Journal Zero

I still have the email Anthony sent me, dated November 30, 2007. It is titled “Night Zero,” and contains no explanation. Only his original three paragraph pitch about how the infection started and spread. At the very bottom he wrote one word, “Interested?” I thought he was inviting me to see a new movie.

Back when Night Zero was just a name and an idea, the entire team was Anthony, Forest, and me. At first it was all talking - emails, phone calls, coffee shop conversations. We were building an entire world. There were maps of how the infection spread, lists of occupations in the new city. We would talk for hours about how these creatures behaved, how people survived, and what might have happened to the world outside Seattle. I remember once meeting at a local bar to talk character development with Anthony. Eventually the bartender came over to tell us we had to leave, the bar had been closed for 15 minutes. We had gotten so wrapped up in Night Zero, we didn’t realize we’d been there for over four hours.

The first days of shooting were cold. Very cold. This was before we had a real production team, so a Night Zero shoot was just four people, sometimes fewer. Forest took pictures, Anthony directed as well as acted, Kelly held the light discs, and I was the actor guinea pig. Because the area in which we shot the bulk of the pilot episode experienced heavy amounts of traffic during the day, one of our shoots there was at 7:00 AM on a Saturday morning. It was still January and it was colder than the night shoots we’d had before. Conversations between Kelly and I often drifted to heat lamps and campfires while the boys were figuring out how to set up the next shot. As time went on my hands started to freeze up and I had trouble holding my prop gun. We were forced to end the shoot when Forest’s fingers got so cold he could no longer work the buttons on the camera.

We got back to Anthony’s apartment for some watered down hot chocolate and I fell asleep in the middle on his living room floor amidst yet another discussion over which buildings would be easiest to defend in case of a real zombie attack. I was frozen, hungry, and tired, and I had just given up most of my Saturday. But I remember that even then, curled up as I was under a fleece blanket, I was having a lot of fun.

Now the shoots are longer, the crew is bigger, and the locations more controlled. There are permits and storyboards, scheduled breaks and printed scripts. While it may have changed, for me working on Night Zero is just as fun as it always was. We discover something new each time we go out there, and with the Jezebel vignette I’m discovering for the first time what it means to be a fan of Night Zero, not knowing what the next page will be. It’s been a great ride thus far. I proud to say that I’ve been there from the beginning, and hope it will be a long time before we get to the end.

Sometimes things change, and while transition can be messy or confusing, some changes are all for the best.

Now that Volume One is out of our hands, we’ve turned our attention back to Jezebel and given a major overhaul to the pacing and interactions of the story. Montages have been condensed, layouts have been tightened, and the underlying relationship conflicts between the characters has been brought more to the surface. These changes are based on long-standing wishes we’ve had for the comic, the perspective gained from some time away from Jezebel, and feedback from our fans and readers.

Retroactive revisions are something we generally don’t make a big fuss about– if we have to go back and fix a typo or tweak a photo, we do so under the radar. A revision this substantial however, must be mentioned not only to explain the jump between the previous update and the current one, but also to encourage the reader to return to the beginning and see the comic anew.

Aside from the Jezebel revamp and a follow-up photo shoot this weekend, last week saw the wrapping up of the Night Zero: Volume One preprint preparations. A bundle of proofs arrived from Chicago for final review, and pending a couple of minor tweaks, our first book will go to print and be delivered within weeks. If you haven’t already preordered your copy, I encourage you to do so right away.

No major blog update this week, as I’m out of town on a business trip and wrist-deep in preparations for Episode Three. I’ll be back next week for more, so see you then.