MattMobile - More Gun Door Progress and Drive Shaft Tunnel Work

January of 2015 is shaping up to be a very productive month in the history of the MattMobile. In hindsight, 2014 was pretty slow, but I accomplished MANY great things on many other fronts. The MattMobile definitely languished, though I am hoping to correct that this year.

One of the tasks that has been on the todo list is knocking out the two circular windows on the canopy

I started with this drill bit. The goal here is to drill a big thick hole that the skill saw blade can fit through.

Like this one.

Ye Olde Trusty Skill Saw comes out to play. They make special blades for fiberglass.

And here it is. A bit of work with some files and sandpaper, and it'll be perfect. I need to go in from behind and sand down the fiberglass on the back side so that it's the proper thickness.

And now back to the gun doors.

Here's where it stands after a couple of coats of primer. I did a TINY bit of sanding on the holes at the front end to make them more uniform, but overall I'm extremely satisfied with the shape and symmetry of this master.

I used a pencil and a t-square to mark off where the new louvers are going to be placed. I used the one that came with my Batmobile shell as reference.

Here's the mold of one of the louvers being made. As you can see I build a box out of foam core and hot glue, a technique I have discussed numerous times previously on this blog and my videos.

After a night of curing, here's how the final mold came out. It's absolutely perfect.

I use Smooth Cast 300 from Smooth-On to cast up a set of the louvers.

Here's how they look after they come out of the mold, before they are cleaned up.

After a little bit of sanding, they all look great and are ready to be glued down to the MDF master.

Almost done now. I still need to do a tiny bit of work with the spot putty to soften up the seam between the resin louvers and the MDF master, but you get the general idea.

Switching gears, it's time to do a little welding! I'm trying to build out the cockpit, and I've decided the first order of business is to build out the tunnel for the drive shaft. Best way to start that process is with a selfie. Duh.

Before building out the tunnel, I wanted to see how much clearance I had for the seat. I put the seat into the car in approximately the location it will end up. By my calculations, it should fit. It'll definitely be tight, but it should all work out.

Hashtag famous last words.

I've fabricated this "ladder" thing to act as a support for the tunnel. It might be overkill. I could probably just build the tunnel out of sheet metal, but I've decided to build a support system to which the sheet metal will be attached. The right idea?? Unsure.

Here's the tunnel, all assembled welded and ground, fit into place. I have a little bit of work to do to make it fit perfectly, but overall I'm very happy with the progress. It looks great!

As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, metal fabrication is SLOW GOING. It's very time consuming and meticulous. You'd never know just by looking at that last photo that it took about five hours to do that work. Madness.

DareDevil Billy Clubs Revisitied - Now More Accurate

Many moons ago, I wrote a blog post walking through a very quick and dirty build up I did of some DareDevil Billy Clubs, which I needed to go with a costume.

Check it out here:

Through an unforseen and unexpected twist of events, it has come time to revisit this project, and put together a much more accurate version of these billy clubs.

My goal is still to build them at the "cosplay" level, meaning only that I will not be attempting to make them museum quality. It does not mean that costuming stuff is lower quality, or that less effort goes into it. Only that I will be focusing on a different set of requirements. For example, one of my goals is to make sure that these are robust enough to withstand constant handling, dropping, slipping in and out of the holster, etc. Will this be less work than a museum quality set? Probably not. Will it be a different KIND of work? Absolutely.

I start off with two raw, resin castings of a stunt billy club. The master for these is a made for production piece. This is great because I know it's 100% accurate. The master also serves as great color reference.

I did a bit of clean up on the pieces, but nothing too extreme. Remember, the goal is that these look good in photos, and from ten feet away. This allows me a lot of freedom in the process, and doesn't require that each little bubble be filled, or that the seam be completely cleaned up.

I had to do some serious thinking about how I was going to manage keeping these two clubs together. I ended up choosing some 1/16" cable that I got from home depot. There's some little crimping widgets that I used to form the ends into a loop, which a set screw is threaded through.

To get the set screw into place, I had to drill a hole through the club and tap it. Then I had to drill a hold down the top of the club, through which the cable and newly formed loop would feed.

Though this looks pretty simple, you are looking at the culmination of a few hours of work here.

As of today, that's all the progress I have. I will need to do some more primering on these before painting, but they are almost ready for the next steps now.

MattMobile Progress - Gun Doors and Air Bags.

Finally another blog post about the MattMobile! About frickin' time! For those of you who have not been following my exploits on Facebook or YouTube, I have been extremely busy with the work of film making. Been writing, executive producting, all kinds of stuff. Be sure to check out some of my recent blog posts for more details, especially for a link to Loadout!

