Production Blog 4: The Halloween Special 2014 Premieres FRIDAY!

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In case you haven’t seen it around on social media, The Sexy Armpit Halloween Special hits YouTube on Friday night!

My previous production update included the colossal bummer of discovering that a full days worth of footage we shot didn’t come out. That’s the less technical way of putting it, and to keep this post from being 6 pages long, let’s leave it at that. Things are a lot more upbeat this time around and I’m psyched to announce that the Halloween special premieres on YouTube this FRIDAY night!

After having our schedule pushed out a week, I can still say that even after getting thrown off by a full week, I am planning on premiering the Halloween special a full week ahead of last years premiere date!

Aside from our schedule being thrown out of whack, I was equally as concerned that the video would surpass 30 minutes. Fortunately, it’s not 30 minutes, but it’s about as long as a TV sitcom. Now, this would all depend on the way you look at things, but some fans and friends of the site, and even I could lodge the argument that even if we did come in at 30 minutes, it would be 30 minutes of free, independent Halloween goodness that you won’t see anywhere else. Plus, it has some of our online cohorts in it as well. Most of the time I prefer 20 minutes to be the absolute maximum, but this time there’s more of an actual fleshed out storyline to get wrapped up in.

If you enjoyed our previous 2 Halloween specials, you won’t be disappointed! From a personal standpoint, I can’t yet comment on which one is my favorite until I watch the finished product on the big screen TV with friends and family to really capture the feel of it. As it stands now, last years Halloween special is my favorite, and possibly my favorite video I’ve ever made, but in only mere days I’ll find out if the 2014 installment edges it out.

For your Halloween enjoyment, I highly recommend you try to watch it on your TV, whether it be a Smart TV or if you have a PS3/4, XBox, Apple TV or Roku. I feel like Michael Cole berating you with information, but in this case, I have this feeling that your experience will be so much better than watching it on a tablet or a phone.

I thank you for reading along with the production updates, and I appreciate all of you who showed support on Twitter, IG, and Facebook! This whole thing, including my site, videos, and everything means so much more when I run into people who legitimately enjoy it. This year the special has been a lot more work and sucked up way more time than ever, but I am proud of it. It gives me the chance to present you with a little something extra during my favorite time of the year. Literally several quarts of sweat went into this video, and I also stained my face, pissed a lot of people off, burned the entire interior of my mouth including my tongue, almost had the cops called on me, and probably gained 7 lbs sitting on my ass writing and editing, but it was worth it.

A huge thanks go out to our small crew of friends (you know who you are) and loved ones who helped make this special happen. Whether you’re here with me driving all around New Jersey or you sent me a recorded part your part from across the country, I have nothing but immense appreciation for you.

I haven’t had much time to do anything except work on this film for nearly 2 months. It’s hard to imagine the amount of hours we’ve spent making this film, and to consider that I’ve spent almost triple the amount of hours editing it than we took to film it is pretty nuts. It seems totally preposterous, and even though it’s a silly YouTube video, it’s still incredible time consuming. Getting back to a normal existence will be welcome. Next year the special is going to be 4 minutes lol.

What’s next for me? Most important, I am going to enjoy the rest of October and get right back into the Halloween countdown. I’ll be reading your blogs as well. Come back soon for a few more cool posts for the countdown and at least another video, maybe two if I have enough horror and caffeine in me!

BE HERE FOR THE PREMIERE:

FRIDAY NIGHT 10.10.14
THE SEXY ARMPIT HALLOWEEN SPECIAL!

www.SexyArmpit.com

Production Blog 3: Halloween Special 2014, Catastrophe!

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Now is the most logical time to impress upon you that you should check out our 1st and 2nd Halloween specials if you’ve never watched them. They do have aspects that will continue in our upcoming 3rd special, so watch ’em on your smart TV right before you view your next horror movie!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOhL19V-TfM][youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ_R7kXLGZc]

Please subscribe and check out our other videos at: https://www.youtube.com/user/thesexyarmpit/videos

Back to the production update:

There was a lot of positivity and momentum going on in the last production update.

