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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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!

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.

This has been a busy week. I am up to my elbows making props for Timewarp Films (we are in production for SEALED FATES) but this blog will get you up to date on the tons of stuff that has been going on.

As you can see from the photo above the lovely Leanna Chamish is holding up one of the Count Gore De Vol t-shirts that I designed. If you are interested in getting one for yourself, you can order it HERE.

I’m having a few problems with the email I set up for this site. I will let you know when that has been fixed.

A couple of week’s ago a successful indie film – PHANTASM – had a cast reunion in Chicago. Long time Phantasm phan and phriend Dustin McNeil was on hand and told me that there were people there with the limited-edition Phantasm poster I had put out several years ago. That was gratifying to say the least. Here is a photo of actor . Michael Baldwin and one of the posters. Thanks for sending the photo, Dustin!

Will miracles never cease!?!! I have the START of the Poor Man’s Process article up HERE. More photos and information will be added next week!

Smash or Trash wants to wish veteran character actor George Stover a very happy birthday this July 3rd! George has been in John Water’s movies, Don Dohler’s movies, and can be seen on such hit series as HOMICIDE. His latest movie projects include DUST AND DEATH, ONE-EYED HORSE, and TERROR IN THE PHARAOH’S TOMB. To celebrate his birthday I will be posting an extensive interview on his career in the very near future. Leave George a note here wishing him a great birthday!

I wanted to wish a warm happy birthday to my good buddy Mitch Klein, whom is my web administrator on this site as well. Mitch is a big Green Lantern fan, so I did up some art of him as his favorite character. Happy birthday buddy!

Wow! Been too long since an update! Sorry about that, but I have been busy with preproduction of a movie for Timewarp Films. However, this week I hope to post an article on Poor Man’s Process, as well as the interview of character actor George Stover. Stay tuned!

I have posted a new movie review in the AT THE MOVIES link. It is for Vince Corkadel’s anthology of horror and mystery entitled DUST AND DEATH. Check out my thoughts about it here. Also, in the DVD Store, I have listed 14 independent movies at this point. More interviews and how-to articles to come as I have time.

Visual Effects Artist Mitch Klein (from his great website TALES FROM THE CELLAR) goes into detail about the various effects he did for the vampire movie STAKES (Timewarp Films). It’s informative, there are a lot of stills and video segments to look over and learn from. The link to that is here.

He has also posted a How-To video on Vampire Disintegration effects. This is well detailed as he goes through the steps from start to finish in a video segment. The link to this article is here.

If you love vampire movies and science fiction, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of STAKES, a well-done, action-packed thriller by Timewarp Films. You can pick it up here.