The Book of Zombie Blog

New Behind the Scenes Video

2010-07-06T19:48:00.000-07:00

This is the behind the scenes video for The Book of Zombie that I made for the Red, White and Dead Zombie walk in Seattle. It premiered after the world record setting zombie walk to thousands of zombie fans. Watch the whole video below and see lead actor, Brian Ibsen along with Scott Kragelund, Marcel Banks and Erik Van Sant talk about making the movie. Of course I’ve also added some scenes from the film along with plenty of exclusive behind the scenes footage.

4,920 Zombies came out with 4,233 verified which makes Seattle once again the world record holder for largest zombie walk. Stop by my photoblog in the coming days to see my pictures of the event.

World Premiere

2010-06-14T16:00:00.000-07:00

Last Friday night was the world premiere of The Book of Zombie at Seattle’s True Independent Film Festival – STIFF. I couldn’t believe the massive crowd that showed up for the show. I wasn’t even sure that I would be able to get the movie that I worked for three years on. It turns out the movie was oversold. The theater was filled to over capacity with some people sitting on the ground and well over forty people were turned away. The movie looked and sounded great. And it was loud. The audience was really into it, laughing in all the right places and even some unexpected ones. We were screened with two short films – The Familiar and Blue Moon Day. Both were also excellent. Afterwords we participated in a Q & A with the other filmmakers. Representing The Book of Zombie was myself, Adam Gehrke, Paul Cranefield, Marcel Banks, Erik Van Sant, Adrienne MacIain, Andrew Loviska and Larissa Peters. We’re going to keep sending the movie around the festival circuit while we work on the DVD release. We have gone on to win the festival's Audience Award.

Here’s the crowd that stayed for the Q&A following the movie:

Some of our cast and crew: Marcel, Erik, Adrienne, and Larissa with the STIFF organizer:

More of the crowd listening to answers about the movie:

Our poster displayed in the front window of the theater:

Film Festival Premiere

2010-05-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

Join us on Friday, June 11 at 9:15 PM for the World Premiere of The Book of Zombie at STIFF - Seattle's True Independent Film Festival! Come to see the film and meet the stars and makers of a soon-to-be cult zombie film.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Venues/Stiff?film=3978568
You can also buy tickets for the early screening on Monday afternoon here too.

We're on Twitter and Facebook.

We're on Facebook

2010-05-02T12:25:00.000-07:00

The Book of Zombie is now on Facebook. Become a fan and be sure to get regular updates on the status of the movie. The premiere is coming this June and will will be announced here as soon as the dates and locations are confirmed.
http://www.facebook.com/thebookofzombie

Moaning to the finish line

2010-03-03T20:59:00.000-08:00

The Book is almost closed on The Book of Zombie. The final edit has been locked for a few months now. Almost all of the visual shots have been turned in (I still have one on my plate). Our sound designers are working overtime on making the movie sound great. The score is about half done right now. I've heard it and it sounds really amazing. Adam says that the hardest parts are still ahead of him though. There's a section late in the film where there's going to be about ten minutes of solid music. I can't wait to hear it. As you know, the opening credits are finished. The end credits are currently being assembled. We've started submitting the film to festivals, so stay tuned to find out where you can catch the world premiere. You can also keep up on news by becoming a fan on Facebook.

Trailer Screening on the Side of a Building

2009-07-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

Seattle broke the world record on the 3rd of July with the largest ever zombie walk. The event centered at the Fremont Outdoor Cinema and ended with a screening of Shaun of the Dead. The Book of Zombie trailer was screened before the feature on the big screen to thousands of zombie fans. What an awesome sight, seeing our movie on such a HUGE screen!

They had projectors aimed at two sides of the buildings to accommodate the large number of people that were expected. The zombies loved it!

The Opening Credits Are Complete

2009-06-10T08:29:00.000-07:00

The opening credits sequence for The Book of Zombie is complete. I finished rendering the last shots late last week and sent it on to the rest of the zombie team for viewing. I'm hearing that everyone loved it. Just this morning I passed it along to our sound team to begin the sound design and scoring process. I'm hoping to be able to post the whole open soon. In the meantime, enjoy some stills that I've pulled from it.