This one is more filled with rage and furious anger.
What I intended on being the final day of filming actually turned out to be disastrous, aside from an wondrous trip to Smashburger (had the chicken avocado club in case you were wondering!) It was no fault of the people involved like Mike, his wife Lauren, and Miss Sexy Armpit. It wasn’t my fault either, it was the camera. It seems to gave gone bye-bye. Not disappeared, but more accurately, gone to shit. It’s a realm that I don’t think it will ever return from.
Regardless, after I transferred the footage the computer, I watched it back…stupefied at what I was viewing. Each piece of footage was incredibly pixelated and distorted. If I was making a found footage movie that was recorded on a half broken GoPro camera, this would’ve been tops. I even tried converting the footage, but there was no fixing it since it seems to definitely be an issue within the camera itself.
So, the footage was fucked, and I felt that I was as well. Nothing like a catastrophe like this putting a huge damper on forward progress and what little motivation I had at that moment. I won’t feel fully in the game until we get back on track with the all the footage in the can.
Looking back, it makes this whole thing seem like more of a struggle, and it definitely IS. There’s no embellishing here. Considering there’s no budget, and a fair amount of arguing, the resentment of Jay factor is rising amongst those involved. The only thing I can promise is that when it’s done, the crew and YOU will be moderately entertained. That is what will redeem me here, I hope.
Fingers crossed, tomorrow we’ll complete our re-shoots with a brand new cam. After that it shouldn’t be too long before I can unleash The Halloween Special 2014 to all of you. 
As far as running time, we are looking at pushing 25-30 minutes and I previously mentioned in the last post, that is way too long in my view. But there’s too much good stuff that it’s not getting chopped to hell. Let’s face it, we don’t get a limited edition Scream Factory blu-ray so I’m gonna make this one count! 
Also, it’d be great if you want to incorporate it into an October horror-thon, like watching it before ohhh, say…Halloween 2 or something, of course that’s just a suggestion, I don’t mean you should actually do that, except no, I DO MEAN EXACTLY THAT. PLEASE.
Cursed footage. Raging tension. Heated arguments. This could be the basis of next years Halloween special. Bah, who am I kidding, I already have 5 ideas for it.
I truly appreciate everyone coming together to help out when this really brought down all of our moods. On a lighter note, I can report that this has been a real team effort. Lots of our online friends have pitched in to help, and even some surprise guests that went out of their way to make appearances both on camera and off. You know who you are, and you will all be thanked heavily in the credits! This aspect of it is really going to make this special the most monumental installment so far. My original vision for these was exactly that – a throwback. I’m all about including guest stars and hijinks much like some low budget TV special you might have seen in the ’70s.
Stay Tuned and thanks for hanging in there! I will not rest until it’s complete!
www.SexyArmpit.com

Production Blog 2: Halloween Special

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Since we won’t be filming the next half of the special until the weekend, I decided to begin cutting the footage we’ve already shot. I always find an insane amount of joy in watching the raw footage back while editing, it’s one of the more enjoyable phases of the process.

Although, even basking in this glorious almost-Autumn weather hasn’t been enough to rescue me from feeling a bit distraught. The excitement of Halloween has not yet fully hit me yet because this mammoth undertaking IS A LOT OF DAMN WORK!

I blame myself.

Honestly – writing, “acting,” filming, and editing are aspects I certainly adore, but they’re all a free-time leech, and prove to be a major distraction from being able to fully enjoy the early part of the Halloween season. By time the season is in full swing, I’m beat up from lack of sleep because I’ve been editing for weeks and staying up until 2am and then waking up at 5am for work. When Halloween is over, I look back and have no idea where it all went. One of these days I just want to sit back and take it all in. Maybe I’ll start recording the special in the spring time? Nah. It just wouldn’t feel right.