First things first. Here's a look at the car in its current condition. You may be thinking "not much has changed!" You'd be right! 2014 was not a very good year for me as far as progress on the car goes. It was a GREAT year for me in regards to a number of other projects and personal accomplishments, but MattMobile progress was not one of them.

I got it in my head that what I really wanted to do was to rebuild the gun doors. I'm not sure what the builders club term is for these things, but these are the covers that go over the port that the big guns pop out of. In the movie, these doors are just ejected from the car, which I always thought was a really cool little piece of story telling. This picture shows what I'm talking about. You can see the big hole where the gun wold emerge from, and next to it is the cover. Like any kit, this shell needs some tlc in a few places, some more than others. The gun covers are probably the most desperately in need part of the entire build. I have seen other people try to straighten them, or reinforce them with steel, but I figured it would be a lot easier for me to just start from scratch. Oh, and that's a made-for-production DareDevil billy club sitting on the car too. No biggie.

I started off by measuring the opening, and made a few adjustments accordingly. I wanted to make sure the new doors would fit, but would also have an even gap running around the entire edge. I began by measuring a large rectangle on a piece of 1/4 inch MDF. I drew in a few different lines, so that I could use my poor-man's table saw technique, which I have discussed in previous posts.

The thing that's great about this technique is that I can be extremely precise. A table saw typically proves to be problematic when it comes to keeping everything aligned and spaced perfectly. Using my method, I clamp a piece of aluminum stock to the wood, one inch from where I want to cut. My rotary saw has a one inch guide on it, so I line up the guide with the aluminum, and I get nice straight cuts every time.

Here's the piece cut to the correct length and width.

And here is the cut piece in comparison to the door from the kit that I am trying to recreate.

Now it's time to start working on the curves. I don't have a compass big enough to draw a half circle in the diameter I need, so I had to improvise. I took a piece of styrene, and measured out the desired radius I wanted for my arc. I used one point to locate a push pin, which serves as an anchor. I put the tip of my pencil in the other hole. I then stick the pin in the MDF, right in the middle of it, and then just draw out the arc.

Here's what it looks like all drawn out and pretty. It's not 100% precise, but it's close enough for my purposes.

I then use a coping saw to cut out the general shape. I don't try to get too close to the lines, as that's when errors happen. I'd much rather cut wide, then end up doing a llittle extra sanding. The other option is to accidentally cut too deep, and then have to putty and sand. Which I hate.

I use a piece of scrap wood with some sand paper stuck to it as my sandin block. This allows me to shape the arc into what I want it to be.

The next step was to work on the arcs on the read corners. I experimented a few times with the radius until I got it right. I tested my measurements using the same scrap piece of styrene. This time I was able to use my compass to draw the arcs.

And it was then a simple matter to transfer them to the MDF. you can see where I drew lines on the MDF so that I could locate the center point to my circle.

Using the same technique for finishing out the arc using the coping saw and my sanding block, the rear corners now look like this.

I didn't take any pictures of the process of drawing out these shapes, but it was very similar to the process I've already described in this post. I used a piece of styrene scrap for the main circle, then a compass for the smaller circles. A coping saw cut out the main shapes, then sanding paper and some files were used to get them to where I need them to be.

I thought long and hard about how to get the louvers onto my new master. I originally planned to cut all of them off, and then transplant them onto my new pattern. That seemed a little destructive, and in looking at the louvers, they are all asymmetric and need some attention. I figured, rather than clean up a bunch of them and then transplant, how about I clean up one of them, mold it, then pour up six copies and attach those to my new master. And a new plan was born! I started by hitting the first one with a couple coats of primer, so that I could reveal the flaws in it.

Then I went in with some spot putty and filled in the more aggregious offenders.

Some sanding and another coat of primer later, and one of my louvers is ready to be duplicated.

That about wraps it up for progress on the gun well covers for today. I left the project alone so that the paint could dry overnight. Molding on the louver will be the first thing I do upon return to my shop.

Another task I wanted to attend to was making the airbag hoses fit properly. As build the hoses get smushed in the only opening on the back spring housings. I don't even know if that is the right term, but whatever. My plan to fix this involves three steps. First is modifying the mount on the airbag so that the hose is free to go straight up, rather than have to snake around a bit to get out of the opening in it's current position. After some fun with the reciprocating saw and the drill press, I came up with this. Not exactly elegant, but fully functional.

Step two is to drill a hole in the spring housing that is big enough to fit the hose.

Here you can see both of the bags are installed, with the hoses now coming out of the housing unhindered. This will stop the hoses from getting worn any time the bags are inflated or deflated. They shift a little in their resting positions, causing the hoses to get cut up. I don't want that to happen.

The third step, which I have not yet completed, is to drill a new hold in the mag mount plate which will allow me to bolt the plate to the spring housing. That will stop the airbag from spinning or moving at all, thus insuring that the hoses are in no danger of getting sliced up.

