The Opening Credits Are Complete

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

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.

Locking Reel Two

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.

Still Editing

I'm shaping up Act II.

The Book of Zombie - 2nd Weekend

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.

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.

Knitted "Shaun of the Dead"

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.