This is also the point in the process where I invariably start to fall in love with the cast and crew. I often wonder, Who ARE these amazing, creative people...at least half of whom I didn't know a couple of months ago?! They were all just walking around, leading their lives, doing their thing, until the opportunity to play on Z came along and, well, here they are!

I stress this again and again to aspiring filmmakers--if you make it, they will come. Which is to say, if you conjure up a unique story and write a fun script, all sorts of folks will emerge from the woodwork to help you bring it to life, most of whom you don't even know yet. Like they say, "Leap and the net will appear"!

Now if instead of a unique story you're simply doing some mind-numbing Hollywood sequel or rehash of an old comic book or TV show, and if instead of a fun script you merely type out a bunch of stock scenes and clichés on the page for high-priced actors who are gonna ignore your dialogue anyhow and say whatever they want to say, then nobody at all is gonna show up to help you make your movie unless you pay them top-dollar. Union wages, baby! Because working on just about any Studio picture means selling away part of your soul, and that kinda thing don't come cheap!

We've bagged some great stuff lately, including a sexy song/dance scene shot entirely by candlelight. Shades of Herr Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON, only with more naked-itity. We also completed a big introductory series of scenes for three of the main characters, which, for scheduling reasons, had to be done on a Friday. I was amazed at the legion of crewmembers we had on hand for this weekday shoot, who'd either taken off work or didn't have a regular day gig in the first place to distract them from their creative pursuits.

Unfortunately, we got a late start on the day because of the necessary evil of applying Zombie Make-Up to the talent. Make-Up Supervisor Shawn O'Connell has toiled tirelessly both to create the Zombie Look and to streamline the process of applying it, but it still requires a good half hour per person to get 'er done.

Early on in the production (and even later on, I'm embarrassed to admit) we've had actors and crew sitting around for 2 and 3 hours, either waiting their turn to be run through Make-Up or else waiting around in their full Zombified make-up for others to be done so we could get on with the show. I've never made a movie with such elaborate make-up effects before and I've learned a painful lesson along the way: stagger call times, stagger call times, stagger call times!

My latest schedule for upcoming shooting days sees the actors called at 30-minute intervals, rather than all at once, and the crew not called until an hour or more after the first actor arrives, so they're not sitting around either. Sure there's a lot of hurry up and wait on any film shoot, yet you wanna minimize that wherever you can. And this is a lesson I'll probably continue to have to learn for a while yet, since there's no doubt I remain overly optimistic in my scheduling. But I just get so damn excited on every shooting day and wanna believe that everything takes less time than it really takes so we can fire up our nitrogen-burning, turbo-charged, air-scooped Hi-Def camera and capture all sorts of filmic goodness for Z!

Shawn has also been busting ass building the Zombie Hand which figures prominently in the early going of Z. The Zombie Hand is pretty much a minor character unto itself and is featured in several early moments that either amuse or advance the story or both.

To realize the Zombie Hand, we're employing a combination of three techniques-practical, prosthetic and green screen. For the practical hand, we'll use Shawn's own hand and situate her so she's just out of the shot--you know, hidden behind a couch or whatnot. In other situations (for example when we see the Zombie Hand from a distance) we'll composite in green screen footage that we shot both indoors and outdoors just the other day.

A quick word about green screen...most books and Internet sites make the process seem infinitely more complicated than it really needs to be. We achieved excellent results simply by using a 10' x 6' piece of green felt hung up against a fence for the "outdoor" look, or tacked up on a wall inside for the "indoor" look. For the Outdoor shoot, we simply used direct sunlight--since that's gonna be the lighting condition in the appropriate scenes we'll shoot later. For the Indoor, we went with a modest amount of light, just an overhead light and a fill. Most books/websites suggest a minimum of anywhere from 6 -8 lighting fixtures for green screen, but we're following in the footsteps of Bauhaus architect Mies van der Rohe, whose "Less Is More" dictum is perhaps even more pertinent today than in the early part of the Twentieth Century.

Finally, for scenes where an actor physically interacts with the Zombie Hand--say, to pick it up or throw it or something--we've built a prosthetic hand of latex, wire, pantyhose and similar high-tech ingredients. When I say 'we', I mean 'Shawn'...since I've done little but offer an occasional measure of feedback about how I want it to look.

ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES...

If you wanna build your own prosthetic hand or foot or anything like it, simply take a tub of Plaster of Paris--so called because after the Great Fire of London in 1666, Louis XIV of France ordered virtually every wooden structure in Paris to be coated over with plaster to reduce the risk of fire, such that “Plaster” and “Paris” became damn near synonymous--and mix it with water, then pour this admixture into a discarded shoe box lined with a plastic bag. Next press your hand or foot or wiener or whatever body part you desire into the Plaster of Paris to make an outline of half of the object in question. Repeat with another shoe box of plaster to create the other side of your appendage.

