Finally! After two previous attempts, after using two different cameras (neither of which gave results that made me happy), after multiple people got sick or had to cancel, we finally got the footage shot tonight! Huge thanks to my friends Scott W. and Jon W. for helping me get this shot the right way. Man, at times it felt like the shoot was just cursed, but I really wanted to get the best possible footage, because once I know it's good and no pickups are needed, the giant drilling machine will get broken down into scrap parts.

Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know that the video footage is shot, and I'll be shooting final stills tomorrow. I still have to edit, color time, and do final audio and titles for each of the sketches, but that can finally proceed now.

This is just a quick post to let everyone who was so generous know that the giant drilling machine was built and running on Halloween night. The image below is not, repeat NOT a result of Photoshop or CGI. It's the real drilling machine we built over the last few weeks sitting in my front yard. It's huge. The hatch is covered right now, the rest assured that the crow and skeleton are in there and were putting on a show last night.

I'll be posting more photos and videos on this site and my site at SoCalHalloween.com over the coming weeks. I just wanted to express my thanks for everyone who chipped in and helped me make something spectacular for Halloween this year.

Well, in a lovely twist of fate, numerous strangers on the Internet have reached out to help me this year, while most of my friends seem unable to do the same. Weird. I am working hard to get this display put together in time, but for some reason most of the key people who normally help me have been unable to help.

At all.

It's not a question of friends saying they can only help a little. It's friends saying they are unable to help for the entire month of October. Everyone has a reason, but the end result is still the same - I have been trying to build a giant display virtually single-handed.

In addition, we have had rain for the last week here in "sunny" Southern California. The rain has been rusting my steel framework while I am still building it. Instead of being able to work in the driveway where I have room. I have had to work in my carport. A friend loaned me an EZ-Up Tent to help extend the workspace, but it's still incredibly cramped. It's like building a ship in a bottle inside a small cardboard box.

We are forecast for more rain for the next couple of days. This will make gluing foam to the steel or painting the foam virtually impossible. Even a light drizzle is sufficient to make these two critical tasks difficult / impossible to complete.

So, if anyone in the Glendale area wishes to help during the remaining 8 build days, I sure could use it. Send me an email via the "Comments or Questions" link on my website at SoCalHalloween if you've got some time. I really would like to have this display ready on October 31, not November 1.

First, the fund raising. Thank you all so much. As you know, we hit the target goal. In fact, we have exceeded it by a bit, so I am working extra hard to make this display as cool as possible. As I said in the last post, I am amazed at the help and generosity everyone has shown.

Even though the subject line of this update sounds like the sort of random collection of words you see in the subject lines of spam, I am in fact doing "Halloween welding" today. I have spent the last three days cutting steel in preparation for welding. Today, I intend to actually weld instead of just prep. Nothing happens on my displays without the steel framework being in place, so I need to get that happening before anything that anybody sees can get built.

So, I'm off to do the last bit of cutting and then start welding. I intend (we'll see what happens as the deadline gets closer) to post photos on the SoCalHalloween website (and here) of the some of the progress. In the meantime, thanks again and I'm off to build!

Unbelievable. I am so amazed at how generous everyone has been in helping me get this year's display off the ground. The donation that pushed it over the edge came from Jake in Louisiana.

Louisiana!

Obviously, Jake won't be stopping by to see the project in person. He's welcome to come, of course, but I don't think that was his reason for backing this project. He donated because he thought the project was cool and fun and worth getting made, not because he was going to gain personally from it.

{Soapbox On}

I have been amazed at the willingness of people to give money, small and large, to someone they have never met and probably never will meet. It's really quite stunning, but it reminds me how great people can be. Am I curing cancer? No, but I am going to make a lot of people, kids and adults, very happy on Halloween. I can only hope that somewhere in the crowd of people is a kid who sees this giant drill and gets inspired to try something creative. Perhaps it'll be the spark that pushes them toward doing things they didn't think they could. I can only hope.

{Soapbox Off}

So, let me thank each and every one of the you, the backers, who got behind me and this project. I can't thank you guys enough. Now I need to stop writing and start building. Halloween is approaching fast and I've got a giant drilling machine to build!