Xiphoid Pictures Presents®

[Matthew Frazier]

Good evening:

Actor-Director-Producer-Writer in Skullicon Valley, California. Looking to meet other artists in Cinema and Theatre. Active in Cinema and Theatre since 1995. Started as a playwright and stage actor headed for New York. 911 kept me in Silicon Valley, CA where I was born. Absenteeism of actors aiming for their SAG cards, on no-budget horror films, landed me minor roles in Gore films and worked my way up to lead roles and eventually making short horror films. Mainly a writer. Actor secondly. My favorite artists are in Independent Cinema and Independent Theatre. Five short horror films are in the queue right now, slated for production from summer 2025 through summer 2029. Graduating next May with an MS in Mass Communications. Xiphoid Pictures is my micro-budget horror genre production company for short films here in Santa Clara Valley, CA - Better known by the locals as Skullicon Valley, CA. Welcome to my thread. Let's honor The Dead!

Matthew Frazier
408.656.5622 - Mobile

 

[indietalk]

 

[mlesemann]

Welcome to IndieTalk!

 

[Chris Tempel]

 

[Matthew Frazier]

CINEGATION
Skullicon Valley
Luna Plena - Autumnal Skies​

The Autumnal Equinox approaches, as does the season for Halloween Eve and Halloween Night. Horror Cinema and Terror Theatre have existed for years now. San Jose, California is not the place one is inclined to imagine when Horror Cinema arises in conversations and discussions. Santa Clara Valley is little more than a remnant of what was once known globally as The Valley of The Hearts’ Delight. Now this sardonic sector of San Jose is plagued by blight and a forgettable sight.

Earlier column entries and essays/memoirs to readers have mentioned Santa Clara Valley being rebranded as Skullicon Valley and designated as the go-to locale for Micro-Budget Indie Horror Cinema. A fledgling vision at best, at this juncture. Those who know me, know me as a Retail employee who speaks fleetingly of a distant memory of a 10-year run as a no-name Indie Gore Cinema actor in Santa Clara Valley from 1999 to 2009. The only ones who know of my existence as an actor and the features and shorts we shot are the cast and crew. Many of whom are six feet underground from the lifestyles they celebrated in our youth.

First and foremost, I am an essayist and a fictionist – tasked with sharing the allegories and narratives of this allegedly non-existent chapter in the valley’s history and my life. The scripts that were borne from this phantom decade were the basis and the catalyst by which a new momentum and trajectory thrust ideas forth for future projects and stories.

Luna Plena is the Latin term for Full Moon. By the auspices and the graces of full moons, the finest in Gore was forged. Small crews. We were on average 12 to 20. The actors were little-known and often unknown Film Acting students from local city colleges who weren’t yet candidates for their SAG cards.

Chronic absenteeism kept us from completing these features and shorts. Plans to leave San Jose CA for Manhattan NY and work in Indie Off Off Broadway features and short plays was a plan and vision upon graduation from West Valley College in Saratoga, California May of 2001. 911 struck and I stayed in San Jose, unemployed and facing a collective boycott of Jewish actors and artists in The Bay Area.

The phone rang at 3:00 am one morning and a friend informed me that their lead actor had left San Jose for Los Angeles to be an extra for a union acting gig, leaving the crew without the key person needed. I immediately agreed to be there, as a grip and production assistant. But with full intentions of pitching my acting skills to the assistant director and assistant producer. Hence began the 10-year run in no-budget Indie Gore Cinema.

I had already been producing and writing short films shot on analog video from 1999 to 2001 under the banner of Xyphoid Pictures, though my production outfit wasn’t to be found on anyone’s grid or radar. Formally trained in Theatre as both an actor and a playwright, the journey continued as I honed and sharpened my academic and professional skills as an artist and as a professional in Indie Cinema and Indie Theatre.