Tomorrow is the start of the last weekend of filming on ZU. Principle photography ends on Sunday people. Snowed under with last minute prep. Lost a couple of days as a location pulled out – and pulled back in again. But we’re all ready to go -wish us luck!

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.

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.

On the eve of Day 13 I’m just waiting for the morning to see whether its snowing. All shots are indoors but have cast and crew coming from Cambridge and London. We’ve had the worst snow in 20 years here in Blighty and while other countries shake it off Britain comes to a standstill. If trains are off and grit doesn’t reach Cambridge villages then its going to be an early rise for nothing, and a lot of ringing round. The most frustrating thing is the amount of planning just one shooting day takes – postponement is damn hard to take. Fingers crossed for sun, sun, sun.

Heres the outstanding Joe as Morrissey Zombie. Being a serious Smiths fan i just had to get Mozza in the film somewhere. Even sacrificed my Meat Is Murder long sleeve tee. Now THATS dedication.

Day 12 approaches. Over the half way point now and characters are beginning to die off…. Haven’t filmed for over a month so looking forward to this.

Behind the scenes work is being done to recover so audio. In a lift scene for the last days shoot we seemed to looses the audio to a very low level. Russell is working hard to get the sound to a reasonable level without it sounding like the lift is underwater. Here’s hoping we avoid those reshoots or ADR. It was a seriously bad feeling to potentially loose 3-4 minutes of footage so here’s hoping.

Well, it had to happen sometime. This was a day of pick ups mainly which should have been fairly straight forward. Famous last words. I am going to bed.

Wow – what a mad day(28/09/08). Biggest zombie day so far this one – 27 i think. a tough one for Gav, Rachael and Nateal but aided by Steve and Jim and perhaps Kit (?) they pulled it off. As is often the case hold ups led to shot changes in terms of order which means quick rethinking. Looking through the footage we got some great shots but will need some pick ups on Saturday.

Hopefully you can see the latest photos on facebook here.

Indeed a day of zombie glorification approaches. Hoping to get 20 zombies for this one – keep Gav and his crew on their toes. Also a magnificent head crushing scene to be nailed and some tasty scenes by torchlight. All in all its gonna be a big day!

Whoops forgot to post this entry. Day 09 was 17/08/08 but better late than never. Another glorious day of zombies when we shot three separate short scenes.

Firstly was a new section written by Kris for Chris as Phil. Its a little vignette giving hints of a conspiracy and that Phil knows more than he’s letting on.

Secondly was a dialogue free scene for Barry which joins together scenes already shot.

Thirdly was a scene which we may add as a prologue to the opening sequence. After showing the opening sequence to people several commented that it wasn’t clear what we were trying to show so we filmed a very short sequence of the bomber putting a bomb into his backpack then walking out.