Monster Man

[Cliff]

Yes

..i will be. sounds good see ya there!

[drfrightner]

I just watched the new episode... BORING

How long did you think it would take before they are doing things to promote a movie they have no involvement with... this time Puss N Boots.

Wow this show is just flat out boring. I think it would be cooler to do KB FX or something.

Larry

[BrotherMysterio]

Well, Monster Man now officially has a Wikipedia page. One line. That's it. Oh well.

Incidentally, I am interested in seeing the last episode, being that they are doing a vid for Devo, but I am really not looking forward to the scene of Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerry Casale going "Cleve, really? An hour late?"

Haven't heard if the show's been renewed.

[Jim Warfield]

I Declined Their Offer

Several monhts ago to be featured on this show for a number of very good reasons having nothing to do with it possibly being a stupid or boring waste of my time. Now I am sure very glad I didn't go for it after reading what has been said here about it.
I had already told them in no uncertain terms "No" when then I was told I would be expected to "financially Contribute" to the monster, since it would be installed in my house. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! dream on phone-voice person.

[BigT]

Monster Man is all about Movie Land

I think the show falls flat with a lot of us because this is all about movies, and not what we do. When we buy/build a prop, the quality must be excellent. Our customers are close-up and may even be touching our props so they must be believable. When building for the movies or TV, this is not the case. This is why they can build this stuff in days for a shoot at the end of the week.

I have had a lot of exposure to the process and have been on some sets, and even worked with several set dressers and prop builders. They operate in a totally different environ than we do. I like the show because it shows a different aspect of making monsters. I think as in all reality TV much is hyped and over-played, but it is kind o feat to see how they deal with deadlines and creativity.

[Deathwing]

We know it's for the film industry that's not the issue Face off isn't about the haunt industry either. I think the problem is when we see someone who does film fx we expect it to be better than what our haunt vendors do, but that's not he case.

Jake

[BrotherMysterio]

I had already told them in no uncertain terms "No" when then I was told I would be expected to "financially Contribute" to the monster, since it would be installed in my house. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! dream on phone-voice person.

Makes you wonder, don't it? How many of those clients would have walked in of their own accord?

I think as in all reality TV much is hyped and over-played, but it is kind o feat to see how they deal with deadlines and creativity.

Well, I really can't see how it would be good for their business. I mean, when I first started watching it, I thought that I would be seeing, you know, something like Stan Winston level effects. Maybe not entirely at that level, but a helluvalot better than what we have seen. When Constance did that design for a werewolf, I about crapped a brick! I thought, "Holy Life Cast, Batman!, I've seen better designs on Napoleon Dynamite's high school notebooks!" And, no, I'm not kidding. I saw stuff like that back in high school and middle school. I'd venture to say that I've seen better designs than that on my own notebooks from high school. I never imagined my doodles could be taken for Hollywood level special effects concept drawings.

Yet, they show up on the set of Face/Off for a walk-thru and are treated like royalty. Seriously, would anyone from SOTA even have a chance at competing on Face/Off, much less winning?

Also, for all you business owners on here, would any of you ever put up with such lousy office politics and workplace morale? What's with all the band of brothers crap? Roy and Cleve go way back 20 years? What, Roy's been a pussy that long and Cleve has been a pain in the assets that long, and it only now started being a problem since the show started? After 20 years they're still struggling to make it into the big time, and these things haven't proved to be a problem before?

What would a prospective director thinking of using SOTA actually think once they saw that show? Blown time-lines? Questionable results? Lost revenues and production costs in lost studio time? Unprofessionalism?

They talk about the battle between practical and CGI. This show must be a secret plot by CGI studios to boost their prestige in comparison by making practical look bad. If I owned a practical shop, I'd be fuming over the idea that they were making all practical shops look bad, and my potential customers not even bothering to call me, instead immediately phoning a CGI shop.

We know it's for the film industry that's not the issue Face off isn't about the haunt industry either. I think the problem is when we see someone who does film fx we expect it to be better than what our haunt vendors do, but that's not the case.

Well, do keep in mind, one of the top contenders on this last season, who should have won in my opinion, was none other than Matt Valentine, who is a pro haunter, with one of the top haunts in Texas.

Regardless of who the other contestants might have been, Matt was definitely keeping it real and representing for the haunt industry.

C.

[Deathwing]

Matt Garcia now known as Matt Valentine is not a pro Haunter, or any level of Haunter based on what I have read here. He used to work for House of Torment but they parted ways a few years back and he then started selling his services to the industry. He is a costume maker and can make and build most whatever a Haunter needs, but he is not a pro Haunter or own a haunt, unless that's changed very recently.

Face off is about these artists getting in the spfx business for movies, which is why its judged by movie fx people not haunters, but there's not much work so they are starting to show up at haunt
conventions and events.