Like so many of you, Halloween inspires me. The span of September 1st all the way until October’s big 3-1 is one huge overload on my brain. I can’t even reign in all the ideas I have, nor could I possibly ever execute all the trips, blog posts, and videos that I have on deck. There’s just not enough time, especially when one is biting off more than he can chew with a full time job, trying to blog, AND creating a Halloween special for YouTube.

I’m sure there were many people out there who probably watched our last two specials and got nauseated, but I am not here to beat them into submission and staple their eyelids open to watch our ridiculous YouTube video. I’m appreciative and happy about those out there who genuinely enjoy them and plainly see in them the obvious outpouring of love that I have for Halloween, horror films, and pop culture in general. All 3 of those things have literally consumed my entire life, and so has making videos.

For those of you who read blogs in our circles and elsewhere and see the term “labor of love,” well, I can tell you for damn sure that that is a real thing.

A crazy expensive professional video camera was first placed in my hand when I was 8 or 9 years old…in the ’80s. This thing was GIGANTIC and HEAVY. Seeing a similar reference on The Goldbergs last season was surreal. I’m sure there were others who felt the same way, but I said to myself “Holy shit, that was me!” Hauling around what felt like a 90 pound video camera on my shoulders interviewing family members, recording backyard wrestling events, and acting out movie scenes was common content found on a blank VHS tape at our house. That stuff never stopped, it just evolved. Next it was 8-millimeter, digital cams, and transitioning from old school editing on decks to editing right on the computer, it’s been a long journey.

So, to bring that all together, what I’m saying is, as wacky as our videos might be, they actually represent the culmination of many years of passion for horror, comedy, screenwriting, editing, and amateur filmmaking.

Enough of this schmaltzy B.S! Onto the actual production update!

As I mentioned in the first production update, I enjoy the editing process immensely. While the rest of my productions are usually created in a slightly haphazard way, the editing is very methodical.

For only the first half of scenes, we had over 90 minutes of footage. That’s deceiving though, because a large chunk of this is raw footage for the intro credits. To clue you in, I’ve dwindled this all down to 28 minutes, but we have another 2-3 days of filming left. My hope is never make these specials longer than 15 minutes, but it’s a major challenge to tell a story properly in such a quick amount of time. I’m hoping this special will be in the range of 15-20 minutes max. If it’s more, I’m going to get cranky. Since this is our 3rd special, I owe it to myself to not rush the story and make it the best it can be. Who knows, maybe it will be the best one we’ve done so far. What I can tell you is that we have some super special cameos that are really icing on the cake.

I can also add that for every tense moment during filming there’s about 5 or 6 that make us all laugh and prohibit us from continuing for a few minutes. This type of absurdity has already given us about 5 minutes of outtakes that I really wanted to weave in during the credits, but we shall see how long the film itself is. If the run time is already 20 minutes, I’m going to have to make a separate outtake reel and upload that on it’s own.

Another thing I’ve noticed as I look back on this footage is that I am certainly not Stanley Kubrick, but I just wind up acting like him when we’re making these specials. During filming I have no idea that I become a total dick, but it’s like I’m possessed. I think I said “let’s do it one more time,” about 67 times in the first half of footage. Plus that makes editing that much more grueling because for a 3 word sentence I’ll have 43 takes filmed. Talk about driving myself mad!

I’m hoping to have all the filming in the can by Monday, save for a few little bits of the intro and a few other very minor details. Once I load that footage in, I’ll begin the second phase of editing. Time-wise we seem to be pretty much on target. Thanks for reading and come back again soon to track our progress!

www.SexyArmpit.com

Production Blog 1: Halloween Special 2014

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You might be wondering how I could have the audacity to start a Halloween countdown and then not post a damn thing for a week? Trust me, there’s a good reason, and it’s well worth it!

Thanks for baring with me folks. We’re about halfway into production of The Sexy Armpit Halloween Special 2014! This is our 3rd Halloween special and to make it even remotely entertaining (and I use that term loosely) we have to put a lot of thought and actual hard work into it. Since I’ve had to turn my attention away from the Halloween countdown in favor of our annual Halloween video extravaganza, I figured, why not present you some inside info about it right here on the blog?

