This was the week I became a zombie, and I only half mean being bored with my job some days.
The long and the short of it is that they were looking for Zombie extras on James Moran's Cockneys Vs Zombies, filming just half an hour down the road. I couldn't really say no. (Which ignores the fact that I asked them, but there you go.)
So having got everything set up with the amazingly organised casting director Johnny Lynch, I rocked up at 6.40am at London's oldest continuously-producing brewery (it might have been England's oldest, I forget and can't be bothered to chase this on a Sunday morning. It's old, it's still producing, that's all you need to know.)
Signs that read *Zombies this way* led to the Zombie green room, just as someone prodded the first nine would-be undead into make-up. I'd stormed to the front of the room anyway so I thought "fuck it" and plopped myself down in front of the lovely Sarah, who grafted a face wound onto me whilst making small talk, a feat considering she'd been up since 4.20am.
I expected make-up to take longer, but we swapped out after basic greying up and wound application, rotating back in for blood and gore later. All told it probably took no more than 30 mins.
We passed the time with a crash course at zombie school, which was basically a DVD (don't know whether it was specially made or cribbed from someone else's DVD extras). This included all the basic stuff:
Just to be on the safe side, we had some practical training, traipsing outside in the cold spring morning and walking around like complete spazzes until we'd developed a "lift from the hip and pretend you're going to fall over, but don't" rhythm. While shivering. Combining the two is harder than it sounds.
The place was starting to buzz by now. Cameras were set, weak sunlight began flooding the compound. A charge filled the air. Blood was up. Ready, set...
For the next two hours we stood behind a truck.
This the reality of the movie biz. You think it's going to be glamorous, exciting and hyper-paced. What you actually get is two glacial hours behind a truck, shivering, covered in red sugar.
Occasionally we broke out to shoot some footage of us shuffling around a corner. Thankfully the sun got stronger and warmed us from "shivering" to "nippy".
We did the shot again, and again, and again, each time slightly altered from the last. Some of us broke out and volunteered for more up-front zombie duty attacking a gate. (By attacking, I mean "leaning pathetically on".)
I was not one of these. It didn't matter. We were zombies. Sooner or later we were all getting to the gate.
*I wish I could think of clever titles for these blog posts. You'd think I'd be better at it given the time between the damned things.
The long and the short of it is that they were looking for Zombie extras on James Moran's Cockneys Vs Zombies, filming just half an hour down the road. I couldn't really say no. (Which ignores the fact that I asked them, but there you go.)
So having got everything set up with the amazingly organised casting director Johnny Lynch, I rocked up at 6.40am at London's oldest continuously-producing brewery (it might have been England's oldest, I forget and can't be bothered to chase this on a Sunday morning. It's old, it's still producing, that's all you need to know.)
Signs that read *Zombies this way* led to the Zombie green room, just as someone prodded the first nine would-be undead into make-up. I'd stormed to the front of the room anyway so I thought "fuck it" and plopped myself down in front of the lovely Sarah, who grafted a face wound onto me whilst making small talk, a feat considering she'd been up since 4.20am.
I expected make-up to take longer, but we swapped out after basic greying up and wound application, rotating back in for blood and gore later. All told it probably took no more than 30 mins.
We passed the time with a crash course at zombie school, which was basically a DVD (don't know whether it was specially made or cribbed from someone else's DVD extras). This included all the basic stuff:
- stumbling walk
- limp, flailing arms
- inability to handle complex physical tasks
Just to be on the safe side, we had some practical training, traipsing outside in the cold spring morning and walking around like complete spazzes until we'd developed a "lift from the hip and pretend you're going to fall over, but don't" rhythm. While shivering. Combining the two is harder than it sounds.
The place was starting to buzz by now. Cameras were set, weak sunlight began flooding the compound. A charge filled the air. Blood was up. Ready, set...
For the next two hours we stood behind a truck.
This the reality of the movie biz. You think it's going to be glamorous, exciting and hyper-paced. What you actually get is two glacial hours behind a truck, shivering, covered in red sugar.
Occasionally we broke out to shoot some footage of us shuffling around a corner. Thankfully the sun got stronger and warmed us from "shivering" to "nippy".
We did the shot again, and again, and again, each time slightly altered from the last. Some of us broke out and volunteered for more up-front zombie duty attacking a gate. (By attacking, I mean "leaning pathetically on".)
I was not one of these. It didn't matter. We were zombies. Sooner or later we were all getting to the gate.
*I wish I could think of clever titles for these blog posts. You'd think I'd be better at it given the time between the damned things.