To build up the thickness of the whole appliance, you can add mesh, cotton, bits of rubber gloves and, naturally, more liquid latex. A set of fake nails from the local drugstore can be built into the finger tips for added realism. Finally, liberate each half of the appliance from its respective mold, attach together with more latex, trim off the excess bits and then hit it with a serious coat of Zombie Make-Up. Voila, you've got yourself a kick-ass Zombie Hand to use in your picture!

Big budget movies tend to sanitize the creative process. Many of the "pieces" of a large film are built elsewhere, under the supervision of a dozen or more different people, and only brought together at the very end...which is why huge budget movies often have a "cobbled together" feel. One of the reasons I greatly admire fellow Austinite Robert Rodriguez is that most everything in his pictures is created by a team working together under close quarters with Mr. Rodriguez intimately involved in its creation, quite often with his own sleeves rolled up to aid and abet the process. I don't like every single picture he makes, but I sure to Buddha appreciate the unity of vision on display in each one.

DADDY’S LITTLE HELPERS…

Another thing I genuinely admire about Robert Rodriguez is the dude has kids--4 and counting, from what I hear--and he apparently plays an integral part in their daily lives despite turning out a finished movie about every month or two.

I honestly don't think there's anything that can improve your vision as an artist, or as a human being, more than having children. A significant part of my labors on Z are mitigated by my daily duties to the cacophonous menagerie of hyperactive humanoids I call my kids.

Biologically, I have two of my own--a daughter, Oona, and a son, Francis. However, once you throw in the children of my fiancée, Shawn, and those from the second marriage of my ex-wife Amy (whose second husband and true Love of her Life, Eric Bodenschatz, passed away from cancer exactly two years ago last week), there are 5 more kids in our typically Austin-tatious non-nuclear family.

That makes a total of seven--count 'em, 7--children! But wait...it gets better ! Every single one of them, except for my hapless 11 year-old son, are girls! So, yeah, we got ourselves six girls and one boy, who fall between the ages of 14 down to 6.

All told, they outnumber the Brady Bunch and wreak more havoc than the Wild Bunch. Throughout the entire summer, even as I supervised the recording of our many songs and ran meetings and rehearsals and began shooting the picture every weekend, I was the primary caregiver for the lot of them whilst my fiancée was at work and my ex-wife attended Beauty School.

Depending on the circumstances of the day, I regularly schlepped anywhere from one to all of them with me on every film-related task for three straight months. Sure, everything took longer with kids in tow. Just getting everybody bestowed with clothing and shoes and into the car without any of them killing each other over their seating position can take upwards of half-an-hour...and for some weird reason kids seem to need to eat like 3 times per day, whereas filmmakers can subsist on nothing more than coffee and a late-night snack of peanut butter right out of the jar for weeks on end.

At the same time, being a Director prepares you quite well for dealing with children, since Directors spend so much time around actors. The only perceptible difference between children and actors is that (in theory, at least) children eventually grow up...whereas actors remain, well, actors.

Mind you, this is all the greatest fun. Children are endlessly diverting, endlessly curious and keep you in touch with your dormant childhood memories. (Remember those silly, slightly naughty jokes you told and retold amongst your chums in 3rd Grade? Bizarrely enough, they're still in currency today and are often recounted to me by my kids as if they were just invented that very morning!) Still there's no doubt that children--especially the veritable army of children we collectively care for--occupy a significant portion of each day, and even more so during the summer, when school's out. Their lives, their needs, their appetites and questions and boo-boos, invariably come before (and during...and after) the process of making a movie.

Bottom line: I'll make Z, and I'll make other movies. But no movie, no painting, no artwork of any kind remotely equals the enduring pleasure of bringing a new life into the world. My children are the greatest creative achievements of my life, and always will be. (Unless, of course, they grow up to become Republicans...in which case I'll disown them and adopt some different, normal-thinking children who have a firmer grasp on the world!)

Finally, and most pertinently to the ongoing production schedule of Z, God in his infinite wisdom has created something called the School Year, which in these parts began just last week. Which means our Plague of Locusts is terrorizing somebody else's crops every weekday and filmmakers like myself can get ever so much more accomplished.

I've got much more to share, but the little tax-deductions are at school even as I type this and I feel like I should be running around, doing things on the picture until the bell rings. (Today I'm picking up 4 of them from 3 different schools...which barely leaves me any time to check out the cute moms at each institution!)

COMING UP…

In the next installment, I'll talk about getting permission to shoot your movie whenever and wherever you feel like, along with a discursion on the Lost Art of Storyboarding.

If you have any comments or questions, or, especially, if you're a French Au Pair and wanna come watch all the kids for free (and teach 'em French, to boot) while we finish making Z, please feel free to drop me a note anytime.

Until then...

Release Your Inner Zombie!

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