THE DEADER THE BETTER
JOURNAL
PRE-PRODUCTION
9/26/05
We did it! This fucker's in the can! Maybe I didn't make the banner, but here I am telling you that the movie's been shot and here I am holding the precious DV tapes by my side right now as I type this.
Thanks everybody for your energy, creativeness, motivation, passion, and everything else, because without you, I couldn't have done it. I now have a positive outlook that there are good people out there who don't want to screw me over. Now just you wait, and I'll edit this son of a bitch and make it look awesome. You'll all be happy!
9/12/05
Alright, I have no time to write, and it's pointless anyway, so may this possibly be my final journal entry before you see a giant banner in the news section exclaiming "This fucker's in the can!!!"
Things are in hyper mode. I'm still desperatley looking for lighting equipment and crew/zombies that can fill the needed time slots. I'm also shooting two weekends now instead of 4 days in a row. The first weekend is the 17th and 18th and the second is the 24th and 25th, so I'm frantic trying to get ready. The main parts are casted, the cemetery is ready and I got 7 water gallons full of fake blood sitting on my floor. A shotgun microphone is in the mail, on its way to my apartment as I bite my nails and look at the calendar.
The adrenaline is on! It's time for a cinematic massacre!
8/24/05
I've
been casting the film and, god damn, it's a project on its own. I've had my
hands full of over hundreds of emails, literally and am also trying to find
the perfect crew, with only a month left to go. I'm still trying to finish the
cemtery and get everything else figured out. I'm going to a horror
convention this weekend. I'm exhausted.
8/7/05
I've set up shooting dates for September 23rd through 26th. (Friday through Monday)
I need a simple YES or NO answer if anyone can make it. I've had friends fuck me over all the time who don't show up and don't answer their phones all day, so I'm in search of GOOD HONEST RELIABLE PEOPLE. I don't mean to sound like a dick, but it's only because of the dicks that I've dealt with... (That didn't sound right.)
Anyway, there's also some more important news, in case you didn't know. I'VE CHANGED THE SCRIPT. Don't worry, it's the same movie, but for money and time issues, a lot of the special effects have been altered. The gore factor has NOT been lowered, but the effects will now be easier to execute, and will speed up the process of getting this movie ready for production!
So, DOWNLOAD THE NEW SCRIPT. (8/6/05)
8/6/05
I realize that my journal may be confusing, unless you read from the bottom up (past to present), sort of like tuning in late to a show, so let me recap. I've been rushing to shoot a short version of the film which I've been dubbing "The Deader the Better BETA." The reason for this is that there happens to be a CONTEST on DVXUSER.COM to make a ZOMBIE film. The only criteria is that it must be turned in by the end of August, it must be less than 5 minutes long and must be shot on the Panasonic DVX100 camera which is perfect, because that's the camera I use anyway.
Everybody asks me the same question: "what do you win?" I don't remember. Some lenses and stuff. Who cares. The point is that this would be great exposure and I could easily win it. It's a ZOMBIE conest! I have no excuse not to enter, so I grabbed some of my local friends who seemed to be excited to act for me, but unfortunatley, they just screwed me over.
I can only shoot on weekends, because my set is located an hour and a half from my job. The first day, they showed up 2 hours late and it was a Sunday, so were weren't able to get everything done, but one more successful day of shooting was all I needed. The second day, they showed up 4 hours late, apologizing! Again, it was a Sunday, so I had to rush to wrap everything up, to make my long drive back to my job. Nothing got accomplished that day, in the short time we had left, so we planned to finish it the next weekend. I explained the urgency of this and that this was our FINAL weekend to shoot and that I would miss the contest. We even planned it for a Saturday, so if they showed up late, as expected, than we could shoot late into the night. However, this time, they didn't show up AT ALL! Nor did this guy even answer his phone all day. I had no idea what was going on. I called him all day, leaving several messages and finally, that night, I got a hold of him and he just apologized that he slept all day. So, it seemed that the more urgent the shoot became, the later they'd show up, until they didn't show up at all!
It seems that I encounter this kind of person a lot. They're always someone who's my friend, and on the morning of a shoot, they just don't answer their phone and completley disappear. How do I keep finding these kind of people? So, I've come to a very important realization: that I can NOT trust friends. I need someone who can commit to a schedule. If you say you can be at my house at a certain time, then please show up, and if you can't or you're sick or something, give me a call and let me know!
I am now casting for my film. Besides being a good actor, I need decent human beings who won't give me a NO-CALL, NO-SHOW!
8/1/05
Holy shit, it is August already. No shooting for the beta version of the film got done the past two weekends, and all I'm left with is a month to edit, so if I don't shoot ALL THE REST this weekend, then I'm probably not going to make the deadline for Panasonic's zombie contest. I'll whip something up anway, because I have no excuse to NOT enter it!
Things have been slow, life's been getting in the way, but there's been one major advancement the past weekend.
I GOT A STUNT MAN!
He cost me less than 12 dollars and he'll do anything. He'll tumble down a roof, get hit by a car, let you kick him around... anything! That's because his bones are made of wood, his joints are door hinges, his muscles consist of twisted newspaper and his skin is wrappings of duct tape. Yes, I finished my dummy and I'm going to redress and reuse him for every scene in the film where a zombie gets its head cut off, gets violently thrown, flies throw a car window, etc...
