An Afternoon with Monsters

The Wolf Man gets no respect, especially when he’s paired with Frankenstein, the Mummy, Dracula, and the very seductive Bride of Frankenstein. Yesterday I spent the day with all of them on the set of the new Reggie and the Full Effect video shoot for J train, the first single off their new album Last Stop: Crappytown. I was shooting some still photographs and B-roll video for some old friends: John Carlucci (director) who has been around Hollywood via New Jersey working with the likes of Kevin Smith and Ridley Scott and Atom Rothlein (producer/director) who has been producing music videos and commercials for over 10 years.

The makeup process alone took a number of hours for the shoot and after it was complete I found myself in the surreal predicament of photographing Frankenstein (aka Frank Iero of My Chemical Romance) in an alley having a cigarette with the Mummy (aka James Dewees). The band looked so good in makeup that I though it would be crazy not to introduce them to the townspeople in the small village of Babylon, NY for some fun while the crew was filming the Mummy’s scene. After stopping by a local skate shop, politely harassing some strangers on the street like when Frankenstein momentarily stole a women’s pizza running down the street, and stopping in the meat market for some blood the monsters were helped across the street by a friendly old crossing guard as onlookers gawked. Good times were had and a few children are now permanently scarred but all in the name of hardcore rock.

The video shoot was as always a memorable one like the last time I worked with John and Adam we were thrown out of K-rock with Limp Bizket after Fred Durst cursed out the DJ and it should be coming out soon as a world premiere on Fuse- look for it, it’s a good one I promise.