Tuesday 17 January 2012

Bemvindos!

Back again so soon? It must be my guilt-fuelled blogging incontinence.

Indeed, without the shame of having to formally postpone the arrival of the trailer yet again, we are now free to fill you in on what’s been happening over the last month or so. I don’t want you thinking that the radio-silence meant that we had awarded ourselves Christmas away from all things zombie related.

And key amongst last month’s activities was getting our editor on board. An official Charmed welcome to the highly excellent Marcelo-the-edit. Finding ourselves an editor was not a quick process: putting up postings on Shooting People and Talent Circle, trawling through the CVs and show-reels of the twenty or so of applicants, interviewing, sending out multiple copies of the first assembly, more interviewing, etc.

But in the end, the choice was very straightforward, as there was only one outstanding candidate. Better still, even after all this palaver we hadn’t put him off.

A decision well made, it appears, as this morning the first fifteen minutes of the film arrived in our in-boxes. Re-worked, re-mixed, tightened, removed of excess fat and flab. A much more entertaining viewing experience than the one we had dumped on him. Universal feedback from the long-suffering pals that we sent our original assembly off to was that the first act was too long, and in one fell stroke we’ve lost five minutes of film out of the first twenty.

Finally we get to taste the fruits of someone that properly knows how to edit - it’s a lot harder than just knowing how to use the software. Stand up, Phelps and Hawkins, and acknowledge your limits. After weeks of digital CPR, the real doctor has finally arrived.

But the real pay off is going to come when Marcelo arrives at our first horde scene. One of his previous editing gigs was the very nicely made urban gangster flick Zebra Crossing, which featured a protagonist who is the absolute doppelgänger of one of our zombies. Separated at birth? You decide…




In about 18 minutes of screen time, Marcelo is going to wonder whether he's been trapped in some bizarre editing time loop. That’s the beauty of the zombie genre – just because the last time we saw someone they were getting a Glock unloaded into them, all bets are off after the apocalypse. I can only imagine that the Sherlock writers are planning a similar stunt. Spoiling.

1 comment:

  1. Both are very good looking chaps! However I think the one with the gore just about clinches it!

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