The Writer's Life 2/8 - Low & High Budgets

Spotting little that is fresh in today's news, I went list-hunting and found a fun one about a classic horror film at mentalfloss.com. Recently, my literary angel, Victoria Valentine of Water Forest Press, posted at Facebook that she was watching Night of the Living Dead (1968), which she hadn't seen in years. I remarked how creepy it is, which is amazing given its amateurish feel. Somehow George Romero and company hit the jackpot. Here are the two most interesting facts of the ten on that list, edited by yours truly: Reasoning that some of the ghouls (Romero never referred to the creatures as zombies) would have awakened in the morgue and walked away naked, the crew opted for a single extra to be in the buff on camera, and enlisted a local artist’s model. When word spread that the production planned a nude scene, local residents were intrigued. “The night they filmed the nude ghoul, all of Evans City found out about it. They had their lawn chairs set up around the edges of the property,” Judith Ridley, who played Judy, said. “It was funny to see the rest of the zombies trying to keep their eyes elsewhere instead of looking down at the obvious places on the nude one.”... The flick was made on a budget of less than $150,000. Everything from props to sets had to be created on the cheap. Since it was shot in black and white, the crew never had to worry what color the blood was, so either red ink or chocolate syrup was used, depending on the desired effect. For the scene in which Karen Cooper (Kyra Schon) begins eating her father’s corpse, leftover lunch was used. “Earlier in the day, we were eating hamburgers or meatball sandwiches, so they just smeared chocolate syrup all over it and that’s what I was biting into,” Schon said. Ah, the magic of movies.

According to a blurb in today's NY Post, Lady Gaga's daily digital sales increased ten-fold after her performance during the Super Bowl halftime.

Coaching at any level often boils down to "What have you done for me lately?" After ten years at the helm of the Boston Bruins, Claude Julien has been fired. He was the longest-tenured current coach in the NHL. He went 419-246-94 in Bean Town and made two trips to the Stanley Cup finals, winning in 2011. The Bruins lost in the finals two years later, and the year after that earned 117 points and the Presidents' Trophy before losing in the conference semifinals to Montreal. On the bright side, Julien should have no trouble finding a job.

It was like early May today. It was great not having to don my heavy coat and several other layers to ward off the cold. Alas, a blizzard is forecast for tomorrow, which will put the floating book shop out of business for at least two days. Its fate Saturday will be determined by the availability of parking, which is always dicey, doubly so after the snow plows go to work. My thanks to the young lady who bought two works of non-fiction: A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jaycee Dugard, who was kidnapped and held captive for 18 years; and The Number, A Completely Different Way to Think About the Rest of Your Life by Lee Eisenberg; and to the middle aged woman who bought three Sandra Brown thrillers and Judith Krantz's I'll Take Manhattan, all in hardcover.

Vic's Short Works: http://tinyurl.com/jy55pzc

Vic's 5th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/okxkwh5Vic's 4th novel: tinyurl.com/bszwlxh

Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3

Vic's Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
Vic's Short Story Collection: http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tiny.cc/0iHLb Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kx3d3uf
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tinyurl.com/l84h63j

Website: http://vicfortezzaauthor.my-free.website/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/Vic-Fortezza-Author-118397641564801/?fref=ts

Read Vic's Stories, free: http://fictionaut.com/users/vic-fortezza