Although I consider the content of these specials to be a complete farce, I still infuse them with the utmost care and attention to detail. Ahh yes, details…that’s where Mike (@IdiotAtPlay) comes in. He’s always our continuity expert. Of course, we’ll still have one or two minor flubs in that department, but it’s no fault of his. This is multiple levels below even a Troma level of production, so keep that in mind. A few pumpkin beers and everything’s thrown out the window!

As I mentioned, we’re about halfway through filming and things are going well. The second half of filming will continue later this month, and that will contain more arduous scenes in terms of dialogue, props, and “scenery.” While I enjoy the process of directing and “acting,” they are my least favorite part of all this.

Having gone through so many film and acting classes, it became apparent to me over the years that I gain the most enjoyment out of two facets of the filmmaking process. I have an affinity for scriptwriting, but editing is my strong suit and it’s what I have the most passion for. So, I’m definitely anxious to start editing. Matter of fact, I may begin loading the footage we’ve already shot and dive right in to get a jump on things.

As for a premiere date, unfortunately, it’s still too early to tell, but I’ll be announcing one soon. Once we get the rest of the filming is complete, I’ll have a better idea of when it will hit the YouTubes. It will obviously be sometime in October. Typically, I aim for early to mid-month, so stay tuned!

www.SexyArmpit.com

The 10 Best Pics of Rowdy Roddy Piper and Jay From Monster Mania Con 28!

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With the summer installment of Monster Mania in the history books, the countdown to Halloween is fast-approaching. Although it’s a horror convention, my mind never associates it with the onset of the Halloween season. Not sure why, but when you think about it, in merely a matter of days, Dinosaur Dracula will be signaling to all that the countdown is on. Halloween is right around the corner, yet this is still a summer event, one that’s ripe for escorting the sweltering season directly out the door without passing go. Good riddance to you summer, I say. Oh, I suppose you want to know more about Monster Mania? OK, I’ll give you all I can remember.

Let me get this out from the get-go: we didn’t get drunk with the Joker and Freddy Krueger like we did that other time, but once again, the forces of Dinosaur Dracula, Freddy in Space, and The Sexy Armpit came together and had quite an interesting time to say the least. It’s a scene not for the faint of heart. You’d probably like to know all about our sordid Monster Mania tales from this time around, but we’ve got to keep some decorum here, plus, details are fuzzy. Put it this way, there was a lot of liquor and VHS tapes involved. And Tom Bryce’s pretzels. It was a veritable Shit Pretzel Fest.

As I mentioned, it’s a little foggy, but the bits of this event that I do remember include buying a Princess Bride poster AND more monumentally, meeting Rowdy Roddy Piper. With the Hot Rod in New Jersey, how could I miss the chance to meet one of my favorite WWE Legends of all time?

I think I must’ve gained a lifetime membership to the club. You know that club, Those Who’ve Met Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper Within a Matter of Days From Each Other Club. It’s not the kind of braggable anecdote as say, being in the mile high club, but it’s a tidbit that’ll most certainly be engraved in my headstone.

While waiting on line I noticed Piper was smiling and taking his time to talk with every one of his fans. Fortunately, Matt (@DinosaurDracula) arrived, grabbed my phone and snapped over 20 photos to make damn sure we commemorated this historic meeting of the minds. It was a nearly impossible task to narrow it down, but here are the top 10 best photos of Hot Rod and I from our impromptu photo shoot. Some of the shots are different, yet so completely the same.

As they were swiping through these photos on my phone, a few of my friends and family members asked what I talked to Piper about. Seeing 20+ photos of he and I prompted one of my friends to ask “how long was he talking to you for?” No joke, it had to be at least 35 minutes. There were “BULLSHIT” chants coming from the people in line behind me. To be clear, we didn’t talk wrestling, we didn’t talk They Live, and we damn sure didn’t talk politics. But he did offer me a recipe. It’s just like good old Hot Rod, recipes are so typical of him. You can see how good he is with a blender in that episode of Legends House. Piper vs. The Blender, a feud that can only be rivaled by Hogan/Piper.