These
pictures don't demonstrate the talents of this new "stunt man."
CHECK OUT THE QUICKTIME MOVIE! (3 MB)
7/17/05
I can hear nothing but the rumbling of thunder and the rain pounding the roof of garage as I sit on the saw dust covered floor hammering together a headless body made of wood, door hinges, newspaper and duct tape. A work light stretches my shadow across the floor and onto the wall, and as I notice it, I think to myself, "What kind of crazy mad doctor am I?"
So
that's what I did last weekend: worked on a headless body which will be used
in several special effect shots in the film. I also bought lots of suits from
the Good Will Store for the zombie wardrobe. This was also my last day to shoot
the beta film for the Panasonic contest, but my cast showed up 4 hours late.
Fortunatley, Panasonic extended the deadline to the end of August, but by then,
I want to be filming the real thing, so I'm not quite sure what I want to do.
All I can say is this: I want to shoot the friggin' film before the end of September.
I'm going to take a week off work and I'm going to need actors to commit to
that schedule. It feels to me that I'm alone on this project, but also I haven't
given much effort to casting or finding crew yet, because I've been too busy
building all these props and effects. When I settle down with this and get a
solid plan for shooting this film, I'll make a greater effort to finding actors
and crew. If you think you have a week or a few good days free and want to help
out, please don't hesitate and email me. TheCinemassacre@YAHOO.com
7/13/05
An exploding head!!! Quicktime movie, Watch it!
7/11/05
Yesterday was my 25th birthday and it was a good day, because I finished a lot of work on the graveyard and actually filmed the first scene of the movie. Now, this isn't going to be the final product. Let me explain:
Panasonic coincidentally happens to be having a Zombie contest, due at the end of August. Apparently, they have a contest every month with a different theme. The only guidelines are that the film has to be less than 5 minutes and you have to use their camera (the Panasonic DVX100) which is the camera I use anyway. Their theme this month is to make a zombie film, so even though The Deader the Better is nowhere near ready to shoot, how could I pass this up? So, that's why I'm shooting a short version of the film so I can enter the contest and also as a test for the ultimate version which will shoot near the end of August or early September.
When the short version "The Deader the Better (BETA)" is done, I'll post it here, so you can watch!
7/4/05
Happy Fourth of July!
Well, I finally have a graveyard and it photographed brilliantly on tape with my Panasonic DVX100 24p camera. I watched it on big screen, with a video projector and after desaturating the color and boosting the contrast, I have to say it looks great! I grabbed some stills from it so you can get the idea. The pillars aren't done yet and I still have to cover the floor with leaves and dirt. I also want more trees in there.
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Now, here's the bad news. This set has already costed me a total of 560 dollars and it's still not done! Now I'm piss ass broke and there's no way in hell that I can build the crypt, unless somebody has a bright idea. Now, the good news is that when I save some more money, I'm going to concentrate on making gallons of fake blood and gore props. After all, this is an action-packed gore fest and it's gotta be super gory! If I can't do the crypt, then the rest of the film is going to take place in the woods outside the cemetery, using real locations rather than building them. If I spend all my time and money making my own sets, then I'm not going to be able to shoot this until next year. But things are in high speed now and I'm seriously planning on shooting by September. Anyone with feedback of any sort, please help me out. If you need inspiration, watch the original "Night of the Living Dead" & "Dawn of the Dead", "Evil Dead II" and "Dead Alive". They are incredible and they are the true predecessors for what I am trying to do.
6/29/05
Things have been a bit slow, because life is getting in the way. But now it's time to get back to the Deader the Better! I am planning on making twice as many gravestones soon to complete the cemetery, since I have a nice 3 day weekend for The 4th of July. Mabe I'll even get a chance to start on the big mother prop, The Crypt. There's gonna be more styrofoam in this movie than I've ever seen in my life. Check it out! I did a real quick experiment:
EXPLODING HAND (quicktime movie)
(This is how I'll do all the exploding heads. Water balloons filled with blood
and brain matter: Karo syrup with red food coloring and spaghetti or red jello
made with a brain mold I have. In this experiment I just made a quick simple
water balloon and used my hand as the victim.)
6/5/05
More work done on the graveyard.
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5/30/05
I
carved six more tombstones this weekend and covered the garage floor with black
tarp.
5/26/05
Spinal
chord!
5/15/05
I just decided to start this, so whenver you're wondering where I'm at with this movie, you can come here and find out. This is really going to be a lot of work, and I just started. My first concern is securing a location where I can shoot at and have full control of and I've decided to use my parents' garage, once again. The space is kind of small, but it's good enough to build an eerie cemetery set. I just spent the past weekend condensing all the stuff against the garage walls and hanging black fabric from the ceiling to hide everything. I began making tombstones out of styrofoam. The fancy one on the right I bought at a Halloween store last Fall, but the rest I'm probably going to make myself.
Next step, when I finish this, is to find a few decent lights I can buy for less than $1,000.