Lastly, Bo The Welder was on hand tonight to do some work on the electrical harness on the Harley. Lots of progresss. It's really coming along now.

Asking For Legal Help On Social Networks and Online Forums Is A Terrible Idea

In this post, I'm going to write down a few thoughts I've had over the years about the topic of seeking legal advice online from non-lawyers.

But first, I'll start with a brief and concise summary of the entire post, in case people are fans of TLDR:

Do not ask people online for help with your legal problems. Hire a lawyer. The End.

I will follow that with a piece of free advice - if you have started a discussion online about a legal problem of yours, delete it immediately. Or contact a moderator of the forum and have it deleted immediately. Remove from view all trace of that discussion. (If you just read that and you're skeptical, please read on. Then come back to this paragraph)

Full disclosure. I'm not a lawyer. I've never studied law. Nor do I want to. However, I have discussed with MANY people of knowledge the topics covered in this blog post. Feel free to ignore it if you'd like. I'd be curios to hear how that pans out for you :D

With that out of the way, let's dig into a little bit deeper. First, how does this usually come up? I've seen the following scenario unfold dozens, if not hundreds of times over the years: Someone is in some kind of pickle, and they're not a lawyer, but they want to find out what their legal options are. So they go online to their favorite discussion forum, message board, or social media outlet and ask their online friends what they think. I've seen things like the following asked in the past:

• I think my wife is cheating and I want to know what my options are for a divorce.
• My neighbors house is full of pot smokers, I'd like to know what my rights are.
• My boyfriend broke into my house last night and stole all my stuff. Should I call the cops?
• I got ripped off in the mail to the tune of 2,000 bucks. Should I sue them?
• My girlfriend called the cops on me last night claiming I had beaten her. What do?
• I was sexually harassed at work, but I'm not sure if I should tell HR.
• My kid got suspended from school, and I'm thinking of suing. What's the best way to proceed.
• I got caught downloading music illegally. Should I worry?
• Trying to kick my dead-beat boyfriend out of the apartment, but he won't leave. What do?
• Someone is slandering me online. How can I get them to stop?
• Got screwed in an online transaction, I want to sue!
• I just got a C&D from Disney. Should I comply?
• A contract I signed tricked me into relinquishing some ownership rights I did not want to. Is it binding?
• Got a DUI last night. Should I fight it?
• I'm thinking of kicking some dudes ass!!
• Homeless dude is squatting in my rental property and I can't get him to leave. Thinking of hiring some friends to physically remove him.
• I got caught on a traffic cam running a red light. Will that go on my record?
• I'm trying to copyright an idea. How do I do it?
• My landlord is trying to evict us, but he's totally off his rocker, right?
• Someone stole my idea for this great product! How do I go about suing them?

And there's like a million more just like this. It goes on and on and on.

I'll start by saying this, and it's a bit of a rant. So if you don't like rants, skip ahead to the section that has my list of reasons not to discuss legal matters with someone who isn't a lawyer. Talking about your legal problems online is utter madness, and complete lunacy. The only good that will possibly come from it is that you may get a temporary feeling of happiness or relief. Someone might say something reassuring. But that's it. Committing anything to writing, especially on the internet, will only serve to ruin any kind of legal claim you might have. Talking about it to people who are strangers, who have differing agendas than yours, who may in fact have malicious agendas, is a terrible idea. For those of you who have been on the internet (or alive) for more than ten minutes, surely you already know that anything you say about someone online will get back to them almost immediately, right? This is also the case when discussing legal matters.

Whenever you hear yourself saying "I want legal advice" your next step is to hire a lawyer. If you cannot afford a lawyer, it is my belief that your next step is to stay quiet. Posting about it online will ONLY serve to hurt you. Let me be quite clear: NO GOOD WILL COME OF IT. Find a lawyer who specializes in the area of the law that you are interested in, research them, and if they meet the criteria you set forth for your target lawyer, schedule an appointment with them and go in to discuss your case.

Here's the list I mentioned earlier. This is a brief, and not complete list of GREAT reasons not to talk about your legal troubles online.