Click on that last one to see a cool work in progress comparison with the final product. It came a long way. The whole process took a little over three months and clocks in at four minutes. I know that I promised a making-of post a while back, but that's going to wait until I post the finished product.

Opening Credits Still

2009-04-23T10:14:00.000-07:00

I've been spending most of my waking hours working on the opening credits sequence for The Book of Zombie. It's been such a huge project that I've recruited many volunteers to do the actor rotoscoping for me. The actors were shot walking on treadmills in a makeshift studio in a friend's carport. Thanks Brian! The smoke is dry ice shot over black in my basement. The background art is by my wife, Leah, then colored in photoshop by myself. Look closely and you'll notice the business in the background. Squawking Vultures Records is named after the studio where the film is being scored, Squawking Vultures Studio. When this is finished I'll be sure to write a lengthy post describing the process for those of you that are interested . As of this writing the sequence consists of 30 shots. I still have quite a bit of work left, but I wanted to share the first fully lit and rendered shot.

Opening Credits

2009-03-15T11:20:00.001-07:00

We here at The Book of Zombie have been hard at work creating an opening credit sequence for the film. This still is a work in progress concept from Piper jogging to work. It's a cool mix of live action and animation. With only one more scene left to shoot, it's really coming together.
We've been shooting for the last two weeks and our final shoot is happening next Saturday. Explosions, gunshots and fire. Stay tuned, we have a screening scheduled for June. Sign up for the newsletter on the website to find out when and where.
http://thebookofzombie.com

Locking Reel Two

2009-01-24T12:54:00.001-08:00

The Book of Zombie - Backyard
Originally uploaded by Dave Zombie

We've just locked (finished editing) reel 2 of the film. Only six more to go! It is currently being prepped for sound design work. Pick-up shooting begins tonight and will lead us to a finished product very soon. Details about where you can see The Book of Zombie will be coming soon. We're expecting to premiere in early June.

Fire Part II

2008-09-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

Here's the behind the scenes video of the explosion shoot that I promised!

FIRE

2008-06-01T19:34:00.001-07:00

Massive Explosion
Originally uploaded by PrestonDave

The Book of Zombie crew got the band back together this weekend to shoot some fireballs for visual effects. We shot late into the night in Scott's backyard with Bob's new HVX200 camera. The fireballs look amazing in HD, super slow motion! We used powdered coffee creamer, black powder and gun powder. (Don't try this at home) I'll post some behind the scenes video at some point. I really love blowing stuff up...

The Book of Zombie at Crypticon

2008-05-28T06:23:00.001-07:00

Boothe Lights Up
Originally uploaded by PrestonDave

The trailer was screened to a live audience at Crypticon in Seattle. Adam and I were there to witness the event. It was very exciting to hear all of the applause at the end. They really like it! Here's the video:

Boom Noir

2008-05-15T20:54:00.001-07:00

Boom Noir
Originally uploaded by PrestonDave

Darwin ignites his lighter. "Boom."

I Like Making Movie Film

2008-05-13T18:52:00.000-07:00

Still Editing

2008-03-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

I'm shaping up Act II.

How to Edit a Zombie Movie

2008-02-25T19:21:00.000-08:00

If you have any idea how to work this thing, please let me know...

George Romero and The Book of Zombie

2008-02-10T13:36:00.000-08:00

Seattle radio host, BJ Shea, talks to George Romero about The Book of Zombie in a live interview. Video includes the interview plus exclusive behind the scenes footage.

The Trailer Is Here

2008-02-04T05:15:00.000-08:00

The official trailer has been launched!

The Book of Zombie from David Preston on Vimeo.

Also watch it:
http://thebookofzombie.com/
http://myspace.com/thebookofzombie
http://revver.com/video/651761/the-book-of-zombie/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9PRgw8DuTM

Trailer Launch Date: Monday, Feb. 4, 2008

2008-02-01T19:36:00.000-08:00

The trailer for The Book of Zombie is complete. We launch on Monday morning! You can watch it here or on the website.

In the meantime, here's some more stills.

Building a Trailer: Screencaps

2007-11-27T19:09:00.000-08:00

Tuesday
I'm working on the official trailer for The Book of Zombie. It's coming along well, and I wanted to share a few stills from the movie.

Wrap Party

2007-10-28T18:42:00.000-07:00

Saturday
The Book of Zombie wrap party was a blast. It was also a great Halloween party. There were a lot of ghoulish costumes and delicious food.

I made the first trailer for a premiere screening at the party. It was the first time that our cast and crew got to see what we'd spent the last four months making. We watched it about a dozen times.

Karoeke in the blood-red basement where Scott does his best Creed impression.

Week 18 - That's a Wrap!

2007-10-22T17:05:00.000-07:00

Friday
The Book of Zombie wrapped principal photography on this glorious day! We went to a new location in Auburn to shoot the final scene in the movie. I wish that I could write more about it, but the ending's top secret. I don't even want to spill the place we filmed at.
The scene started with a creeping, ghoulish, dolly shot and ended with an epic steadicam shot that would make Scorsese proud.
Wrap party this Saturday. Will I blog it?...

Week 17 - What about Zed?

2007-10-14T15:21:00.000-07:00

Saturday
Our only night of filming this week. We only have one more weekend of shooting to go. The production returned to the Puyallup location once again. Scott's backyard became David and Jenny's for the night.

Saturday was also a wrap for Brian and Larissa. We started this production at the beginning of summer, sweating in a bar in Auburn. Now, we can see the actor's breath and they have to put on jackets between takes.

Post-production update:
I've captured all footage up to this day and can now begin editing. Behind the scenes footage is currently being logged for the huge documentary. More making-of shorts will be coming very shortly...

Week 16 - Zombies Invade Puyallup

2007-10-01T14:14:00.000-07:00

Saturday
The weather reports were dire. A monsoon was predicted to hit Puyallup the exact moment we were to begin shooting and then last all night. We went ahead with the shoot anyway and defied all odds to a glorious success. Only mild sprinkles fell, the zombies were happy (as happy as zombies can be) , only one car was seriously damaged.

The scene that we were working on was David and Jenny's exit from their backyard and stumble upon a literal horde of zombies. There were zombies in the driveway and lining the streets. Scott staged his car to look like it had plowed into a tree in the yard. There was even a dead body hanging out the passenger window. Most of our lights were hidden behind the car to light the zombies in the road. A smoke machine was hidden under the hood of the car and billowed smoke for every take.

We finally did an epic jib shot as our heroes run down the street, dodging the zombies. Adam built the jib early in production and we finally had the chance to put it to good use. The shot is amazing. We also shot David and Jenny running, using Scott's van as a dolly. I shot steady-cam out the side door, while Paul held a light out the front window. How they managed to out run us once is still unknown.

The monsoon didn't hit until the drive home.

Week 15 - Get it? Holes.

2007-09-23T19:12:00.000-07:00

Friday
We only shot one day this weekend. Only three more locations to go. We returned to Shoreline to finish the opening scene at the Driscoll's house. Adam and Andy finally got to appear as pre-zombie mormon missionaries. Weather was a constant threat. Rain was predicted, and it definitely slowed us down. We only had to stop once, but we made it. I didn't get worried until I noticed the sun coming up while we still had a few more shots to get.

The blue-tinged smoke looked great wafting through the front yard. We also filmed the bloody and disgusting end of poor Zed.

Next week is going to be huge. I just found out that we're shooting a heavy dialogue scene in a backyard in Shoreline on Friday and then a huge Zombie horde scene on a street in Puyallup. Stay tuned...

14th Weekend - Killing Mr. Hinton

2007-09-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

Saturday
We only shot one day this weekend due to location availability. Well, that location turned out to be my estate in the sunny paradise that is Everett. This scene is a view that David and Jenny have as they're leaving their house at the beginning of the film. Bill Hinton did an excellent job in what he describes as "a career defining role" as "Angry Man with Pitchfork". Also, returning was Elissa Dowling, who also makes an appearance later in the film at The Drunken Dragon.

It was a great change to be able to shoot from home for a change. I've gotten used to driving an hour to get to the set. Clean-up took an extra hour though. It is a challenge to light a nighttime exterior though. I needed to add a lot of light to make the image look like night instead of darkness. This involved hanging lights from the roof of my house and the fence. I also lit the trees and fence in the background so they weren't completely black. It was a great night. We had three lead zombies to attack Mr. Hinton, and many more for foreground and background action. My yard is still red from all of the blood.

More pictures than you really have time for:

The Town of Slaughter and The Book of Zombie

2007-09-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

Adam goes behind the scenes of The Book of Zombie.

13th weekend - Welcome to the Driscoll's

2007-09-03T08:23:00.000-07:00

Friday

We finished shooting at the bars in Auburn last weekend and moved on to a house in Shoreline. The house, donated by Karen's parents, is extremely rich with character and detail. Our story starts with David and Jenny enjoying dinner at home. We spent the entire night on their dinner scene.

Saturday
Erik ordered a stunt double for Zed the cat a while back. He finally arrived and was brought to the set. As luck would have it, a cat that looked very similar to Zed showed up on set and wanted to be let into the house. We dropped everything we were doing and quickly re-lit for the cat running out the door shot. I was always concerned that we'd never be able to get a cat to "act", but it went very well. We have no idea what the cat's real name is, so the credits will read "Zed as Himself".

The first scheduled scene of the night was David coming back in after his confrontation with the Mormons (to be filmed in a couple of weeks). We then moved on to his and Jenny's exit from the kitchen. Yes, the story takes place in October. Our set dressers had a great time finding Halloween decorations.

The big scene of the night was a big set-up in the garage. This was a huge task for lighting and it took all of our fixtures. I wanted to have all of the interior lights to turn on when David throws the switch to reveal the zombies already there. This involved hanging four lights to the ceiling and wiring them all to a single power strip. I also lit the exterior to be seen through the doors and windows. We used two fog machines to fill the garage with smoke. It's a very cool looking scene.

12th Weekend Stills Movie

2007-08-29T19:42:00.001-07:00

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

Week 12 - The End is Nigh

2007-08-27T13:23:00.000-07:00

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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

2007-08-21T05:03:00.000-07:00

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.

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.

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.

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".

Week 10 - Enter Boothe and The Melting of Bob

2007-08-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

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.

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:

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.

9th Weekend

2007-08-09T06:30:00.000-07:00

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.

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.

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.

8th Weekend

2007-08-03T04:22:00.000-07:00

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.

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.

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.

Decapitation Preview

2007-07-23T15:37:00.000-07:00

You've all been asking for a preview from The Book of Zombie.... So here it is!
We're all very excited about this scene and couldn't wait to show a small part of it to the public.

Don't forget to click on the ad at the end of the video. Your clicks help us pay for this monstrosity...

7th Weekend - Margarita Night (of the Dead)

2007-07-21T19:04:00.000-07:00

Ashley prepared Mexican for dinner for us tonight. Then decided that we needed margaritas. Everything was delicious. Some of our zombies may have gotten a little drunk... with their stunt heads:

The set also had a visit from a press photographer. I'm not sure when the story's going to be published, but I'll post a link to the paper's website when it does. The Book of Zombie continued shooting the "montage of death". This started with Jenny fighting one of the Mormon Zombies. We had a great fake head and rubber hands. We did some of the effect shots with two cameras.

I even did some shots laying on by back, watching a machete attack happening above my head.

This was great. On the first take, Larisa just managed to lop off some fingers. The second take took the whole hand. In true TBOZ fashion, copious amounts of blood was expelled from the gaping hole...

Erik hacking away at the head with Marcel holding a fake hand into the frame. The head was so stout that it took many takes to lop it off.

Here's our wonderful slate. I got to slate every shot for this scene. We were running short on crew at 7am and it was pretty tight quarters on the floor behind the bar. I finally had an excuse to use the wide angle lens adapter for Brian's close-ups.

Breaking a Sweat - Non-Zombie News

2007-07-17T04:44:00.001-07:00

A couple of months ago Adam and I made a Battlestar fan film for a contest on Scifi.com. We just barely made the deadline and have been waiting patiently ever since. Well, the wait is finally over. It was added to the site yesterday!

You can watch here:
http://video.scifi.com/player/?id=128584
Pass the link around to all of your friends.

6th Weekend - Montage of Death Continues

2007-07-15T15:44:00.000-07:00

Friday

Friday started out with transforming Ashley into a Zombie again. This time we added the hammer to her head. Check out the new video here.

We still hadn't cast the part of Booth yet. Bill Johns was scheduled to come in for an audition around this time. He was cast on the spot and we're ready to start shooting as soon our Linderman's set is ready. Adam is heading up the construction team to transform The Rail into a convenience store.

Our first shots of the day were of David throwing the hammer at Ashley. Brian looked like he was having a good time throwing the hammer across the bar at a metal door.

You may have seen the geyser of blood video I posted last week. Well, today we shot the actual decapitation. Larisa had to take Ashley's head off with a machete. We even managed to launch some more blood out of the neck.

Next up was Brian trying to cut up his first Zombie with a battle-axe. He eventually got her on the ground and uses his thumbs for a very gory death.

While most of us were inside shooting the above scene, others were outside setting up for dawn. Traffic was very uncooperative. It was impossible to shoot this scene in 1, uninterrupted shot. We had to break it up a little bit, so no cars will be seen in the final edit.

Saturday

This is where Marcel got dressed-up as a teenage Zombie and got cut in half. First, we did the shots of him getting sliced with the axe and his guts falling out. Then we took a short break while Adam cut a hole in the floor. Marcel got into the hole and Adam fake-shemped the twitching legs.

We finished up the day with a couple of pick-up shots. The first was Brian stabbing Alex's eyes. For this we used the Alex dummy head. The last shot of the night was battle-axe blood splatter.

Hammerhead

2007-07-15T01:10:00.000-07:00

Marcel and Jenn turn Ashley into a zombie with a serious headache.

Don't forget to click on the ad at the end of the video. Your clicks help us pay for this monstrosity...

Geyser of BLOOD

2007-07-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

We're not shooting this week, so everyone can enjoy the 4th of July weekend. I'm sure some of us will be seeing Transformers a few more times... I've decided to make a new behind-the-scenes video for your enjoyment: Geyser of Blood. I'll try and get another done by Monday.

Don't forget to click on the ad at the end of the video. Your clicks help us pay for this monstrosity...

Zombie Timelapse

2007-07-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

Here's the video I shot yesterday that I mentioned in my last blog entry. Watch Marcel transform Andrea into a zombie.

Don't forget to click on the ad at the end of the video. Your clicks help us pay for this monstrosity...

5th Weekend - TBOZ

2007-06-30T12:14:00.000-07:00

Friday - Crew call: 5pm
We're here tonight to shoot mostly exteriors of The Drunken Dragon. Two different scenes: the arrival at the bar and Darwin's exit. We had already shot part of these scenes, but didn't quite finish them last week because of some scheduling conflicts and running out of night as the sun came up.

The most exciting part of the night was of course the flaming arrow. We shot Piper lighting and aiming the crossbow. It was a huge flame. Much bigger than I imagined it would be. We'll shoot it flying through the air and it's impact on a dummy later.

Saturday: Crew Call 4pm
Make-up on the featured Zombies had already begun. I set up a camera to get a time-lapse video of Andrea Renken being turned into a zombie. Video coming very soon. First shot of the night was blood being shot into Charlie's face. This was great. Marcel and Erik shot a huge amount of blood at him with a shop-vac. He got drenched.

We got 2 angles on this, since it was a one take shot.

Soon after, the zombie horde came through the door. Really great make-up jobs on these guys.

Then, we moved onto the fight between David and Alex Zombie. We spent some time working out the fight choreography. I won't ruin the death method here, but it was really cool - you'll just have to see the movie.

We were so busy all night that I wasn't able to keep any notes after this point. Delirium may have set in around 5am. I do remember this: we shot two more really cool zombie deaths before calling it a night - or morning, as the case may be. One involved a blood geyser to the ceiling and the other being a crushed head.

Weekend Four: The Book of Zombie just won't DIE

2007-06-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

Friday: I arrived on set at 2pm.

We started the day shooting some pick-ups of a scene that we did on the first weekend. This scene takes place right after the heroes barricade the bar and the zombie horde tries to break in. Shots were needed of the door and barricade shaking as the zombies try to get in. Paul was put outside to shake the door on cue. I got slow zooms, dolly shots (me on a wheelchair), running steadicam shots and some snap-zooms. I also shot some more of the bar itself: swords, bottles, a smashed and bloodied TV.

