That's right, our video was selected as the winner of the BurnTables CNC plasma Table giveaway! Holly cow! with so many deserving participants we are stoked to have been chosen.
Now comes the hard part. Figuring out where is the best location for it. Buying a new plasma cutter dedicated to it. Determining if we want to upgrade the size… etc. We want to put it in an efficient and useful location, but we also want to show it off and provide good exposure to BurnTables.
For the short term, it's going to go in my garage where I can use my buggy to assist in mocking up some new prototypes; not to mention all the brackets and tabs that need to be cut for the buggy its self.
Since winning the table my mind has been filling with ideas for both new products and spins on existing products. I am pretty glad that I am a web developer by day as setting up an online store will be like any other day at the office. So look forward to more posts on that subject in the future.
Any friends out there that need parts cut. Feel free to call or email me. If you buy the material you got yourself some parts.
Every once in a while an outstanding Pirate4x4 vendor steps up with an unbelievable giveaway. Right now that vendor is Riggen Industries. They are giving away one of their CNC BurnTables with all the trimmings! It's like Christmas in February. The winner of the giveaway will get a 4x2 table, motor kit, computer, software, and free training! It's really quite the package and perfect size for us.
The rules were pretty straight forward. "Submit a home video explaining how you would use a BurnTables CNC Plasma/Router Table to further improve your ability to start or finish your project, help with your business, or starting a new business."
Joe hit me up on messenger the night they posted it. He said: We have to win this! We almost bought a Torchemate 2x2 plasma but got priced out of it when they got distribution. Here was another chance to get a CNC plasma table and we immediately started brainstorming some ideas. We tossed around several ideas before settling on the zombie movie idea.
The idea was perfect. We have never made a movie before—outside of family videos—and first time filmmakers always cut their teeth on a zombie flick. I think it's considered a right of passage or something?
We started working on some sketches to flesh out our ideas. We also needed to figure out how we were going to film it. I recalled a high school film project I was involved in. I was the boom mic holder guy but I payed attention to the cameraman. I knew the information would be valuable some day. I always thought it was going to be porn, but this is a pretty close second.
Then my wife goes into labor...
Joe was hooked! He was pretty excited about our project. He knew we had a pretty good chance to win this. When Joe cam to visit us in the hospital all he could do besides smile at baby Caleb was talk about the script. I was useless after not sleeping for 4 days straight but we worked out what we could.
After a few days of planning and writing we had enough to start filming. My video camera was on the fritz, but my regular photo camera has a video mode. So, we made due with that. I have wanted to shoot some video with it anyway so this was a pretty good project to test it out on. I think the end result turned out pretty good, even if our lighting came from Home Depot.
We broke the scenes into two groups and shot them over just two weekends. The first week were all the scenes that didn't include zombies. Mostly the scenes of Joe and I talking in the shop. Fortunately my friend Gilda was able to come help us do the filming. Week two—Supper Bowl Sunday—we shot all the zombie scenes. This was by far the best day. I mean there were zombies for crying out loud. Whats better than post apocalyptic Zombies? Nothing!
I have to say thanks to all of our friends and family that came out to help. On Super Bowl Sunday no less! Even if we don't win, it was the best movie making experience ever and well worth the excuse to hang out eat pizza and drink beer!
February 23 2012 by 
Mark Aplet
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