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.

The Town of Slaughter and The Book of Zombie

Adam goes behind the scenes of The Book of Zombie.

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.


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.

Hammerhead

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

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...

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...

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

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

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

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...

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.