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

 

Matt De Tisi

A couple of new portraits that I shot of the legendary Matt De Tisi a few weeks back.
Matt worked as the best boy on zombie resurrection. For those of you who don't know what a best boy is, they are responsible for the day to day handling of the lighting equipment on a film set and work under The Gaffer.

Welcome to the Darkslide

The dust has settled and I can sort of sit back for a minute. My show is up after three days of laying it all out and then hanging it. The show features 29 framed prints that I have shot over the past four years, half of the work I shot specifically for the exhibition.

A selection of zombies from Zombie Resurrection

It took abut two weeks to frame and mount all of the prints. Some of the mounts I cut, some were cut by my wife and the largest were cut by the excellent staff at Southsea Gallery. If you've ever tried to cut photographic mounts before you'll know how frustrating it can be. You buy a large sheet of expensive mount board, measure everything out. Get the metal ruler and cutter in place, then make your cut only to realise that you 've got the blade the wrong way and the bevel is facing the opposite direction.

Shooting a time lapse of the show going up next to my print of Brotherman

The exhibition space is divided into three rooms, so I placed all the work on the floor and moved it around until I was happy with where it sat, then asked a few people to give me their opinions and tweaked the layout accordingly. I know that Richard Avedon used to have a foam board scale model of the exhibition space made up and scaled down prints that he would tack on the walls until he was happy with their arrangement. I had already done this in my head over the last two weeks before taking anything down to the space.

Exhibition cat who turned up on the first day

For the first two days I had a lot of help from Lord Lav who was a massive help both with carrying frames and keeping me sane sat underground for the first two days.
On day three the legends that are my parents came down and helped me to hang the rest of the show.
All the name plates went up a few hours before the doors opened and it all went really well. I sold 9 pieces on the opening night.

Dave White and Jon Gibbs

Johnny Griffith

Johnny and Rob

So if you are down in Southsea within the next week and a half drop in and see the show.
It's at Room 237, 76 Elm Grove Southsea, Portsmouth, Hampshire.

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.

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.