• Anything you say can and WILL be used against you in a court of law - it's the backbone of your Miranda rights, and the wording of it is very precise. If something comes out of your mouth, it WILL be used against you. Which is one reason it always fascinates me when people discuss legal matters with anyone other than their lawyer or their spouse. (Spouse's cannot be compelled to testify against you.) Saying NOTHING online is your best option, because ANYTHING you say CAN and WILL be used against you. The one thing worse that saying stuff is writing stuff. A good lawyer could call into questions someone's recollection of what you said, or maybe they misheard you because it was a noisy street or something. But if you commit something to writing, and it's on the internet, it's compelling.
• There's a reason lawyers are not cheap, nor free - It's because their services are valuable. They can save you money, keep you out of jail, get you compensation for your suffering, or defend you from someone who is trying to unjustly hinder your ability to pursue happiness. Just like you wouldn't expect a doctor to perform surgery on you for free, or an auto mechanic to fix your car for free, why would you think a lawyer would give you his services for free? If you're thinking "well I can't afford a lawyer, and maybe I have a friend who is a lawyer and is willing to help me for free" then please refer to the other points in this list. Hopefully they will convince you that this line of thinking is madness.
• Not a lawyer at all - "I'm no lawyer but..." is usually the way many people respond to requests for legal assistance or advice. If someone's not a lawyer, you don't want their legal advice. If he's not a lawyer, it means he doesn't know about the law. Which is the topic you are seeking expertise in. See where I'm going with this?? If you wanted advice on the cancer your grandmother has, and a gardener offered up his thoughts, would you give it much credence? NO! You want to hear from a doctor who actually knows something about cancer! What if your Audi broke down, and you need it fixed. Would you take advice from a guy who does language translations for a living? You're probably saying "Well, what if that language translation guy fixes audi's as a hobby? Or has a ton of experience fixing Audi's??" and to that I respond again: read the rest of the bullet points.
• A terrible lawyer - The person who responds to your post or inquiry might actually be a terrible lawyer, and could be giving you bad advice. Maybe they got disbarred, never passed the bar, or got thrown out of their profession for practicing the law poorly, or maliciously. Without having a way to investigate their bona fides, or check references, the person giving you advice may very well be the worst lawyer in the world.
• An uninformed lawyer - Laws vary from state to state, country to country, county to county. Let's say you do happen to have a friend who is a lawyer, they are legit, and they are good intentioned. But that does not mean in any way they are knowledgeable of the laws that are applicable to you and your case. Because of the wide variance in laws from place to place, a lawyer that is not intimately familiar with the stuff on the books in your area can easily end up doing more damage than good. Law is also very specialized, and broken down into a near infinite variety of different fields. While someone may be a fantastic Intellectual Property lawyer and they even operate in your county, this does not mean they know anything about bankruptcy laws, or home lending.
• A troll lawyer - What would stop someone who was not a lawyer AT ALL from telling you they are indeed a lawyer, and then proceeding to give you bad legal advice. Maliciously giving you bad legal advice, mind you. As before, without a way to check on the credentials of a potential legal representative, you have no idea what their motives are. Could just be some dude who wants to mess with your life. Sadly, there are many people like that out there. The troll lawyer could even be the very person you who has caused you to seek legal advice. Online existence grants us such a great deal of anonymity, there's really very little (if any) way to determine that the person giving you legal advice online is actually who they claim to be.
• Your enemies can read it - Newflash: everything you post online is public record. Forever. And can be accessed by anyone. You may not think this is the case, because after all your favorite online forum is password protected, right? Or you've got your facebook settings set up so that only your friends can see your posts, right? Even if that were true, and even if there weren't third party bots scouring every nook and cranny of the internet to store away your typed words, an attorney could simply subpoena your data, assuming the case needed it. Emails can be subpoenaed in some cases, as can private messages over facebook or forums. If an opposing lawyer is committed enough, anything you have typed will be discovered. Even deleted emails.
• You're writing your confession - Typically when someone is online looking for legal advice, they of course find it necessary to outline the problem they are trying to get advice on. After all, how are they going to get legal advice if they don't describe their problem? This is the equivalent of writing and signing your confession. Recall that not everyone understands the law properly. In fact, it's this very reason that you're looking for a lawyer, right? That being said, I promise you that one of the worst things you can possibly do is talk about the thing you've done (or that you've witnessed, were a part of, were thinking of doing, had done to you, etc) online. Because that will be used against you. My favorite one was the guy who said "Oh no, I just got a letter from comcast because they caught me downloading an episode of illegally. Should I torch my computer? Tell them to screw off? Just hope it blows over?" The person just admitted to committing a crime. On Facebook. If anyone took to pursuing legal action against this guy and it went to trial, they now have a documented confession of him saying he committed a crime AND he was soliciting friends for ways to avoid legal ramifications. See how much that sucks?
• Client/Attorney Privilege - One of the key pillars of the legal system is this. It means that your attorney can't be compelled to testify against you, nor is ANYTHING you tell him or her usable against you. They are under a sacred oath to keep everything you tell them a secret. For example, if a mass murderer went to his lawyer and said "just FYI, I did kill all those people. But I'll pay you whatever you want to keep me out of jail" the plaintiff could NOT make the defending lawyer disclose that conversation. As someone looking for legal help, you WANT THIS. You want a lawyer who will refuse to discuss your case and the details of it with anyone else. Ok, now let's take a minute to think this through. If one of the cornerstones of the American legal system is Client/Attorney privilege, (meaning that everything you discuss about your case is kept secret) why on earth would you think that discussing legal matters in a public forum, where anyone in the world can overhear you, is a good idea? Spoiler alert: it's not.
• The law is not always obvious - An interesting thing about the law is that it's not always obvious. Things that might make total sense to you, that would be intuitively obvious as "the law" are not always so. Yes, it might suck, and yes, it might seem unfair, but it is the way it is. It may seem TOTALLY obvious to you that someone has broken the law and they should be put in jail, but that doesn't mean that's how the law works. And I'm not even talking about it going to trial by jury. I mean that what you believe to be the truth about the written law may in fact not be the truth. If you believe that a particular law sucks or is unfair, one of the great things about America is that you have it within your power to set the wheels of change in motion and get that law you think so stupid changed. Call your congressman, call a senator, write a letter to the White House. Start a movement! Collect signatures, etc. I don't really have any examples to cite here, as any law I talk about may very well be different in your area. But the point is, though something might FEEL like it's against the law to you, or that it's a violation in some way, it may not be. The opposite is also true. Something that you think is totally legit might be illegal. And by discussing it online, you're committing it to the public record. Don't let your opinions or beliefs of the law, or the opinions of others, dictate your legal course of action. Because there's a chance you've got it wrong.
• Legal Language is not easy to understand to a lay person - I hear all the time that legal speak is confusing. That it's difficult to understand, and overly wordy. What's ironic is that the opposite is what is actually true. The reason legal writings seem so strange to those of us who speak English colloquially is because it's written in such a way as to eliminate as much ambiguity as possible. It's trying to make it so that the written word of the law is crystal clear to any trained practitioner of the law who is reading it. If you're trying to understand it yourself, you're on a fool's errand. Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming it IS unambiguous. I'm claiming that the reason legal speak is the way it is is so that ambiguity can be minimized. And this is another reason you need to hire someone who is a trained practitioner of the law: because they are going to have a better chance of understanding the written law than you might.

