About Buckets of Blood

 

What is Buckets of Blood? What the hell were you guys thinking?

 

       Every year, Steve would return to Santa Rosa after going to school in Hammond. With Brian, they would take the video camera and make a funny movie. Like all their previous works, it revolved around violence, kung-fu, and car stunts. The first movie they had no plot, cameraman, or direction. It was like a backyard wrestling video. The second movie had more weapons, different scenes, and a car stunt which gave their mom a minor stroke. It was cool! Anyhoo, the third movie was their first with a plot and special effects, but still contained their habit for ritualized violence. The fourth summer movie would not be as easy to make. Brian wanted more, but there were issues. He had back problems and nagging arm injuries for various reasons. Also, the video camera was broken. This meant that their movie would not come to pass. Lo and behold, there was a way around it! Steve borrowed a camera from his grandparents, and decided to make the movie in a live-action comic book format. The next issue was the props. They wanted swords; real swords. Brian had already collected several, but those would be used by the minor characters in the story.  So like any idiot with a credit card, they went online and bought them. Steve’s swords took the longest to arrive, due to the original shipper going out of business. DRAT!

 

Weapons of Choice

       They used many a different type of weapon, to suit our character’s personality/storyline/level of coolness. The minor characters would receive weapons donated to them thru various ‘underground’ sources. Since they were the main characters, and had credit cards, Brian and Steve chose to buy their weapons on-line. After a long (and annoying) search, they located these tools of mass destruction:

 

The Sword of Ares, a 51”, 8lbs broadsword that can tear thru concrete, as evident in the following test photo:

 

After much soul-searching (i.e. being a cheap-ass) Steve came upon the idea to use two swords instead of one. He was looking for swords that would not be bulky, and provide him with the freedom of movement for his speedy attacks. He also misinterpreted the meaning of the Two-Sword school from the Musashi book “A Book of 5 Rings”. Therefore, he chose to buy two of this sword:

              The 27” Black and Red Ninja blade, weighting slightly under 3lbs, the sword proved to be swift, easy to handle, and quite durable. It would serve him well in this movie, as they were easily concealed under his costume.

 

The Making of Buckets of Blood:

Taking full advantage of his younger siblings and various neighborhood kids’ desires to appear in a movie, Brian goaded/baited/duped/brainwashed them into appearing in the movie. When they learned that it would not be a full-action movie but a comic book, they were not thrilled, so Steve decided to give their characters various special abilities, to make themselves look cool (and because Steve had Photoshop). With the crew and gear coming in the mail, Steve and Brian came up with a plot. Basically, the movie would consist of a collection of random fights between the main characters and minor characters, until the two main characters would clash in the finale. To make it have more sense, a flashback scene was added. Because of the general humorous nature of the previous movies, a throwaway humorous scene was added. Once they had all the supplies they needed, they went to various places around the city, and shot scenes when no one was looking. This required delicate timing; the track scene had to be filmed when there were no people jogging, so it was filmed at 5 in the evening, in the hot blazing sun. The next location was a park frequented by paintball crews. The paintball crews were kind enough to allow for us a 15 minute respite for us to film, so the scene had to filmed quick. Try and guess which one it is. The other scenes took place at the houses of Steve and Brian. Due to the general nature of suburbanites, no one noticed or cared that several sword battles were taking place in the streets. They probably would not have noticed an explosion, either.

 

Filming took about a week and a half, mostly due to various family events, availability/willingness of actors and crew, and time constraints. Late in July, filming was finished, with only minor injuries sustained through filming. It took days and multiple editing attempts before the final movie was completed, a day before Steve left California. It’s amazing what you can do when you have a deadline!

 

The original production was intended for a photo contest, but Steve and Brian looked towards adding it to a film festival. Because they require obtaining musician permission, Steve and Brian forgoed the idea of putting it into a film festival and instead shelved the idea. When the web comic came up, they decided to make a sequel to Buckets of Blood in comic form. Since it did not make sense to start off the story without the prologue, they decided to convert the movie into a web comic format, which is what you are reading today.

 

Plot

Rather than retype the plot details from the original Paint files, Steve has decided to merely insert them into the website, so as to not waste time.

To get a better look, please Right-Click on the image, save it to computer, and view it with whatever you want to make it bigger. Please note that Steve’s computer is set to 1400 by 1200 resolution, so images automatically appear like Mini-Me to him. Why do you think he uses such large fonts?

   

 

The plotline of the sequel will confirm the events in the second movie. Most specifically, it will center around a certain character who is dead, as well as Dark Fang's involvement with the Coalition. Ryu will also join the Coalition to oppose Body Count and be rewarded with the return of his brother to live. However it will be in a form that he won't expect. More details to come.

WARNING: Buckets of Blood is hosted on Comic Genesis, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics.