Thanks man!
Here's a note I just put up at Facebook...figured I'd share it with you guys!
So there I was…this enormous task ahead of me. Most people have no idea what it’s like to edit a movie…and even worse…edit it by yourself. Every sound effect, every bit of music (and make no mistake music is the SOUL of any film) every emotional moment, ever second is up to me to do and I can’t blow it. There’s people who worked on it besides me who are counting on me to make their time worth it, who are counting on me to not make this thing suck.
But I’d taken chances I’d never taken before. While filming some of the bigger zombie scenes we just never had time to do the practical effects, it was impossible and we were fighting on oncoming winter the entire time (and those who wonder why we didn’t want to be filming in the winter have never lived in North Dakota). So every moment was crucial as all hell, which meant when I filmed, I took a weird chance- I was planning on adding in effects later.
Now keep in mind, I’m in no, way, shape or form a CG guy. I had no idea if I could pull it off myself, but I had faith. I had the idea in my head how I was going to make arrows fly across the screen, how I was going to explode heads and make a group of zombies get shot into hundreds of pieces, but whether or not that idea would work, well, I just didn't know.
For those with problems with the CG, this isn’t your usual CG, this is me creating every single frame, hand by hand, moment by moment, almost painting this stuff in. To say it’s time consuming is an understatement. One 2 minute scene took me three weeks to get together. Some people are just aren’t going to dig it and that’s fine, but this is the coolest stuff I’ve ever done.
I didn’t use slow motion. I came close, but then I realized I’m starting to get sick of it in movies…why the fuck would I do it? After watching Aliens…studying the action scenes in that, I realized what I wanted to go for. ACTION. Fast, furious, no bullshit, no slow motion, no posting…just full blooded action with shots you’ll see and go “HOLY SHIT!“ But you’ll have go back and watch again to see if you REALLY saw what you just saw.
Why did it take so long? Those CG effects mainly. Took forever.
Then…I had it all together and there was this little fucking green bar that appeared from nowhere at the bottom of the screen…figuring out where that was coming from was impossible…but I fixed it. If you want to know how ask me in person. I’ll tell you.
Then I exported it and the quality was HORRIBLE. So I resaved it under a different format, uncompressed, and it took 4 hours.
Finally it was as good as it was going to get.
Is the movie any good?
Well, like always, those who dig my stuff, will dig it, matter of fact they’ll love it. That’s really all I can say. All I know is I adore it. I think more than any other film I’ve finally accomplished the chaos and blood flying effect that I’ve wanted. The stuff people love about my film is there, the characters, the dialogue, the story, it’s all in there triple fold.
My favorite zombie kill:
Aarons shot with the shotgun…blowing off that first zombie head. It was the first effect I did like that, using the computer to create it and I still think it’s the best.
My favorite character:
Justins “Father Vecchio.” It’s insane and hilarious. I watched some of his stuff with Topher the other day and he asked, “Why is he talking like that?” And that’s what I love about it so much, it’s so fucking insane, so goddamn off the wall. It was fun just watching Justin go apeshit . I kept half of his goofing around stuff in there because it even made it better, made the guy even more off the wall.
My only concern with the film comes at the halfway point…something so awful, so unexpected so BRUTAL happens that I’m not sure the second half can overcome it. It’s so intense and terrible that the emotional impact of it…well…as much as the second half of the movie is full of action and zombie killing and heartache and death…that event has such an impact, I’m not sure the end can match it. But again, I’m sure it’ll be fine, there’s so much insanity, so many badass moments it’ll be fine, but as the guy who’s behind the story, that’s the only thing I’m kind of fearful of.
But other than that.
Well…it’s done. I’m putting together the DVD now, along with bloopers and deleted scenes and all the other special features.
Premiere will be soon.
Prepare yourself folks.
This is us at our very fucking best and you will see what people can do with nothing but pure unadulterated passion.