After dinner we did some pick-ups of one of the pool tables scenes. We needed to clarify some information about the mysterious back pack that Darwin wears. I'm really hoping that everything matches the stuff that we've already shot. While we were working on this, the rest of the crew was setting up for the head explosion over at The Rail. Next we set up a low angle shot of David throwing down his battle axe and running towards the door. I wanted a blood pool in front of the camera lens, so Jenn came over and poured some more blood.

The exploding head team was getting close to having the head ready, so we moved everything to shoot the big explosion. We debated for a while about how much headroom to have in the shots for blood spatter. I set up 3 cameras.

Both the XL2 and 100A for the movie, and the PD150 on a wide shot for behind the scenes. Check out the video in yesterday's blog. Needless to say, the explosion was awesome. Scott shot it with a shotgun, I hid behind the freezer door. We set up for take 2 and shot it again. Blood got on every piece of equipment this time. I still need to wipe down the cameras some more. We put glass in front of one of the lenses and it got sprayed with blood and debris. Lighting and video playback provided by Oppenheimer Cine Rental.

Next up was to shoot the heroes leaving the rear of Linderman's. We used the back door of The Rail, just a few feet from the exploding head. Key grips Bob and Paul did a great job of hanging and wiring lights for me. We started off with a wide shot on sticks, then did all of the coverage with steadicam. For some reason, we were plagued with lights blowing out. I think we had to take three breaks for repairs. We finished the night with a roundabout shot of the whole scene on steadicam.

That was a lot of fun.
I left the bar at sunrise and got home at 5am. Awake for 27 hours.

Saturday: 4pm arrival on set.

Today is the big zombie horde night shoot. Zombie extras were already congregation when I arrived. The assembly-line makeover is very impressive.

I had to decide how to light the front of the Drunken Dragon for our first night shot outside the bar. Paul and Bob rigged a 250 on the side of the bar to light the cool sign, and a 500 w/blue gel on a streetlight to simulate a little moonlight. We did some gunfire as the gang arrives at the Drunken Dragon. While this was going on, the second unit was down the street shooting with most of the Zombie Horde.

Later on we moved on to the Darwin/Zombie horde scene and shot till dawn. We shot till the sun came up.

Exploding Head

2007-06-24T19:11:00.000-07:00

Here's the behind the scenes video of Team Zombie exploding a fake head with a shotgun. Marcel did an amazing job building the head. It's stuffed with condoms filled with blood and applesauce. Adam built a wooden pedestal to put the head on and Scott fired the gun. We shot with both the 100A and the XL2. Check out the slo-mo replay of take two. If you watch closely, you can see that the blast lifts the whole pedestal off of the milk crates. Lighting and video playback provided by Oppenheimer Cine Rental.
Don't forget to click on the ad at the end of the video. Your clicks help us pay for this monstrosity...

A Few Pictures from Saturday Night/Sunday Morning

2007-06-24T16:14:00.000-07:00

Preparing for a bullet shot to the head.

Members of the Zombie Horde.

Welcome to The Drunken Dragon... Where the blood flows like wine.

More blood on Nurse Zombie

A Few Pictures from Friday Night/Saturday Morning

2007-06-23T11:53:00.000-07:00

I'll blog this weekend's activities tomorrow or Monday. For now, enjoy some pictures from the set.

Blood and Applesauce filled condoms are perfect for a massive zombie head explosion.

Lining up shots for said massive zombie head explosion. This was take one. We set up a second take that was even bloodier. Both were awesome. I got lots of red on me...

Filming the Exodus from Linderman's - shot behind The Rail. We actually shot the head explosion right inside the door that they come out of.

Last Action Hero.

No one ever expects the mid-week Zombie blog...

2007-06-21T06:35:00.000-07:00

I just spent Wednesday shooting second unit on some awesome effects shot at the Drunken Dragon. We had a skeleton crew, but got some great shots. It was just me, Erik, Marcel, Ashley, Adrienne and Gered. We were trying to get some scary shots of Zombie hands punching through the door, neck ripping and blood pumping action. We got a great shot of blood squirting right into the camera lens. I held up a piece of glass in front of the camera. Really cool. Marcel got sprayed in the eye. On take two, the blood shot over the glass... onto my head. I got totally drenched. Lots of red on me. This should make a great behind the scenes video...
Welcome to The Drunken Dragon.... Where the blood flows like wine.

