Monday, August 15, 2005

Film: Zombie Short

Some of us had a slightly different Saturday night than normal. We shot a short film with zombies. The key photo here shows the full cast and crew.

Thanks to my friends for coming out for the shoot. You were all AWESOME! These are photos of the friends I invited. They are just a few of the zombies on hand as extras.

Heather - from Model Mayhem, One Model Place, MySpace. She attended the July 31 photo shoot. She will be around for Woodward Dream Cruise. Heather is interested in Living for Sundance.
Starr - from Model Mayhem, One Model Place, MySpace. After lots of online messages this was the first time I met Starr.
Mike - from Model Mayhem, MySpace. He attended the July 31 photo shoot. He will be around for Woodward Dream Cruise.
Rachel - is listed at Model Mayhem, One Model Place. She had a photo shoot with Mike earlier in the day. She will be around for Woodward Dream Cruise. This was the first time I met Rachel.
Christina - I met her at the Majestic Cafe where she works.
AJ, Kolton, Deborah - {what a cool family photo} see notes below...
Will - I got to know through Landmark Education, we went through the Introduction Leader Program there. He's become my pal around town, and journalist. He posts articles to Wikipedia.

Andrea I'm sorry we didn't hook up and get you there, bummer about loosing your cell phone the night before. I'm glad we saw each other at Bleu.

Deborah, thanks for taking me up on a rather interesting way of first meeting, having connected with each other through the internet. It was probably one of the most unusual requests - "Would you come to a run-down area of Detroit without make-up and in clothing ready to be shred? You'll have zombie make-up applied." Geez that sounds kinky! Oh and thanks for allowing me to use the knife on your clothing. Muuuaahhhahahahaha!

Make-up for the film took quite a while to apply, from 7:30 until 10:45, and there was still a bit more make-up going on for Jamie as the lead zombie. During make-up I was taking lots of photos, and assisting in shredding clothing. Everyone's spirits were livley as they saw the resulting effects applied through the photos taken.

It came time for filming the movie and I went to my spare battery and realized... it was dead. OH NO - I must have swapped batteries during the make-up segment and forgot I was on my second! I rushed to put 5 minutes of charge time into the battery. It resulted in 30 minutes regular time. Knowing how nightshot mode drains the battery... I didn't get much time on it. Very disappointed.

There was a mist of rain coming down outside. It was the perfect environment for the film, the street lights were shining off the blacktop as the zombies pursued the humans from the factory under the railroad tracks. Zombies lurching attempting to run down the street. So desperate for human flesh, life energy. The sequence was captured six to eight times, then it was changed up a few additional takes. There are video clips in this gallery.

I went in and got a better charge on the camera, and took a few photos of the zombies with bile spilled all over them.

The zombies were set loose on the town. I'm very curious to hear reports of the havoc they caused around Detroit. Send me links to blogs recounting your experience and I'll link them here.

The completing segment of the film was then shot with the humans and lead zombie - Jamie. Remember, this is a five minute short when editted. There were a couple segments filmed and the rain was coming down harder. Focus through the rain was rather interesting in auto-focus mode. I was using night-shot mode because I couldn't use a flash during filming.

Things wrapped up around 2:00 am. Will came back over to Tangent saying they had met the folks from Planet Ant at the bar.

Thank you one and all for a fantastic time! There WILL BE more opportunities for movies, so stay in touch.

Related blog links:

  • The Voices in Frank's Head
  • revised posting

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