The blur was actually present in the room. It eventually dissipated, but, at first, it was like The Mist.

JAY:
“Hey Hot Rod! How exciting it is to meet you!”

HOT ROD:
“Hey, thank you man, what’s your name?” 

JAY
“I’m Jay.”

HOT ROD:
“Jay, I love that shirt!” 
(I’m wearing the Panther shirt that Roddy wore to the ring in the early ’80s.)
JAY:
“It’s classic! I’m about 6 tequilas in, so excuse me if I sound like it.”

HOT ROD:
“Ohhhohoo, so you want to be a big shot don’t ya?”
JAY:
“Well, not really, I just wanted to get drunk with my friends.”

HOT ROD:
“Now that you mention it, you are lookin’ a little bit under the weather, You know what, I know exactly what you need. It’s what I used to make when I was oh, knee high to a grasshopper.”

JAY:
“Specifically, what kind of concoction are you going to supply me with the recipe for, Roddy? Not that raw egg in the blender gimmick that Hulk gave Mean Gene I hope!”
(Just when he thought he had all the answers, I obviously changed the questions.) 
HOT ROD:
“Now, don’t insult me kid or I’ll crack your head with a coconut, trust me you’ll want to listen to the information I’m about to lay out for you.”

JAY:
“I’m all ears, Hot Rod.”
HOT ROD:
“Do you remember once upon a time when that little meatball Rachel Ray’s cooking show was a hot commodity? Well it can’t touch Mixology with Rowdy Roddy!“
JAY:
“I’m confused, are you saying you’re changing the name of Piper’s Pit?”
HOT ROD:
“Listen up, stop your lips from yapping for one minute. If you want to be big time, you’re gonna have one of these with me”
Piper proceeds to instruct me on how to concoct a Hot Roddy.
HOT ROD:
“Ever hear your grandmother talk about drinking a Hot Toddy when she was sick? Well, this is what I call a Hot Roddy.”
JAY:
“I assume it can cure what ails ya…or ails me. After all the drinking and partying at Monster Mania so far, this is just what I needed. Some kind of an elixir to rejuvenate me.”
HOT ROD:
“You’re damn right, and remember Jay, this drink ain’t FOR EVERYBODY, but if you want a banana have a banana, us, we gonna have ourselves a Hot Roddy.”

HOT ROD
Oh no…
JAY:
Oh no, what?

HOT ROD:
Oh no…who is that taking our picture? Please don’t tell me it’s that damn motherf*ckin’ Dino Drac, that sonofabitch! OK, OK, that’s enough pictures, you know where you can stick those VHS tapes! This is the last picture and then get that photographer the hell out of here!

I have come here to show you at least 10 photos and kick ass, and I’m all out of photos.
www.SexyArmpit.com

Nerd Lunch 145: The Poor Man’s Podcast

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X is the Poor Man’s Y is the subject of this week’s episode of the Nerd Lunch Podcast. Once again I’m in the 4th chair joining Pax, Jeeg, and Carlin from Pod, James Pod (just want to stress that he’s not C.T.) It was an interesting discussion about actors, toys, and cartoons. Download it to your phone or iPod or check it out above. Thanks for listening!
www.SexyArmpit.com

Sexy Armpit’s EPIC 10th Birthday Surprise!

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Even though the Sexy Armpit doesn’t turn 10 until November, you’re getting a sneak peak, mostly because we just can’t wait to show you! For this milestone, we don’t need fancy desserts that pack on the pounds, instead, watch this video to see what we got for The Sexy Armpit’s upcoming 10th Birthday. It’s EPIC!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMWGJYt9y7U?rel=0]
www.SexyArmpit.com

Nerd Lunch Podcast Episode 134: Batman 75

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You may have noticed that I’ve been on a bit of hiatus as of late, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not gearing up for a summer comeback! While I’m still working on a couple of things for the site that will be unveiled very soon, take a listen to the latest episode of Nerd Lunch that Michael May (of The Adventure Blog) and myself hang out on to discuss EVERYTHING BATMAN in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Dark Knight Detective with Pax, CT, and Jeeg. It was a whopper of an episode, but an excellent listen, especially for Bat-Fans! You can listen via the player above, or go to iTunes and SUBSCRIBE to the Nerd Lunch Podcast! Show them some love and give them a review there too! Thanks for your continued support and come back soon as we get ready for the summer season here at The Sexy Armpit!
www.SexyArmpit.com

It’s Coming: The Sexy Armpit Halloween Special 2013!

