The Return FROM Animus Cross - And What's Ahead

And, just like that... it's over.

We wrapped production on Series II of Animus Cross Sunday night - well, I should say "I wrapped production on Sunday night..." the crew still had one scene to shoot after I wrapped, and moved from Rossi Farms in NE Portland to the fairgrounds in St. Helens, Oregon where they continued to shoot until 2 AM.

Honestly, it felt pretty odd not to be going with Jerry, Amanda, Dave, Andy, Galvin, and the gang... for the past two weeks I'd been immersed in the world of Animus Cross; we'd definitely been through the fire of late nights, cold weather, loud traffic, and remote locations together. All in all, it was a great, if exhausting shoot - we really took the series to new hieghts with intense action sequences, deepened relationships between the characters, and more hints about what the creatures menacing this small, frontier Idaho settlement are all about. It was an amazing time.

Want to share in some of the fun? Series creator/ director/ producer/ et al A.L. Steen posted some behind the scenes photos on her Photobucket page... some you may have seen last week when I liked to the album from my last blog post, but new ones have been added.

As the shoot progressed, the press started to get wind of the excitement we were all feeling... Kelly Jo Horton wrote a great article about the series in her Scene in Portland column in The Portlander, and the horror site Burried.com posted this press release about IPA Award-winning photographer Andy Batt coming on board as director of photography.

Now that the series is going into post-production, it's time for me to look ahead to the next projects on my calendar... for instance:

>> Next Monday, the 19th of October, I'll be performing in a staged reading of The Owl And The Pussycat - the inaugural production of Mt. Hood Repertory Theater's 2009/ 2010 Readers Theater Season. The play, by Bill Manhoff, is a complicated and multi-layered comedy about two very damaged people... definitely a challenge! We got a great write-up in the Gresham Outlook this past weekend - give it a read, and then consider coming out to the Mt. Hood Community College Visual Arts Theater, at 26000 SE Stark St. in Gresham, OR (park in Parking Lot J). Tickets are just $8.00 at the door!

>> Then, on Saturday October 24th, I'll be performing in two interactive murder mysteries to benefit the Amaranth Diabetes Research Foundation. You've probably heard me talk about these murder mystery shows before... we, the actors, put on the show while the audience has dinner and participates in the fun. Generally Wild Bills Murder Mystery are booked as private events - as entertainment for corporate parties, meetings, etc. These two shows (at 11am and 6pm in the Shiloh Inns Hotel on Airport Way in Portland), though, are open to the public. Anyone can come and join in the fun! Tickets are $65 for the matinee and show and $75 for the evening show - a little steep, I know, but the ticket includes dinner and the show, and the proceeds go to a very good cause. Consider joining us, won't you? You can RSVP by calling Joy at 503-760-2658. Hope we see you there!

And, of course, there are several other things in the works - including pro-production work on my next web series The Episodic Adventures of Dex Dixon - Paranormal Dick, a couple of short films I'm working on, a part in another web series... it just keeps going and going. For now, though, I have to sign off and get to a voiceover session...

As always, I hope you're doing well...

-Harold