Check out the Creepy Puppets in ‘The Mill at Calder’s End’
If you enjoy horror movies with creepy puppets in them, and to be honest everyone does, then you’re about to get a treat courtesy of Kickstarter. The Mill at Calder’s End was fully funded in March of 2013 and a trailer was recently released for it. The short film will feature almost no CGI effects, and the story will be told through puppets. Based on the director’s comments and description on the Kickstarter page, I’m excited. The director, Kevin McTurk, has worked on films such as Batman Returns, Interview with a Vampire, and the Jurassic Park series.
Here’s a summary of the project from its Kickstarter page:
The Mill at Calder’s End is a passion project that is heavily influenced by the classic Hammer horror films of the 1960s and the films of Mario Bava (most notably, his gothic masterpiece Black Sunday). I have also always had a great love of puppetry and traditional in-camera special effects. The work of Jim Henson (The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and his Storyteller television series) is a great inspiration to me and I am hoping to bring his sense of wonderment and artistry to The Mill at Calder’s End.
The Mill at Calder’s End is a passion project that is heavily influenced by the classic Hammer horror films of the 1960s and the films of Mario Bava (most notably, his gothic masterpiece Black Sunday). I have also always had a great love of puppetry and traditional in-camera special effects. The work of Jim Henson (The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and his Storyteller television series) is a great inspiration to me and I am hoping to bring his sense of wonderment and artistry to The Mill at Calder’s End.
In 2012, I was honored to work with Heather Henson (Jim’s youngest daughter) on my first film. Heather produced The Narrative of Victor Karloch as one of the short films for her Handmade Puppet Dreams Film Series and was a guiding force in helping me create the haunted world of Victor Karloch.
The Mill at Calder’s End is a gothic tale that will be told with the traditional Japanese theater puppetry technique known as bunraku. Each puppet figure is controlled by three (or more) puppeteers dressed in black and hidden behind each character. It is my goal to make a film that celebrates practical effects and therefore there will be almost no computer generated imagery in the final film. In my first film, The Narrative of Victor Karloch, I utilized several silent film era camera techniques, such as a shot of a miniature ship on a stormswept ocean (which, in fact, was made up of painted flowing garbage bags). I plan to continue to use many more of these techniques to give a hand crafted look to The Mill at Calder’s End.
via The Verge
