The big one!!! Well what can I say. Supendous! Stunning! Fantastic ….Goresome!!!! The zombies invaded Leicester city 17th April 2009 and fun was had by all. There was a bit of pressure on today – firstly we had to get up at half five and secondly we were going to have a mass (gaggle?, flock?) of zombies around the centre of Leicester.
I set up a Facebook group for this and by a few days before we had over a hundred signed up. With extras i usually ask for twice as many as i want as often you have a ratio of no shows. Well .... just under 100 dedicated zombie fans turned up. Couldnt believe it - awesome! And you know what - we loved them all. Social media dont you love and hate it?
After the madness we vacted to Aylestone Meadows and a quick hop and jump across a fence to an industrial estate and the jobs a good one.
Cant believe how lucky we were weather wise - both days it threatened rain early on, which thankfully never came - and also with all the extras - a great atmosphere, a great bunch, a great day.
Spending the next 8-9 hours transferring footage from camera to my hard drives. A laborious process but am getting a good workflow going. Heres how it goes in Premiere Pro :
1 play tape through until you find the first usable take 2 rewind to this takes start point 3 select scene detect 4 enter name as scene no and description 5 capture 6 pause at end of scene, deleting section of next scene captured by scene detect 7 go to 1
This seems to me the best capture method. In effect you are saving time in the capture/edit process as you are shot selecting in the capture itself. Saves both time and disk space - and with HDV this is a good thing.
Down on the farm. Jai Grant’s parents have allowed us free roam of their old farm out Ratby way. Its an awesome location and many thanks to them. A big day today especially for Steve Doulton who joins us late into shooting - a hard task coming in to a cast and crew who’ve been working together for so long.
Steve had to go by three so needed to juggle the scenes around with all his stuff first. Have to say I was impressed by Steve. His attitude was at all times professional, and he nailed his lines pretty much bang on every time. A short scene I wrote where he recounts a traumatic event in his recent past relied on the actors skill and boy did he deliver. Not sure if it was the pressure on the big shoot the next day but therewas a touch of friction on the set. Nothing that stopped us nailing shots or spoiled friendships but it was there. But hey – its been a long haul, we’re all tired so shit happens. We moved on and got some fantastic shots due largely due to some free lighting – the sun.
A late but great entry into the ZU fold is Steve Dolton. A fellow Shooting People member, Steve has numerous theatre credits and shorts to his name. We've got a juicy part for him which is dialogue and emotion rich - something for him to play with. And from seeing his showreel I know he's going to add something special to the project. Bring it on. info@zombieundead.com
Another great day - this time squashed into Firebug Bar basement. Lots of hot and sweaty bodies squeezing together. Nice.
The day went very well and we shot an amazing 7 pages worth. The actors really nailed it and shot off 5 pages of dialog with aplomb. As usual as the day progressed we had to squeeze more in and drop some shots but we got the coverage and all was well. Paul Ewen got his long awaited day of ZU. A great guy he just turned up and did his cool zombie thing. And on that note - some nice SFX from Gavatron. Splattered the roof and my good self - well i'd survived a year of filming with no blood on me...
Finally heres a picture of the sound guys. The often ignored and maligned department ; Farid and Carl. Even if Carl sneaked off for a quick snooze around lunchtime. Allegedly.
Male, 40-60 years old actor required for role of farmer. The feature length ZU is coming to the end of its shoot. Actor required from 8.30 till 5.30 on 18th April near Ratby, Leicestershire. The film is non-funded so payment is not available, but will give the actor a feature credit. Hence ideally we would prefer a local actor. Please respond to info@zombieundead.com.
