the free music archive and after a few (4 or 5) hours we had the music we needed for the film.

All of the songs are now posted on the 24 pages page for your listening enjoyment. Just scroll past the film and listen away. While there, check out some of the bands websites and show them some support for putting in all the work they did.

A big thanks go out from us to all the bands whose music we did use. Without them, this film would’ve been a lot harder to complete.

Tags: 24 pages, creative commons, films, free music archive, soundtrack | Category films, site news

Film Section Update

Posted on December 18th, 2009 by greg

The film section has been updated with our newest film: 24 pages. We will be adding more to this page in the coming weeks including links to all the music used in the film, artwork and photos. You can also head over to circlecomics.com to check out the comic created in the film.

| Category films, site news