In honor of my yearly October tradition/marathon: The 31 Days of Halloween Series, I thought I’d share a recap of what’s come before.
Back in 2012, when Istarted the original series, I’d never imagined that it would be completed, let alone have continued tobecome my annual marathon of cinematic horrorscenes/images.
I had begun shooting the series as an”impossible project”, to recreate and shoot 31 horror movie homages and share them with a blog each day of October.
Part of the reason for shooting was that it was an idea I always carried in my mind to shoot “wheni had money” and I wanted it to “come alive”.
I also had just finished an exhibition in the UK, and had post-show depression, and needed a project to keep busy and refill the creative well.
Lastly, I wanted to shoot what I love (scary movies) and show how changing gender changes meaning and impact of horror stereotypes.. which I did, some of the time..
I decided to start shooting it in September, and I did a few, and they all went pretty smooth and easy and gave me confidence and excitement and then I got sick. I had pneumonia for a few weeks!
By the time I healed itwas October 2nd and I had one more image in my queue to share and had to shoot 25 days straight to finish the series.
So, I shot every day, several movies a day, and it was a lot harder than I’d imagined!! Sort of like film school in a month! At the end of October, we had Hurricane Sandy here in NY.
I shot the last three shots (TheShining, Halloween & Bram Stoker’s Dracula)on the day Sandy arrived.. walking home with myequipment through the storm after trains and buses had been discontinued.
But I FINISHED! Even if half the East Coast had no internet and couldn’t see the posts, andthe fact that Halloween was virtually cancelled in NYC that year… I still finished. It had nearly killed me but I gave my viewers (and myself) 36 scary movie tributes, including most of my favorite films. Most. Some of my favorites didn’t make the cut.
Due to all sorts of reasons, financial stuff, weather changing stuff, model cancellations and re-castings, or simply not being able to “figure them out”, certain movies couldn’t be included.
So, there was gonna have to be a Year Two.
Though, some things changed the second time around..
I shot a few earlier in the year, and I also got to shoot outside the country.
I shot the An American Werewolf in London image on REAL moors..
I also got to shoot my favorite popcorn flick of all time, JAWS, very close to the actual stretch of Atlantic Ocean in the film!!
The year prior we couldn’t shoot in the ocean due to severe temperature shifts and obviously, hurricanes.
However, I had less “free” time to shoot and despite my early bird attempts, many of the images were still shot the day before they were posted in October… andit still was a very difficult and very challenging series.
I got in most of the films that I felt needed to be included, butnot all…
Year Three was a bit of a non-event. I had a demanding day job and low funds, and long tiringhours and despite my best intentions, only six films were shot and shared before I decided to pull the plug on the marathon.
I had my first Manhattan Solo Art Exhibition during that same time period, showcasing my Styx Series, and we focused on that. Which turned out to be the right decision, it needed all my energy and it turned out to be a success! But my inner pumpkin was sad.
And I promised I’d return the following year with a full month of new images and that’s what I’m doing!!
As I write this, I’m HALFWAY done shooting Year Four. It’s the second week of September, and I think that’s the most “ahead” I’ve ever been with these bad boys.
I’m pretty proud of what I have created so far.. but there is still a lot of hard ones in the pipeline that I’m spooked of. Hopefully, when I start releasing them in October, you will love them!
I’m attempting to cast a lot of returning models from previous years (kind of my own homage to Ryan Murphy and his American Horror Story casting) as well as some pretty exciting newcomers!!
So, check back October 1st,2015 for the First Day of 31 Days of Halloween YEARFOUR!!
X KRYS FOX