New Behind the Scenes Video

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.

I Like Making Movie Film

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

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

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...

Third Weekend on The Book of Zombie

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...

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

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.

The Book of Zombie - 1st weekend

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...