My Chemical Freak: My Chemical Romance All The Time

Here is the press release and some photos…

Press Release:

For Immediate Release

Director- Voltaire and My Chemical Romance front man, Gerard Way
make Creepy Christmas film for Glass Eye Pix.

MTV and SciFi Channel station I.D. veteran, Voltaire, known for his twisted, stop-motion animation, has made a spooky holiday short for the Creepy Christmas film festival. Masterminded by artist and animator Beck Underwood and hosted by Glass Eye Pix, the production company of Larry Fessenden (Wendigo, The Last Winter, Habit), the festival is a 25-day, on-line jaunt showcasing a new sinister short every day of December leading up to Christmas.

Voltaire’s film, “X-mess Detritus” is a cautionary parable about the dangers of holiday gift-giving and the effect the resulting garbage has on the Earth. Voltaire wrote a poem to tell this tale and enlisted My Chemical Romance front man, Gerard Way to narrate his creepy Christmas short.

Says Voltaire, “My other two shorts are narrated by singers (“Rakthavira” is narrated by Deborah Harry of Blondie and “Transrexia” is narrated by Richard Butler of the Psychedelic Furs) so I wanted to keep that tradition. Plus I had been wanting to collaborate with Gerard on something for a while now so when the chance popped up, I jumped for it. He’s super talented and a true professional. He brought so much to the film and is just amazingly easy to be around”

Voltaire describes his inclusion in the festival as serendipitous . “I was picking my son up at school,” says Voltaire, “when I noticed one of the parents had a Fangoria tote bag over her arm. Being a horror fan and having worked with Fangoria I excitedly ran up to her and said, ‘Wow! Where did you get that Fangoria Weekend of Horrors tote bag?’ She looked at me matter-of-factly and said, ‘At the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors.’ I felt like an idiot.”
The next day I got an email from her. It was Beck Underwood of Glass Eye Pix, wife and long time collaborator of Fessenden’s. She was writing to invite me to participate in the festival. I’m a big fan of their work so I was really excited to receive the news.”

Born of an advent calendar created by Beck Underwood, Glass Eye Pix selected a different filmmaker to bring to life the image in each window of Underwood’s creepy countdown to December 25th.

Underwood assigned Voltaire the slot for December 18th.
The image in that particular window of the calendar featured two distressed vintage dolls. Underwood communicated to Voltaire that they lent themselves well to stop-motion animation. A veteran of stop-motion commercials and station IDs for MTV, The SciFi Channel and others, Voltaire was perfectly suited for the job. He picked up the dolls from Underwood and got right to work.

He enlisted production support from Fangoria in the way of gear and shot at the School of Visual Arts where he teaches stop-motion animation. “There were no storyboards, no guidelines,” says Voltaire, “just the dolls and a deadline. It was wonderfully liberating to be able to just let the piece develop on its own.”

As for the name of the film, Voltaire states, “One of the other things about my shorts is that their titles all sound like diseases or some kind of disorder. ‘X-Mess Detritus’ sounds like something you’d need to get a shot for! Maybe you do. It alludes to the garbage left over after Christmas.”

The Creepy Christmas Film Festival launched on December 1st, 2008 at www.creepychristmas.net.

Voltaire’s film, “X-mess Detritus” premieres on December 18th.

CLICK HERE to see the XMESS DETRITUS!