Journal Zero

From a directing point of view, the untitled vignette provided an interesting opportunity to explore the past—and how it is perceived—because the main character was not around to see what happened to his girlfriend and could only assume what happened to her. I ended up playing around with many different interpretations that fit into the same script but had dramatically different implications. One idea was that although from the main character’s point of view they were perfectly in love, she had actually been cheating on him when Night Zero happened (thus adding a whole new level of tragedy to the story). I ended up deciding on the direction that did not leave such a bitter taste in your mouth when the story ended.

The actual production process was riddled with many obstacles to jump over. For most productions we have a varying sized crew, but this was the first time that Anthony was not involved in the shooting. The weather also did not play to our favor. The locations for the vignette are all outside (with the exception of one or two shots in a studio inside). We were originally set to shoot in late November, but were stopped by weather. Another attempt was made for mid December but the production ended up being put on hold until Spring came and things thawed up a bit. We attempted to get the shooting done in just one day, but it was during spring break and so many people were either out of town or working that we ended up having to have a second shoot several weeks later to do the large scratcher scenes.

The biggest thing I learned from this experience was the difference it makes to have someone else doing photography while you are director. In the first shoot I struggled to play both roles at the same time. Your mind functions in different ways when you are thinking about lighting and framing than when you are thinking about emotions and motivations behind the characters in a scene. It was a challenge to jump back and forth between these two things. So when Eli ran the camera in the second shoot and I was able to just direct and things went a lot more smoothly. I feel that this is another important justification in this kind of collaborative work.

The larger shoot was a lot of fun. We had more scratchers in this shoot than we have had on any other Night Zero shoot. It was a good experience working with more extras and will come in handy in the upcoming Night Zero productions. All in all I am quite happy with the final product. I was extremely pleased with the action shots of Jon (playing the main character) jumping off of the ledge and landing on the ground in the most epic of poses. I fully plan on making that shot into a poster to put up on my wall.

The missing blog posts these past few weeks can only mean one thing: Night Zero is busier than ever, bringing the post-apocalypse to life like only we can. We’ve unleashed a load of new projects recently, all the juicy details of which you’ll be getting right here as we return to our regular weekly updates. It’s good to be back.

Two weeks ago the Night Zero team returned to the show floors with our appearance at the Seattle Crypticon Horror Convention. Three days of blood and guts, horror celebrities and horrifying costumes, all descending upon the Seattle Center to celebrate that which is gruesome and terrible. But in a good way.

Just as at the Emerald City Comicon, our approach at Crypticon was to share the Night Zero style with the convention goers, to give them a sense of what we do. On the one side of our booth, Jana Healy gave the magic of makeup to anyone who wanted a battle wound, a fresh gash, or some old-school zombification. On the other side, our photo team outfitted would-be zombie hunters (and sometimes zombies) with an arsenal of anti-undead weaponry and snapped HDR photos for our Crypticon Flickr gallery. In the true spirit of Night Zero, this was all done for free by our wonderful and tireless crew.

The biggest lesson we learned from ECCC was a simple one: get a box truck. Our booth setup requires four sections of chain-link fence, freestanding blocks to mount them, and all the hardware necessary to rig them up safe and sturdy for a weekends’ worth of crowds. We used a pickup truck and zip-ties before, and it was less than fun. Renting a 10′ box truck was a much easier and faster way to travel, despite the added expense.

Our neighbors for the event were all very charming, and it was a pleasure to spend the weekend with them. In front of us were sitting Charles Cyphers and Tom Atkins, horror film veterans and animated old men, whose banter provided constant entertainment to our crew. Across the aisle we swapped makeup strategies with Brian Sipe and his prosthetics team, who were demoing intricate gore effects and freestanding sculptures. Just around the corner was the ubiquitous and animated Doug Jones, whose impressive resume doesn’t even begin to describe how incredible the man is. I’ll not gush or rave ad nauseum, only say this: whether you’re familiar with his many works or not, meeting Doug Jones is a life-changing event.

As usual, we’ve left the show with a hefty batch of booth photos, which are all available on our Flickr Crypticon Gallery. While we were busy busy the whole show, we did manage to snap a handful of photos of the Night Zero booth in action, seen below.

A little gash to start off the gore fest, free at the Night Zero booth

The cute guests get cute gore, for consistency

This little boy asked for brains leaking out of his head, but we settled on a simple zombie for his parents' sake

Night Zero production intern Chris directing a group for their HDR booth photo

The team at work, registering photo guests and explaining the unique project that we undertake

When there's no space, gore the face. When there's shoulder and neck, what the heck?

I would like to apologize for the rhyme in the preceding caption

This enthusiastic woman referred to herself as "Night of the Rolling Dead"

Our neighbors Chuck and Tom stepping over for a photo

The one and only Doug Jones