That's about the long and the short of it. I personally think these are all pretty compelling reasons not to discuss your legal problems online, but instead to hire a lawyer. Not only are there a ton of things that can hurt you by discussing it online, but there's a reason that lawyers are not free.

Thanks for reading! If you have any other items you think should be added to the list, please post them below. I'd also love to hear about any things you've seen online where someone is asking for legal advice. What kind of things did they ask for? Did they disclose information about their case which would be valuable to the other side? Do tell!

Writing My First Television Pilot.

Inspiration comes from strange places. I had an idea in my head for a television pilot that I'm hopeful I will one day produce. It's a mash-up of ideas that I think has some real legs, and that I think audiences would really enjoy. It involves a fresh take on a well traveled franchise, and is combined with an well developed format. I had my idea for the plot in my head, and had already sketched out characters. The thing really driving the development of the show was resources I had at hand. From the experiences I gained writing and producing Loadout:Going In Hot, I decided I wanted to write a script whose action and location were based almost entirely on assets I believed were available, and low cost. Similarly, I wanted to write it for characters that already existed, and could be portrayed by actors I have already worked with. The primary goal of this script was to tell a story for a budget that I knew I could acquire.

The plot came together quickly, as did the characters. Since I am basing the characters in this pilot on already existing characters, all I really had to do was modify them to suit my purposes. It proved to be a fun and interesting experience, as it felt like I had a guiding hand in expanding those characters. Characters that I already love, care for, and have gone on adventures with. Good stuff.

There were some holes in my character lineup that needed to be filled. I needed two new people, supporting characters, to do some of the b-story plot development. You know, the kind of people who are in the room when someone mentions a character that is familiar to people in the universe, but not to the audience? That way, one of those characters can say "Hey, who is this so-and-so person they're talking about?" and the other person can so "oh, that's the guy who does the thing to the other thing" and then the audience is back on board. In coming up with something as simple as the names for those two characters, I ended up falling down a rabbit hole.

I had an idea for a punny set of last names for these two characters, which I came up with pretty quickly. I thought it would give the primary cast a good foothold for interaction with them, as they would always be easy to make fun of. But I REALLY liked the names I came up with. So much so that I immediately wanted to give them their own series, because I very quickly had a bunch of great ideas for character development for that man and woman. My attention completely shifted from writing character descriptions for this mash-up pilot into writing a pilot for these two characters. I removed them from the original universe in which the pilot was set to take place, and created a brand new idea that I thought would be really fun, very interesting, and was also structured so that it could easily run as a multi-year series, should a network show any interest in it.

And so, my SECOND television series idea was born. This one puts a supernatural twist on a popular style of story telling. (I'm being ambiguous here on purpose, by the way. The details aren't important at this point) This story came together so quickly. Writing the background and mythology for this show was so much fun, as there is all kinds of crazy stuff going on. It gave me the opportunity to be really creative, within a framework that seems very cookie cutter and devoid of originality.