Jake

[BrotherMysterio]

Matt Garcia now known as Matt Valentine is not a pro Haunter, or any level of Haunter based on what I have read here. He used to work for House of Torment but they parted ways a few years back and he then started selling his services to the industry. He is a costume maker and can make and build most whatever a Haunter needs, but he is not a pro Haunter or own a haunt, unless that's changed very recently.

Face off is about these artists getting in the spfx business for movies, which is why its judged by movie fx people not haunters, but there's not much work so they are starting to show up at haunt conventions and events.

Jake

Well, I'm not exactly sure how you draw the distinction between "worked for", "worked with", "partnered with", or "owned", but on the cover story of the #21 issue of "HauntWorld" featuring House of Torment, Netherworld's Ben Armstrong interviews The Brothers Garcia, along with the two other key members, about HOT, then in it's 6th year in '08 when HOT came to national prominence.

Ben listed the four parties as such:

Daniel McCullough - Owner/President
Jon Love - VP and Marketing "whiz"
Matt Garcia - Art Director and Creature Creator
Mike Garcia - General Operations Manager and Actor Coordinator

Additionally, Matt not only created the Icon Characters of Mr. Creeps and Sgt. Graves, but Matt and Mike also played Mr. Creeps and Sgt. Graves, respectively, which, to me, definitely counts as haunt acting, and if I understand the article - or, should I say, articles, being that there were four - they had been at this for some 8 years before Matt started looking at other venues, give or take a year.

In any case, that's what the article said.

C.

[Deathwing]

Partners and affiliates are not owners, owners are owners they are the pro Haunters the rest are staff. I've worked at HHN and Knott's and was paid, but I was not a professional Haunter I would not include myself at the level the owners worked up to.

Jake

[Wolfenhowie]

I would love to see....

I would like to see a series on "TRUE" monster shops like Rick Baker's or KNB myself. Monster Man was entertaining until about the second episode then I realized this was more about the drama between Cleve, his daughter, and ex-wife all working together. I'm sure Cleve has done a lot and is a fantastic artist, ( I had never heard of him before the series started) but this series is NOT showcasing his talent at all. My dream was to go to California and sweep floors in a make-up shop and learn from the masters. I joined the Air Force instead! that being said, if I were to drop what I was doing right now and chase that dream , I would be hard pressed to go knocking on SOTA's door- they are coming across pretty campy. Again, hopefully, it is just the producers spinning it that way.....

[Deathwing]

Thanks for your service and I agree with you 100%

jake

[BrotherMysterio]

Partners and affiliates are not owners, owners are owners they are the pro Haunters the rest are staff. I've worked at HHN and Knott's and was paid, but I was not a professional Haunter I would not include myself at the level the owners worked up to.

Jake

Well, apparently we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. Obviously you didn't read the article, which is fine.

Matt, his brother Mike, Daniel McCullough, and Jon Love (being the Art Dir., Ops Mgr, Pres and the VP, respectively), regarded themselves as the core team, and they all worked together to budget their haunt so that ALL FOUR OF THEM, Matt and Mike included, could draw a salary from HOT so that they could quit their day jobs and work on the haunt full time year round. That's when the haunt went from standard haunt stuff to being stellar, according to the article.

All four of them had regular business meetings, steering meetings, just about any kind of meeting you could have, to work things out. And they were all there everyday working on the Haunt. In a given season they had a total staff of 110 and an acting troupe of 75 actors. So, including them, that's almost 200 employees.

So, why is it, out of nearly 200 employees, only these four drew a salary, and you look at the other three members of this core team as merely hired hands? Of course, that said, no one truly knows what happens behind closed doors.

Again, we'll have to agree to disagree.

Again, hopefully, it is just the producers spinning it that way.....

Well, yes and no. There's only so much spin you can put on a show. These people are who they are. I'm sure tensions are played up a bit, tho. I wonder if Syfy reimburses the directors for their filming costs when Cleve and Co. blow a deadline.

Incidentally, if you look at Cleve's profile on Syfy's Monster Man page, they list some 7-8 movies that he did which they pitch as showcasing his talent, which were all from the 80's, and I ain't heard of none of them except Ghoulies, which was a Gremlins knock-off. The only one that was recent was within the last year or two, and I saw a clip of it. It was some sort of vampire soft core p0rn deal with aging scream queens (again from the 80's) plus a bunch of p0rn actresses, and Cleve ostensibly did the blood stuff and played a psycho priest.

Of course, when you walked into Stan Winston's office, you pretty much tripped over originals from every major creature feature of the 80's, 90's, and 2000's.

Just sayin'

C.

[Darkangel]

Watching tonight's episode, it seems to me that Cleve would have been a great monster maker in the silent film era, because his stuff looks like its from that long ago. Stuff looks terrible and his fat ass wife is annoying!

They should have contacted Kevin from Gore Galore or something for the show.


DA

[RobfromErie]

I saw the first and last 10 minutes of the episode with Devo. I thought the final product looked pretty cool tonight.