Wednesday, August 29, 2007

12th Weekend Stills Movie

Here's three series of photos that Leah and Adam took this weekend.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Week 12 - The End is Nigh

Friday
Action all took place at The Drunken Dragon on Friday. We're at the end of shooting at the bars in Auburn, so we concentrated on pick-ups that we still needed. Everything we shot takes place near the end of the "montage of death". We needed shots of David and Jenny exchanging glances down the length of the bar while killing zombies. Jenny also needed to be seen taking one more machete swing. Erik sits just out of frame spitting blood at her. The battle-axe has seen better days. It appears to be held together almost exclusively by duct tape.
Erik spits blood at LarissaThe end of the battle axe

The biggest shot of the night was David running past the bar to lend Jenny a hand. This short action was shot to death... We managed to pull off three different high-speed dolly shots. Paul pushed me on the wheelchair over and over again without one sign of slowing down.
EggsHigh-speed wheelchair dolly

Saturday
Again, the theme of the weekend seems to be pick-ups. Somehow we managed to shoot until about 9am on Sunday. The end of the Linderman's scene still needed to be shot tonight.
Boothe takes a shotA Death at the Quick Stop

Here's some guerrilla filmmaking in action. We needed a shot of David and Jenny entering Linderman's while "braining" Bob Zombie in the process. We managed to get the whole company moved outside, set up the shot and get in a few good takes in about twenty minutes.
Guerilla Shooting

We're done at our bars in Auburn... almost. Erik, Marcel and I will be back to shoot one more effects shot on Wednesday. Set deconstruction happens on Thursday. We get locked out on Friday.
To be continued...

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

11th Weekend - Boothe takes a fall and Jenny battles Zombies

Friday
Erik started a brilliant directing stint for this weekend's shoot. On Friday we spent our whole night in Linderman's. Some of that time was spent shooting pick-ups and reverses with Darwin, David, Charlie and Jenny. Most of the time however, comma, was used for some more shots of last weeks epic battle between Boothe and Bob Zombie. We got some reverse shots that were missed last weekend due to us concentrating on Bob's heavy make-up effects.
Bill Johns (Boothe) did some great stunt work. Yes, he does all his own stunts. He did a great backwards fall many times. In the picture below we have a shot set-up where he falls out of frame and is caught by Bob and Chris waiting below to catch him. We also did some low angle shots of him hitting the ground with no one to catch him. I can't imagine it felt very good to land hard with a rifle strapped to his back that many times.
Boothe takes a fall

Saturday
Saturday night/Sunday morning was all about a return to The Drunken Dragon. This was a scene that we've been looking forward to for a very long time: Jenny's brawl with Andy Evans as Brother Joseph. This was a great scene to be able to spend all night on. When cut together, it's going to be very suspenseful. It was also great to be back "home" at the bar. Despite the blood-soaked sticky floors and recent fruit fly infestation, we all love it. Check out this picture of Jenny slowly backing towards the window to the kitchen. We got a lot of cool shots of her looking freaked out, waiting for the next attack.
Jenny backs towards the window

I love this shot of Andy slowly lumbering through the bar. The camera caught a cool wisp of smoke passing by. We did a lot of extreme low angle shooting with the sandbag used as camera support. I spent most of the night sitting on our wonderful blood-soaked floor.
Zombie Andy Walks Through Smoke

The above photo is actually part of a series that Leah took without moving her camera. Here's a video I put together last night of those shots "animated".

Monday, August 13, 2007

Week 10 - Enter Boothe and The Melting of Bob

Friday
Shooting continues at Linderman's. Our custom-built set is holding up well to filming. We finally arrived at one of my favorite parts of the script: Boothe's entrance. It was great to film him come through the door with a chainsaw covered in blood. Friday was mostly devoted to Boothe's monologue and his interactions with David, Charlie, and Darwin. Bill Johns is great as Boothe.
Boothe's EntranceBoothe's Entrance

Saturday
On Satruday we filmed Boothe and Darwin with Bob Zombie. This was definitely the most complex make-up effect yet in the film. While Marcel and Katy worked on that, Scott and I worked with Boothe on shooting some more dialogue. This was made quite difficult with our crew of two and the Auburn street fair going on right outside the door.
Here's the Bob Zombie make-up:
Building Bob ZombieBuilding Bob ZombieBuilding Bob Zombie

The most intense part of the night was filming Bob Zombie. It took five people just to operate the make-up effects. Very cool. We used a lot of smoke, blood, vinegar, and old pudding.
The Book of BobMelting Bob Zombie

Thursday, August 9, 2007

9th Weekend

We started shooting at Linderman's today! The first shot was the low angle shot of David and Jenny walking into the store looking for Harry. I had to get low to the floor to avoid seeing my reflection in the door.
entry

The most fun shot of the night was a dolly shot of the couple walking down the aisle. The wheelchair was totally worth it! The third shot is a view from behind the monitor during one of the dolly takes.
dollydolly2
frying pan

Paul stands in front of our custom-built walk-in cooler while directing David and Jenny's entrance into Linderman's. To prepare for tonight he created some killer storyboards.
paulstoryboards

Friday, August 3, 2007

8th Weekend

Rehearsal at Linderman's
We started Friday with a rehearsal of the entire Linderman's scene. This introduced us to the Bill Johns as Boothe. As you can see, the set is still under consctuction. We've been busy turning a bar into a convenience store. It will be done (hopefully) by the time we start shooting today.
Hello BootheRehearsal at Linderman's

While Pual was busy doing a second run-through with the actors; Adam, Scott and I shot a side view of the flaming arrow outside. Adam built a rig to attach the arrow to the tripod, so I could whip-pan the camera and it looks like the arrow is flying.
Soon to be flaming arrow

We did get a little shooting done tonight. Along with some inserts, we also shot Brian getting up from behind the bar only to face a new horde of zombies. We have one more short scene to shoot at the Drunken Dragon, which we'll come back to in a couple of weeks.
End of the road More Zombies
See the light