The big one!!! Well what can I say. Supendous! Stunning! Fantastic ….Goresome!!!! The zombies invaded Leicester city 17th April 2009 and fun was had by all. There was a bit of pressure on today – firstly we had to get up at half five and secondly we were going to have a mass (gaggle?, flock?) of zombies around the centre of Leicester.

I set up a Facebook group for this and by a few days before we had over a hundred signed up. With extras i usually ask for twice as many as i want as often you have a ratio of no shows. Well …. just under 100 dedicated zombie fans turned up. Couldnt believe it – awesome! And you know what – we loved them all. Social media dont you love and hate it?

After the madness we vacted to Aylestone Meadows and a quick hop and jump across a fence to an industrial estate and the jobs a good one.

Cant believe how lucky we were weather wise – both days it threatened rain early on, which thankfully never came – and also with all the extras – a great atmosphere, a great bunch, a great day.

Spending the next 8-9 hours transferring footage from camera to my hard drives. A laborious process but am getting a good workflow going. Heres how it goes in Premiere Pro :

1 play tape through until you find the first usable take
2 rewind to this takes start point
3 select scene detect
4 enter name as scene no and description
5 capture
6 pause at end of scene, deleting section of next scene captured by scene detect
7 go to 1

This seems to me the best capture method. In effect you are saving time in the capture/edit process as you are shot selecting in the capture itself. Saves both time and disk space – and with HDV this is a good thing.

Down on the farm. Jai Grant’s parents have allowed us free roam of their old farm out Ratby way. Its an awesome location and many thanks to them. A big day today especially for Steve Doulton who joins us late into shooting – a hard task coming in to a cast and crew who’ve been working together for so long.

Steve had to go by three so needed to juggle the scenes around with all his stuff first. Have to say I was impressed by Steve. His attitude was at all times professional, and he nailed his lines pretty much bang on every time. A short scene I wrote where he recounts a traumatic event in his recent past relied on the actors skill and boy did he deliver.

Not sure if it was the pressure on the big shoot the next day but there was a touch of friction on the set. Nothing that stopped us nailing shots or spoiled friendships but it was there. But hey – its been a long haul, we’re all tired so shit happens. We moved on and got some fantastic shots due largely due to some free lighting – the sun.

The upcoming weekend is going to be glorious. Zombies roaming the hillsides and the city.

A late but great entry into the ZU fold is Steve Dolton. A fellow Shooting People member, Steve has numerous theatre credits and shorts to his name. We’ve got a juicy part for him which is dialogue and emotion rich – something for him to play with. And from seeing his showreel I know he’s going to add something special to the project. Bring it on.

Another great day – this time squashed into Firebug Bar basement. Lots of hot and sweaty bodies squeezing together. Nice.

The day went very well and we shot an amazing 7 pages worth. The actors really nailed it and shot off 5 pages of dialog with aplomb. As usual as the day progressed we had to squeeze more in and drop some shots but we got the coverage and all was well.

Paul Ewen got his long awaited day of ZU. A great guy he just turned up and did his cool zombie thing. And on that note – some nice SFX from Gavatron. Splattered the roof and my good self – well i’d survived a year of filming with no blood on me…

Finally heres a picture of the sound guys. The often ignored and maligned department ; Farid and Carl. Even if Carl sneaked off for a quick snooze around lunchtime. Allegedly.n>

3 days left. THREE DAYS LEFT!!!!!!!

Male, 40-60 years old actor required for role of farmer. The feature length ZU is coming to the end of its shoot. Actor required from 8.30 till 5.30 on 18th April near Ratby, Leicestershire. The film is non-funded so payment is not available, but will give the actor a feature credit. Hence ideally we would prefer a local actor. Please respond to info@zombieundead.com.

7th and 8th of February saw a weekend of filming – are here’s the belated writeup.>

I have to say, tiring as it is, how much more you can get done in a weekend. Consecutive days filming keep everyone in the mood and helps actors stay in the zone. Also the sense of comradery increases which helps on the set vibe. I was a tad nervous before the shoot as snow was forecast. With crew coming from Cambridge and snow would have made the shoot a no no. After putting in a serious amount of planning for every day thats the last thing i want.

Day 13 had three scenes. We needed to nail these as it was Rod’s last day and i didn’t want to inconvenience him get him back the next day just for a few hours. The first was a walk down stairs for the main cast – Rod, Chris, Kris, Ruth, Sandra and Barry. Fot a simple sequence of shots this took far too long. Will we ever learn to pace things out rather than going slow and rushing at the end?>

Next was when one of the charcters gets bitten. Myself and Gav had worked on this one before, shots, angles etc. Unfortunately as we had taken spo long on the first scene we were rather rushed on this one. As i said Rod’s departure was imminent and i think this played on my mind. Just about got away with it though, ionically with too many shots while looking back we should have stuck with our planned angles. This is a by product of directing/producing and AD’ing myself. I have no room to manourver – always planning who i have to chase up for the next shot before the current one is even done.

Last scene for the day was the characters holed up in an office. We seem to have used every room in DMU that was usable and ended up in a wide corridor type space. Initially the plan was to have the zombies banging on the doors throughout. However as the doors had windows this seemed to make little sense – the characters sitting around talking while zombies stared at them. I pushed the zombies back so they arrived later in the scene. This gave the scene more room to breath as the dialogue and not the zombies were the focus.

Day 14 – and we’re back in the small room. Lots of zombies in this one and an action scene to boot. See above picture for my good friend Martyn Quinn as one of the zombies. Some great performances from all – zombies and humans alike – made this scene a winner. Time flew by and we needed to lose a corridor scene and move on to yet another toilet. Mike Cimpher came all the way for London for this so we really needed to shoot this today. The toilet ended up covered in blood and my nerves were shredded at the fear of it not washing off.

The last two shooting days have seen the final scenes for both Rod Duncan and Sandra Wildebore ( alias Frank and Mary ). Both gave up their free time for the project and invested energy and enthusiasm into the film as well as considerable talent. Many thanks from myself and all behind the ZU project.

By the way you have to check out Rod’s novels and his informative blog which centers on the craft of writing.

Heads up to all of you making movies and looking for an inspirational figure. Check out Chris Jones’ blog on the making of his short Gone Fishing from proclamation ‘I’m gonna make an oscar nominated short!’ to its run round the world festivals. Many of you may know Chris from the seminal Guerilla’s Guide books and their associated courses. A while back he shouted loud that he was going to make an Oscar nominated short film. You know what – to all intents and purposes he damn well did. Ten shorts made the Oscar shortlist with Gone Fishing amongst them. It didnt make the final 5 through to competition but hell – what an achievement. Chris has achieved an awesome task and is an awesome dude. I for one cant wait to see what he comes up with next – a zombie flick perhaps?