Rar.

Production Diary number 2, and things have been progressing quite rapidly, time included. It’s now only 4 weeks to the due date, and already we’re starting to feel the crunch. Intro sequence tests, script breakdowns, storyboard renditions, test footage, blood tests. Who said movie making was easy?

Script lockdown

The script, after going through several editing changes and corrections, has been finalized and locked down. In terms of pre-production, this is one the first significant steps towards ‘completed’ status of the movie. Granted it’s a short script, only 5 minutes, and there’s only so much you can put on paper when it comes to zombies and story progression, but hey. A script lockdown is a script lockdown. Period. 5 minutes or 2 hours don’t mean nothing if you don’t have a finalized script.

Unless you’re Jon Favreau. In which case, you’d better hope your time spent at improv acting classes pay of.

Due to work constraints (!), Script writer/Director/Editor/Zombie consultant Lawrence Cass is unable to render out the storyboard necessary for the rest of the production crew to plan their shot sequence around (production crew sounds big, but bear in mind we’re talking indie proportions here). But fear not, followers of the production diary, yes, all 3 of you, a storyboard will propagate itself tomorrow. Scouts honour. Or at least, Lawrence’s honour. Assuming he did the whole scout thing. If not, we’re screwed

Dra dina

Our residential special effects and experimental, cost cutting specialist and first turned zombie victim, Michael Jon, has taken upon himself the messy task of coming up with an effective, yet cheap way to make blood. Due to his in-depth experience at creating vampire-fingering-licking-good blood last year for his zombie costume at a Halloween party, it was only right that he be given the chance to continue the gooey work.

For his first blood test, his concoction was simple, yet straight forward.

Blood test #1
Soy Sauce (Mushroom…mmmm) + Food Colouring

Good for: sprays/drips (getting hit with plank of wood, hehe)
Bad for: clothing, blood on skin

Since 2nd hand blood wasn’t an option, he’s had to source other means of brewing blood in the confines of his own room. “It has to be tasty,” he said, “so that if we accidentally swallow it, it’s fine.” Sounds good to me.

Back to school. Zombie school that is.

You’d think that being a zombie is easy panikeke. Stumble around, groan, dead face, a little shuffle and Romero’s your uncle. Turns out, watching zombies and BEING a zombie are two totally different job descriptions. One requires a couch and a potbelly stomach, the other requires a stomach. For flesh.

At his behest, the production crew of me, Lawrence, Mike, Feroz, Albie, Dane and dani drudgingly made our way to Albert Park on a wet, soggy Wednesday afternoon. It was 5:50pm, the sun had basically set, and the ground was muddy. However, it didn’t dampen our spirits, since we had the lovely lit up, firm (in most places anyways) and grass laden grounds of the government buildings to practise the forbidden art of zombie trawling.

First up, we were instructed on the skill of zombie running. “Just let yourself go,” Lawrence affirmed, “if you think you look retarded, you’ll spoil the zombie look. Just fucking run, throw yourself into it, maybe growl as well, and run like fuck.” And run we did. Well. It was generally Mike and me who were trying out various zombie run methods, ranging from the crouched, half cripple zombie run to the ‘windmill’ zombie run. Sure we looked like retards. But for a few bliss moments, we were zombies ca. Granted there were quite a number of eyes on us, since Albert Park had heaps of guys finishing off their rugby game, and were curiously watching a bunch of people run up and down the ground looking….weird, but we took it all in our stride. Or…crawl.

After our crawl/run tests, we practiced a few action sequences, one of which had Dane graciously take a chunk of arm from Albie’s…arm before Dani jumps into the scene to save the day, as depicted in the photo above. It takes a bit of choreography, and I was glad (actually Lawrence was glad first and foremost) we got to work out our action sequences before the main shooting day happens.

The other action sequence had Albie fending off a vicious zombie (me!) by first holding it back, before giving it 3 punches, the 3rd punch being the KO kicker. First Lawrence demonstrated the steps, with me in tow as the unfortunate boxing bag, then Albie took over. Mind you, being a zombie punching bag is seriouz biznezz indeed. I nearly had my nose punched in during one of the test runs. Lucky steady hands saved the day, and I’m still one nose fine. Until the final shoot day that is

Feroz was on hand to document the whole undertaking, and faired quite well with the camera handling side of things. We tried a few running shots, and worked out low angles and running speeds to determine the best avenue of direction. Lawrence was specific on how he wanted his shots, with some input from Feroz, with camera placement options ranging from over the shoulder to knee low, hand tracking chase shots. Let it be said that if anything, the movie certainly won’t be lacking in the ‘boring camera angle’ department.

Final Cast List

Our final cast/production crew list, before we head off to the Bilo Battery to shoot this weekend. That’s right folks, this weekend has been bookmarked as shoot day! The most stressful time of movie production, barring investor meetings and actor ego disagreements, we have scheduled this weekend, either Saturday or Sunday, as the day to smack the shots. Hopefully the weather will hold out, since this week has been pretty patchy in terms of rain and sunshine. I think it’s time we brought out the chicken for some good ol’ sacrificial jado in order to get some good weather going.

Lawrence (Script Writer/Director/Editor)
Me (Producer/Zombie/Visual Effects)
Michael Jon (Special Effects/Zombie)
Albert Rolls (Lead Actor)
Dani (Lead Actress)
Feroz (Camera)
Dane (Zombie)
Roy (Zombie)
Andreas (technical consultant)

Next: The actual shoot! Dun Dun DUUUUUUUN!

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