I sat down and wrote out a very flimsy outline. I knew what point A looked like, and I knew what point B looked like, but I didn't really have much of an idea of what all the stuff looked like in between the two, or where the connective tissue would go. I just wanted to get started right away and write some dialog between these two characters who I had already gotten to know in my mind.

I started with a blank page and it just poured straight out of my brain onto the page. Act 1 of the story just flew out of me, with barely a glance at my outline. The characters really took on a life of their own, and I'd never experienced anything like that. I could see in my head each scene so clearly, and could see how each character would react, how they would speak, how they would interact with the other characters and the world around them.

And just like when I'm watching a TV show or movie, surprises happened. There were plot developments that just occurred naturally as I was writing. I was stuck for an idea in the latter half of act 1. There's a scene where our protagonists find something. When I sat down to write this, I had no idea what it was they were going to find. I was typing up the scene where the two were in the car, driving to a location. The one where the "thing" was to be found. The dialog was coming along nicely, and I was enjoying watching these two characters grow. I then got to the scene where they arrived at the place where they find the "thing". I still had no idea what the "thing" was going to be. They get there. They get out of the car. They walk towards a place. They arrive at the place. And at the same time my characters lay eyes upon the place where the thing is, THAT is when the idea came to me for what that thing should be.

It was surreal. It all had a very "Neverending Story" vibe to it!!! And that's very much how the entire process went for me. The pilot is very much a journey of discovery for my two protagonists, who have been thrown into a situation that they both need to work through to understand. Time and time again, my characters would discover something at the same instant I did. Or they would makes sense of something confusing at the exact same moment I did. I'd be writing dialog where they would be saying "I need to figure this out" or something like that, and then right after that, as the other character goes to open their mouth to lay out the obvious, THEN it becomes clear to me what the answer is.

I wrote about fifty pages like that. Barely an outline, no real thought put into the story beats. Just a beginning and an end, and a good understanding of my characters.

I re-read it. And I re-read it again. I was already a big fan of these characters, and really enjoyed the way they interacted. But there were of course things missing from my story. I had yet to wrap up the main plot line, and there were a bunch of things that my characters knew that they had no way of knowing. I needed to go backwards and fill in those gaps.

It was an immense pleasure thinking through how to spackle closed holes in the story. It allowed me to introduce new characters that had a very specific purpose, and discover new locations that served them. And the script grew. What I had originally envisioned as a 42 minute pilot now grew into a target of 84 minutes. I realized that the story was too big to tell in a 42 minute opener, because it's actually two stories. It's not only something of an origin story, but it's also a quest story. Of course, the origin drives the quest, but they are two very different stories. Because of the supernatural component of the origin story, much time and effort was put into establishing the rules of this universe. It's unlike anything I've ever read or seen, and thus needs some explaining. The beauty of the larger format is that it allows me the flexibility to really explore these characters and their struggle without moving too quickly, cutting corners, or leaving too much explanation for future episodes. As it stands now, my story falls short of 84 minutes, which is a true blessing, as I still have so much story I want to tell, and so many components of the "quest" story that need to be fleshed out.

I guess the punch line to this whole post is that inspiration often comes from strange locations. What started out as an exercise in developing b-story support characters spiraled into a two hour pilot that practically wrote itself. And from that, I think the conclusion is one that has been repeated to me again and again over the years. Momentum is the best kind of inspiration. Once you start moving, staying in motion is easy. It's the getting off the couch that's the hard part. So if you have a story that you're struggling with, or some idea that you're having trouble getting off the ground, just sit down and write SOMETHING. Create SOMETHING. Getting your brain up and running, and your fingers pounding on the keyboard is often the best medicine for a lack of ideas. You might not end up writing the script you wanted to write, but you just may end up writing something. And hopefully, that something will be something great.

Loadout: Going In Hot, End of Year Thoughts

Utter Madness.

When I write my autobiography ( which will probably turn out to be little more than a collection of blog posts and social media rants ) that will be the title of the chapter that summarizes the second half of 2014. It's been utter madness. But of course, in a good kind of way.

It was roughly in June that I started marching a path with Vincent Talenti, the very talented director who has brought to life the Fallout universe in the popular "Fallout: Nuka Break" series. He and I have been working together closely and feverishly for a while now, and just a few days ago released our latest and biggest collaboration "Loadout: Going In Hot"

I think it's safe to say that this is one of the top five things I am most proud of in my life. It's a super fun, quirky little sci-fi piece that I think performs at a feature film level in many ways. Vince directed it, I wrote it, and also served as Executive Producer. This film could not have been made without the help of a number of incredibly dedicated professionals, all of which I owe a great debt of gratitude. It also gave me the chance to work with some fantastic actors, and acquire so many great new memories. On a personal level, one of the most amazing elements was seeing my words and thoughts brought to life. When I first sat down in front of the keyboard to write the script for Loadout, I had a head full of ideas, some great story points from Vince, and a lot of enthusiasm. I'm by no means a writer by trade, nor have I ever really had any plans to become one. But opportunity presented itself, and it seemed foolish to let that opportunity pass me by.