Posted on by sexyarmpit
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Watch the 2011 Halloween Special to prepare for The 2013 Special
which is coming this week! The 2013 special is a direct sequel to 2011.

Nothing excites me more during the year than Halloween. Many of you feel exactly the same way considering that we receive a record number hits every October. For this year’s Halloween Countdown we’ve been presenting horrific and halloweeny posts for you since September 1st, earlier than ever for us. If you read Dinosaur Dracula, you would know that Matt has marked 2013 as the best Halloween season ever, and it’s basically a 100% fact at this point for so many reasons. Not convinced? Keep reading. Even if you’re more than convinced, keep reading too. I’m building toward asking you for your help! And never fear, I am not asking you to finance a relatives cross country bike tour either.

This season so far, not only have we seen the Monster Cereal blitz in full force including the retro packaging and the return of Yummy Mummy and Fruit Brute, but there’s also been such a bevy of Halloween themed products lining store shelves that are pretty fantastic. Buying “stuff” to enhance the spookiest Holiday is always part of the fun. How can you live without pumpkin shaped cheese balls or a skull shaped bottle of margarita mix? C’mon, these are necessities!

Halloween isn’t only about dropping wads of hard earned cash on gimmick product variations though. The season wouldn’t be the same without heading out to haunted attractions, or going to masquerades. I hope you are all able to fit at least of a couple of these into your October calendar. If you aren’t invited to any, crash one.

What’s on TV is also an important aspect of October. Thankfully, AMC has been running a shit ton of horror movies nonstop, and speaking for those of us who get that channel, we appreciate it! There’s even a Toy Story Halloween Special airing tonight. With all this great programming, you still can’t just rely on TV alone to provide Halloween entertainment. October is the best time to whip out your DVDs and fashion your own horror movie marathon. Your marathon doesn’t even have to include horror films if you’re a scaredy cat. You might want to compile a list of movies set in the fall or a movies that feature fleeting shots of a pumpkin. That will be incredibly less fun, but to each his own.

Back in the old days, movie theaters showed cartoons, newsreels, and short serial adventures before the feature film. Now we’re bombarded with ads, Friends trivia, and more trailers than you will ever want to watch consecutively in your life.

What am I getting at? Well, if you’re new to The Sexy Armpit, I have this little Halloween Special from 2011 that I’m not sure if you saw. If you have seen it, I’m asking that you might watch it again to prepare you for our 2013 special that is on it’s way to YouTube! The 2013 Halloween Special is a direct sequel to 2011’s since Hurricane Sandy really brought the mood down last year. Since this year’s special is a little out in left field, it will certainly help if you’ve seen the first one.

Honestly, I don’t like asking people for things, but in this case, I feel it’s worth bothering you about. So, if I may, I’d like to be a part of your marathons and Halloween celebrations. I’m not just asking you to watch our upcoming 2013 Halloween Special, I’m hoping this ridiculous mish-mosh of pop culture will serve as an intro to your horror movie viewing in the same way that cartoons and serials were presented before feature films back in the day.

With all this modern equipment such as smart TVs, smart phones, X-Boxes and iPads, you might even have a way to watch it on your TV right before your annual viewing of Trick r Treat or Halloween! That would be optimum! We’re very anxious for you to see this year’s special and we’re hoping it will hit by Friday if nothing catastrophic happens. Please Mother Nature, no hurricanes this year.
 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOhL19V-TfM?rel=0]
www.SexyArmpit.com