Third Weekend on The Book of Zombie

2007-06-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

Welcome to week three! We started Friday putting our break-away doors to good use. We're going to have some zombies punch their hands through and attack one of our lead characters. This was one of the coolest things I've seen yet. We ran two cameras on the whole scene. "A" camera was the 100A locked down and "B" camera was the XL2 on steadicam for close-ups. Very fun to see someone ripped through a door. Great shots of zombies Alex, Gered and Elissa.

Took some time off after the door shot to set up the blood effects.
While Marcel and Jenn were building the effect, Paul and I started shooting wild shots of the bar in disarray. We got blood dripping from the sword in the wall, the destroyed pay-phone, blood filled shot glasses and the beer taps.

...Getting close to shooting the blood squirting neck appliance. Can't wait to see it... We did three takes with both cameras. First take did not go well. Reset the effect. The next takes looked much better.

Another long break to reset for the next scene. Paul says we're only 2 and a half hours behind schedule. We only have one version of Piper's shirt, so we have to wait a while for it to be cleaned and dried.

The next scene was a continuation of something we'd shot last week. Piper at the bar taking the bucket back to Linderman. We did a cool wide shot where we put the camera on the beer taps and shot down the length of the bar.

Next we did some shots of the characters "arming themselves" at the pool table. Good follow-focus shot of Jenny and her machete.

Saturday - Crew call, 5pm

We're preparing to shoot the gang looking out the windows at Darwin. It's great to finally have Bob and Paul as grips. They take a huge amount of work off of my shoulders. They blacked out the windows (it's still day and we're shooting a night scene), ran cables and hung lights for me. We did some side shots first where the camera couldn't see the glass... We took a break to scrape all of the green paint off the windows so we could shoot through them. Child labor at it's best... We did a dolly shot from behind.

Scott was dolly grip and Bob pulling focus. We moved outside and shot everyone looking out the windows. Good looking shots. Finished the night earlier than expected. I feel much better not having consumed any rockstar today...

Zombie Makeover: Building a Better Zombie

2007-06-17T03:36:00.000-07:00

Video Blog number 2. Watch Alex get transformed into a zombie.

Don't forget to click on the ad at the end of the video. Your clicks help us pay for this monstrosity...

The Book of Zombie - 2nd Weekend

2007-06-11T15:33:00.000-07:00

It's Monday, and we've made it through our second weekend. I hope you enjoyed yesterday's "shaky-cam" video. I'll make more of those as time permits.

We started on Friday with scene 26. Please excuse me if I don't tell what scenes are about. I'm trying to keep this semi-spoiler-free. Erik did a guest directing spot here and did a great job. We have some awesome shots to work with. We used the fog machine a lot on the bar door. For a while I thought someone would call the fire department because of all of the smoke pouring out. We shot the whole scene on steadicam, which is always a lot of fun for me. We did shots from the top of a ladder, and some with me lying on the floor... all with the trusty steadicam.

Sometime Friday afternoon, (not sure when, I seem to lose all track of time) Marcel and Jenn did a head cast of Alex. He's going to be one of the featured zombies later in the film.

At night we moved on to the end of the pool table scene where Darwin finally gets asked about his backpack. It was on the last line of this scene that we used the infamous "shaky-cam". (see previous blog for the short video) I got the shaky-cam idea from rereading "The Evil Dead Companion" last month. Great book.

We spent all of Saturday on scene 21, a very emotional scene with Darwin. We didn't leave until after 5am on Sunday. It's a very long scene. We did one camera set-up where I was shooting from the top of the pool table. I came close to falling off at least once. Probably not the best idea, since I was exhausted by this point. We finally did finish though.

Here's a some more pictures from the first weekend that I like:

We're getting ready to shoot a close-up of Piper at the pool table. We seem to be going through a lot of fog...

Another shot from the "Sixteen Candles" scene. You can see what one of the shots looks like in the monitor.

Behind the Scenes Video #1 - Shaky-Cam

2007-06-10T17:50:00.000-07:00

We just finished our second weekend of shooting "The Book of Zombie". I'll write about that tomorrow.
I just bought a new hard drive to edit the movie on today and wanted to make a quick production video. My favorite shot that we did on Friday was the "shaky-cam". It's basically just a camera bolted to a piece of wood. I'll tell you more about that later. For now, here's the video:

Don't forget to click on the ad at the end of the video. Your clicks help us pay for this monstrosity...