I think one of the most profound take-aways for me from the whole experience is just how much time it takes to make a project like this happen. So many people worked so hard for so long to produce eight minutes of content. It really blows my mind. It's staggering how much effort goes into getting those pictures on screen, and how many talented people work together to make it look so good. It really made me appreciate just how much work goes into studio movies.

All of this took place in the midst of producing a number of episodes of "Prime Time" for Machinima, which has also proven to be a wonderful, gratifying, and creatively satisfying experience. Working with the folks at Machinima has introduced me to so many great ideas and personalities, ones which I would never have been exposed to had Vince and I not joined forces earlier this year. I'm extremely proud of the work we have done with them and for them, and am thrilled at the quality of the work that Wayside Creations is producing. My tiny successes at writing have inspired me to try other things too. Little ideas that I've had kicking around in my head for years now. Nothing terribly ground breaking or new, but just little stories that I thought would be fun to tell. With the encouragement of the gang at Wayside and a few other key people, I've found that I'm really enjoying the writing process, and am creating shows, feature films and shorts that *I*would love to watch. Even if they never get made, I'm thrilled to see the words on the screen. The knowledge that I've completed a task I set before myself is extremely gratifying.

As 2014 comes to a close, I'm sitting down to write another draft of Fallout: Nuka Break - Tales From The Wasteland, and could not be more stoked to do so. Knowing that I will contribute to this universe that fans have embraced so much is a huge honor for me. And I don't even consider it daunting. Because I know that the team at Wayside Creations have got my back, and will support me along the way, and help to turn this into another project that we will all be proud of.

Builder Bio

I was recently asked to write a brief bio of myself, re my experience as a maker of things. I wanted to post it here, since I thought it turned out decently.

When the first snap-hiss of Luke Skywalkers lightsaber hit the eyes and ears of a young and impressionable Matt Munson, a lifelong love affair with movie props had begun. My very first prop making effort was an attempt to duplicate Luke's saber using an atari joystick, a wooden dowel rod, and the testors model paints I had on hand. Humble beginnings indeed.

Since then, I have gone on to not only design, create, build and finish hundreds of movie and tv prop replicas for my own collection, but I have also made them for screens large and small. Some of my work can be seen in the upcoming feature film "Space Station 76" starring Liv Tyler and Matt Bomer. I built 3 robots and a robotic hand for that film. My work has also been featured prominently in many independent productions, such as "Batgirl: Spoiled" and "Aperture R&D". For my own collection, I have built a fully functional R2-D2 who walks, talks, and lights up just like the one in the Star Wars films. I built a full sized TARDIS, the blue police box made famous by the long running British science fiction television show "Doctor Who" and am currently knee deep in a replica of the Batmobile as driven by Michael Keaton in the 1989 Tim Burton Batman film.

I run the youtube channel "The Project Work Bench" where I produce tutorials, project walk-through videos, interviews with fellow builders, behind the scenes videos, and updates on my large scale projects. Tutorial videos often focus on a very specific task involved in prop making, such as fiberglass layups, or silicone mold making. One of my more popular series' shows a step by step walk through of my build of Batman's Grapple Gun from the Arkham Asylum video game. The series starts with a simple sketch on a piece of paper, and goes all the way through to final painting and weathering. I also keep a blog which documents at a different level of granularity some of my builds.

I work in a variety of media. I have found that the nature of the project typically dictates what materials will need to be used to complete it. I sculpt in clay, I weld, I machine. I fabricate using wood, plaster, styrene, fiberglass, resin, metal... whatever is needed. I sometimes make electronics to suit the needs of the project. I paint, I sand, I weather. I like to think of myself as an extremely versatile creator of all things interesting. I'll take on a project of any size, as long as it's interesting to me. As Yoda is fond of saying: "Size matters not". Even if it's something I don't know how to do, I find the learning process one of the most rewarding elements in any fabrication effort.

MattMobile - Rear Bumper and Support Arms

The day started with a quick trip to my favorite metal store, Industrial Metal Supply in Irvine. IMS is a sponsor of the MattMobile project, and I'm absolutely thrilled to have them on board. If you're in need of some metal or expertise, IMS is your place.

