Visual Effects Artist Mitch Klein celebrates his birthday today. Besides being the talented effects artist for Timewarp Films, he is a fantastic contributor to this site. The photo above was taken by Leanna Chamish, and shows him holding Burt Ward’s original Batarang from the Batman TV show of the 1960s. Happy Birthday Mitch!

Well folks, nobody is going to be interested in hearing this, but real life has been keeping me too busy to do much updating. Trust me, I feel bad about that and hope to rectify that in July. Of course the economy still sucks so I have been taking every freelance job and paying gig I can find. THAT’S what has kept me out of the loop. Some of these gigs are related to the industry, so I will be writing about those experiences in a few articles.

I worked on a recent music video for producer Lee Doll. Les Bradley was the director of photography on the shoot. I have seen a rough cut and it looks great!

Click on the image above and it will take you to a thread I have up about whodunit slasher films. I post regularly over at The Bodycount Continues. I go over everything old and new and big budget to low budget, and am updating it as I have time (which hasn’t been much lately). If you have done a whodunit slasher, you just may find a review of it there.

The guys over at Shock Marathons sent me in two of their latest movies to review which I hope to get to as soon as possible. Check out their fun site ahead of time by clicking on the image of Freaky Farley above!

I talked with contributor Mitch Klein this evening, and it looks like the site will be getting a lot more traffic in the near future. With the aid of updating the software and a few plug-ins, the site is going to get a MUCH wider audience AND that means more publicity and information for the indie films posted here. Most excellent news Mitch! If you haven’t done so, you owe it to yourself to check out his awesome independent film site TALES FROM THE CELLAR. To do so click on the link below:

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It’s June and believe it or not I have an update! I know, I know – it’s been a while but I have a good reason for the absence: I have been snowed under with work – most of them paying gigs. As anybody in the indie world will agree is that you have to go where the money is and strike when it’s hot! So, I do apologize for the gap between updates. However, I do have some great ones here so open your eyes and check then out!

First up is the interview I did with Filmmaker Dan Zachary of Moviehouse Pictures. He goes into detail on some of the behind-the-scenes info, struggles, and antics he ran into when getting his indie slasher DARKEST HOUR off the ground and finished. He also gives the reader a glimpse into what is coming up next with his company. To check out the cool interview and photos go HERE.

Next Leanna Chamish does a two part interview with actor Daniel Ross about his long and successful career (and this guy is still under 30!). Ross talks about how he broke into the business, what it takes to be a successful actor, and the prep work he does to get into character. Ross also discusses appearing in such movies as CRAWLER, MRS. AMSWORTH, VAMPIRE SISTERS, NINJAS VS ZOMBIES, and LADDER 49. He is also the voice of Starscream on the Transformers video game!!!! To check out part one of this superb interview click HERE.

BLOOD BOOBS & BEAST, the documentary on independent filmmaker Don Dohler (1946 to 2006) is now available. Besides fascinating interviews with Dohler, director Joe Ripple, and veteran actor George Stover there are several celebrity interviews with such people as Tom Savini (Friday the 13th), Tom Sullivan (Evil Dead), Lloyd Kaufman (Troma Films) and J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alias) on how Don Dohler inspired their lives and careers and their insights into what made this man tick. It is an incredible account of the life of a man that shot movies in his backyard that got shown all over the world. This is a two-disc set that is loaded with extras, including Dohler’s 1982 sci-fi/horror masterpiece NIGHTBEAST. Click on the image above to order yours today!

A happy birthday to independent filmmaker Donald F. Glüt! This man inspired many people with his “underground films” (including director John Carpenter) and has several movies, books, and soundtracks available. Click on his photo above to go to his website to see what new productions he has been busy on!

At the Summer Horrorfind 0f 2008, Leanna Chamish interviewed Timewarp Films’ visual effects artist and screenwriter Mitch Klein. This is a great, insightful, humous interview that took place at the Timewarp Films dealer table. Chamish did the interview for Count Gore De Vol’s CREATURE FEATURE. It can be found HERE.

ROB, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE UPDATES? Oh boy. Well, the start of the year I am getting ready to do some serious updates. Unfortunately good intentions don’t count for much - actions do. What happened is January 19th some jackass on the seventh floor of my apartment building stupidly cut my phone line while having their cable installed. It took a month for Verizon and my building to track down where it happened and to get it fixed and up and running again. During that time I also got the flu that had been going around so I was out of it as far as getting anything done.

So I thank all of you for your patience. What is coming up is an article on affordable convincing green screen effects, and I will be adding more to the article on practical Poor Man’s Process. As to interviews I will be getting special effects artist Tom Sullivan’s (Evil Dead trilogy), filmmaker Jon Clark, filmmaker John Bowker, filmmaker Joe Sherlock, and actor Daniel Ross’ up (Dan, if you are reading this please send me the CD of your photos). I have many more interviews to go up and hope to be adding content over the next several weeks so keep checking back frequently.

Last week I got asked to help out with some art for an upcoming movie called NUDIST CAMP ZOMBIE MASSACRE. It is a horror comedy and details about it can be found HERE. Lastly, I have updated the page about myself. No, this is not a brag book. It occurred to me that some people might ask me, “Why the hell should I take indie movie advice from you?” This hopefully answers that question. It is by no means detailed or finished but I do have up some of the projects I have worked on. It will be an on-going update that will get filled in over time. Why not just post it on the IMDB? Because my page there sucks. There are so many Robert Long’s in the movie business that most of my entries get put to the wrong Robert Long or not at all. This helps rectify that problem and will hopefully show folks I do know a bit about what I am talking about! That page can be found HERE.

Independent Filmmaker Ted A. Bohus has done several movie productions. In his expansive career behind the camera, he has had to deal with his fair share of distribution hell in order to get his films released. Here at Smash or Trash, Bohus has kindly let us into some of his insights on film distribution; things to prepare yourself for and things to watch out for. His sage advice can save the indie filmmaker a lot of heartache and give them a better chance at a successful release of their project. The interview can be found HERE.

Actress and Scream Queen Leanna Chamish gets interviewed about her career. Check out part one of the amazing in-depth article!

The Horror/Comedy SWARM OF THE SNAKEHEAD (starring Frank Lama) gets reviewed in the At The Movies department. Check it out now!