Production Photos - First Weedend - "The Book of Zombie"

2007-06-09T08:42:00.001-07:00

Cortesi made us CDs of our first TBOZ weekend yesterday. I was looking forward to seeing these all week. You can click on the photos to get larger sizes on Flickr.

I love this one of Marcel, Jenn and Andy as Darwin. They're working on a blood spurt effect.

Here we are working on our romantic "Sixteen Candles" scene with David and Jenny on the pool table. That's Larissa as Jenny and Brian as David. That's Paul, the director, looking at the monitor on the floor. I'm in red shirt setting up the shot. Chris is getting sound with the boom mic.

Here's our "dolly" shot of the handle of the Drunken Dragon cooler. By dolly, I mean Mike pushing me on a wheelchair while I shoot with the steadicam.

This is us setting up a shot at the door of the Drunken Dragon. Our heroes are preparing to barricade the door to keep the zombies out.

Mr. Linderman - Steve Cortesi - exiting the cooler in the back of the Drunken Dragon.

I'm setting up a shot of Linderman coming out of the cooler.

Marcel and Jenn
Our amazing make-up and special effects team.

Knitted "Shaun of the Dead"

2007-06-06T18:31:00.001-07:00

i think she likes you...
Originally uploaded by cakeyvoice

I've found this girl on Flickr that likes to knit.... alot. Anyway, she seems to love Shaun of the Dead. Great taste in cinema! I'm actually using one of her Shaun pics for my profile both here and on myspace.

Check out the rest of the set. She even knitted Slash.

The Book of Zombie... Coming Soon.

The Book of Zombie - 1st weekend

2007-06-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday morning, and I'm getting ready to leave for day 3 of shooting The Book of Zombie (TBOZ). It's been exhausting. I got there on Friday around 11am after finishing my job at the TV station. I think I was on set until 3am Saturday morning. I was awake for around 26 hours. Arrived home near sunrise, feeling like a zombie.

It's Monday evening now.
We started the shoot with the Drunken Dragon barricade the door scene. Did I mention how terrifying it is to shoot your first movie? Hopefully I'll get more confident as the weeks go on. My favorite shot of the night was a great idea of Scott's. Piper walks past the gang towards the camera and we do our first follow focus shot. Paul was a great focus puller and we nailed it by our third try.

The bar also looks great with all the blood and medieval set dressing provided by Dameon Willich of the Seattle Knights.

On Saturday night we moved over to our back room set at The Rail. We shot the big Linderman scene with Steve Cortesi as the infamous Mr. Linderman. The make-up job on him was truly amazing! Great work by Marcel with assist by Jenn. One of the best Zombies ever committed to film... (or Digital Video as the case may be)

On Sunday we returned to the Dragon to shoot David and Jenny's romantic scene on the pool table. For some reason it reminded me a little of Sixteen Candles.... Not sure why.

We also shot a scene with the whole gang gathered around the pool table. We didn't have Darwin, so Adam had to do a little "Fake Shemping" for us. I'm sure all you Evil Dead fans out there know what that means... If not, please refer to the excellent Companion. I'm just glad we get to add a fake shemp title to the credits. It definitely legitimizes our movie!

Back with more updates soon. Maybe I'll get some production photos for the next post.
I'll start editing in the next couple of days...

Grand Central Station

2007-05-25T16:12:00.001-07:00

Grand Central Station
Originally uploaded by PrestonDave

Leah, Steve and I had to stand still for about 4 seconds to get this shot. We're at Grand Central Station in New York. I wanted to get as much blurriness with people walking around in the background as possible. It turned out a little dark, but I still like it.
Check out the rest of the set here.
We were in New York to visit Dan and Corinne for Christmas.

My Revver Videos

2007-05-25T14:03:00.000-07:00

I've just discovered a great video sharing site called Revver. The picture quality is much better than YouTube, and I get paid when people click on the adds that are tacked onto the end.
Click away!!!
I'm posting all the videos here because MySpace blocks all links to Revver!

Shaky-Cam: Presented by "The Book of Zombie"

Super Remote 2

Super Remote

Clay Wars: Saber Duel

The Book of Zombie on KISW

Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth

Math Education: A University View

Math with Madeline