I had to pick up some telescoping rectangular tube steel for something that I will discuss in a future blog post, and also grabbed a few supplies while I was there. I got some replacement fiberglass cutoff wheels, some anti-spatter goo for the welding torch, and a piece of aluminum that I'm going to use on my DareDevil billy clubs. But the main purpose of my trip was to pick up some 2"X4" rectangular tube (14 guage) that I am going to use to fabricate a bumper.

As with previous work on the car, I'm sort of following in the footsteps of Tim Neil, who is building the BatBerry up in Canada. He fabricated a bumper using two pieces of 2"x2" stock, welded together. I figured I would skip that step, and just buy some properly sized stock. Also, it's a little thicker than the 2X2 stock I have on hand, so it'll be stronger.

A little gizmo that caught my eye while waiting for IMS to cut my steel to length is this magnet. It has both 90 degree angles and 45 degree angles on it, and the point here is that you use this to set up angles and hold steel in place while you weld it up. Getting 90 degree angles is pretty important to my build, and as you've seen from previous blog posts, I get mixed results.

If you don't have one of these, go get one.

With that said, the chore of the day was to fabricate a bumper and get it installed. MUCH easier said than done. I was experimenting with my new RIGID cutoff wheel saw, and frankly I'm not impressed. What it makes up for in lack of effort needed, it takes back by giving you pretty crappy and unpredictable cuts. The problem is that the blade deflects, leading to cuts that aren't where you want them to be. Still, it does some heavy lifting, which is helpful.

Fabricating the bumper should have been fairly straightforward, but I made a pretty stupid mistake early on and managed to drop an inch off my measurements prior to cutting. Which sucks, because I DID do the "measure twice, cut once" thing. I guess I need to up my game to "measure THRICE, cut once". The new magnet came in really handy for welding together the 45 degree cuts I made on the corners, and aside from being an inch two short, it came out really nicely.

However, I had to cut the thing down the middle and then add in an inch of material. I'm sure this weakened the overall structural integrity of the piece, but oh well. It is what it is.

Here you can see where I'm fitting the bumper into the frame of the caprice. The ends slide into the frame.

Once I corrected the problems of the missing inch, the bumper went into place very easily and nicely. It's also totally level. I was really happy with how it went in.

I was having some troubles with the welding torch, so I googled some troubleshooting stuff and ultimately made some changes to the settings which TOTALLY helped, and I'm now getting even better welds than I was producing before.

Flash forward, I welded in the bumper then welded in top of my welds some strips of steel to add strength. I then cut out a support arm for each side, and welded it from the outer tip of the bumper up onto the frame I've been fabricating inside the shell.

I of course did the same thing on both sides of the car.

Believe it or not, what you see in these last pictures is the culmination of 8 solid hours of work. Fabricating the bumper, installing it, cutting the support arms and attaching them is the sum total of today's efforts. All pretty cool. I noticed while taking pictures that I'm starting to accumulate some rust on my metal. Looks like it is the result of being handled by me. Once I get some more work done, I'll hit them with a wire brush and then give them a coat of primer to prevent further rust.

MattMobile Roll Bar Progress

Not a whole heck of a lot accomplished today, though mainly because I ran out of gas for my welder. It was past 5:00 PM when it ran out, so I was unable to run to my local Praxair for a refill. I'll take care of that tomorrow.

My main focus today was working on the secondary roll bar. It was a little bit asymmetrical, and my brain just won't allow that. Two of the joints needed to be cut and re-welded, and one of the arms needed to be shortened. When I took this picture, there only remained a tiny bit of welding to do on the last joint.

I'm very happy with how this piece has evolved, though I think the takeaway message from it is that next time, I should just build a new one from scratch, rather than try to repair or modify an existing structure. Grinding down welds is REALLY time consuming and labor intensive. Not fun at all.

Han In Carbo Plexiglass Panels Cut and Purchased

While down in Lake Forest today on an errand, I stopped by my old pals at the Plastics place and got some plexiglass cut. They are super helpful and quick there, with the total trip lasting under 15 minutes.

If you'll recall earlier progress pics of my Han in Carbo, the side panels are missing and even worse, there are big open gaps there. This plex was cut to fit behind the side walls, and to cover up those holes.

Here you can see the plex I got today, along with one of my replica control panels.

Luckily, Vince Sanchez did a really great job of mastering the original fan made control panels I owned previously, and they were dimensionally very similar to the accurate Volvo panel. I will only have to modify the openings in the side walls slightly in order to fit the accurate panels. To be precise, I need to widen the small gaps where the lower tabs of the control panel goes. Each one gets and extra half inch of inward clearance. I will accomplish that with my dremel and files. Other than those two tabs, the panels fit quite nicely.

Next step will be to finish filing out the openings so that the accurate control panels fit, gluing in the new plex panels, then attaching the control panels to them. Probably only a day of work, but the trick will be finding the time to do it.