More than 28 days later

Saturday marked a momentous occasion for a lot of us. We finally got to see Zombie Resurrection up  on a big screen, sat in a cinema packed with cast, crew and family members of those involved, including my parents. Needless to say that after sitting through more swearing than an extended edition of Nil by Mouth and watching a scotsman tear a zombies spine out my parents are still talking to me.

From the left Jade Colucci, Emma Luckins, Joe Rainbow, Eric Colvin, Shamiso Mushambi, Matt de Tisi 

It was a great evening and really good to catch up with some people I haven't seen for over a year. 

Who said zombie films don't bring people together!

p.s Jade there's a picture of you on here now :-)

The Red Carpet

In just over ten days we will be attending the cast and crew screening of Zombie Resurrection, so we will all finally get to see all of our hard work up on the silver screen. From the off the film has been a family affair, the zombie hordes (on two separate days) were made up of friends and family, including Andy (our director's) mum. My parents will be attending the premiere and even though I have thoroughly prepared them for the amount of swearing and lopped off body parts they will witness, deep down I know that nothing could really prepare them. The scariest film my mum will watch is What Lies Beneath, so it'll be interesting to see if she speaks to me again after the screening.

I will also have a display of a large bulk of the promo shots I took for the film including portraits of all the zombies who kindly gave up their evening to be covered in fake blood, so I will be able to take orders for prints if you are attending the showing. 

Lord Lav on set 

Pete Lumley and Lav

 

Time flies

In a few days time it will be one year ago that I stepped onto the set of Zombie Resurrection. There are many things you find yourself being nostalgic about in your life, a favourite toy from your child hood, a  chance meeting with an old friend, and zombies.

I know what you're thinking, they're dead, they're all messed up. How could you feel a pang of nostalgia for something most people would rather keep at arms length. Even now, whenever someone mentions Basingstoke (where we shot the bulk of the film) I don't think "wow, they've got some really nice scenery, or isn't that where the Aldermaston nuclear weapons depot is.
No, I think Basingstoke, that's where zombies come from.

So, one year ago in a few days was our first night. A night of filling a corridor with smoke, spraying zombies in the face with cream filled fire extinguishers and me putting my foot in it by asking a girl if she was pregnant when she clearly wasn't.

Good times

Dead exciting news

Exhibition update. Due to popular demand my exhibition will now feature work from Zombie Resurrection.
This will be the first time any of these images have been on show in the UK, a small selection of images were shown briefly in Guernsey last year.

Prints from the exhibition will also be on sale.

So put down your copy of 50 Shades of Grey and i'll see you on the 1st of August

Zombie Resurrection goes to Cannes

As you read this, Zombie Resurrection will be travelling across the channel to France, safely in the hands of its creators Andy Phelps and Jake Hawkins of Charmed Apocalypse Pictures. All of their hard work has culminated in an advert just short of ten minutes showing all the best bits from the film to show to potential distributors.

So good luck guys and hopefully we'll be seeing it on the shelves in HMV very soon!

Poster concept. I went with two simple fonts which will continue across all of the posters. 

Breakfast of Champions

A few weeks back we shot a new opening for Zombie Resurrection, for the shoot we were kindly leant a stack of replica guns to equip the characters with. After the shoot I had an idea to use them for a photoshoot and started thinking how to incorporate them into a picture. I had recently seen a coffee table book called "Chicks with Guns" and really liked the way that the pictures worked. The gun almost seemed to be a surreal element. You could take away the gun and the picture would still work just as well although with an altered context.

I am currently working on photographing film makers and thought this would be an ideal opportunity to combine the two ideas, so I called up my good friend Jake of Charmed Apocalypse Pictures and we set the shot up at his parents house.
Set decoration wise it was really simple, the house already has an amazing 1970's look to it, so it was just a case of moving a few things round, like the carved wooden wolf in the background and arranging the guns on the table. I tried to keep the background as clean and clutter free as possible so it was not distracting in any way.
Lighting wise I had a beauty dish boomed directly overhead with a reflector to kick light onto the face mixed with the ambient light.
For the portrait outside one light in an umbrella to camera left.

Stars in their eyes

Meet Sydney Criggley and Colin Butters, two old fashioned romantics with a deeply concerning passion for the world of celebrity.
I met up with Sydney and Colin on the last leg of their lecturing tour where they were telling stories of their celebrity encounters and selling off Eddie Izzards boots.

The show forms a three minute comedy short that we have entered into the 2 days laughter festival in Margate.
The film will be uploaded on here soon, so keep checking back.

For more information on Syd and Colin see their facebook page

Not your day pal

You won't have seen this film yet because it's still being edited, but when it sees the light of day you will be introduced to an amazing ensemble cast. This is the reality of how people would behave in a zombie apocalypse, you won't find anyone putting a bandana around their head loading up a ridiculous machine gun and going on a rampage. What you will see is a mismatched group fighting amongst themselves, some constantly on each others backs, others pushing their weight around as they embark on their journey to the last safe city.

If you would like to contribute towards the film Andy and Jake of Charmed Apocalypse pictures have set up an IndieGoGo page here.

Before you go, here are the finished and retouched scans of the awesome Mr Jim Sweeney who played Mac in the film. Some of his best lines (read in your best scottish accent)

"And you Doctor Badman, Are my Fucking Hero!"
"Not your day pal!"
"Showtime!"

Showtime!

The trailer to Zombie Resurrection is now available online for your viewing pleasure.
It's so good to see everyones hard work coming together. Stay tuned to  the Charmed Apocalypse
website for more info and keep checking back here for more on set stills.

Mr Jim Sweeney

During the last week of filming we would sit for up to two hours a day waiting for the torrential rain to stop. So whilst drinking tea and eating my way through a mountain of baguettes I took some shots of the cast and crew enjoying the down time.

All images in this post were taken using a Bronica ETRSI medium format camera.

Jim delivering some of his characters lines

Mac with fresh zombie spine

It's the end of the world as we know it...

Here are some more photos for your viewing pleasure.
This post is to all the amazing people I have met over the past month.

As always more info about the film can be found here:
charmed-apocalypse.com
shootingthedead.blogspot.com

Andy - Director/Writer

Jaimie - Set designer

Jake Hawkins & Andy Phelps

Jake - Director of Photography/Writer

Joe Rainbow - Gibson

Shamiso & Matt

Rupe

Rupe & Shamiso

Sam - First assembly editor

Shamiso

Zombie YMCA

They're dead, they're all messed up.

Well, that's it. Principal photography and my time on set is over, which means i've got a ton of photographs to sort through. I've tried to shoot a mixture of film and digital including about 30 or so polaroids with the Polaroid Automatic 100 which i'll scan and upload.

During the first and third weeks of shooting we shot scenes featuring hordes of zombies.
For the first group we had around 50 zombies which were made up by the awesome Sara Hughes  and Heidi Clarke. The second group were recruited to shoot one scene we couldn't shoot in the first week due to time restrictions.

It was great fun having all the zombies on set, they were mostly made up of all our family members and friends.

Emma - Horde zombie

Horde zombie

Horde zombie

Horde zombie

Horde zombie

Hannah - Set design

Karen & Emma

Heidi's son

Heidi's son

Emma and Lex

Emma and Lav

Chris

Lex

Danny Brown & zombies

We interrupt this broadcast

It has been brought to my attention that I have missed someone out of my posts, so by way of apology this entire post is dedicated to the wonderful Jade Colucci. Over the course of the shoot she has been hit in the face with a gun, hurt her hand during a pulled punch and sat in A&E in full bloodied up costume. 

Jade has been a trooper throughout the entire shoot and not complained once, so this one's for her.