As I mentioned in my previous entry, the leadtime between this scene’s first script appearance and it’s shoot date came to a few weeks over a full year. The challenges in staging an independent production at a shipping container yard were certainly hurdle enough, but the primary cause for this delay was just that we had so much else on our plates. In March I first proposed a shoot for this scene, aiming for the end of May or beginning of June (waiting until after the intense weekend of shooting at the skullhunters house). However, priority for those early summer dates was given to Claude and the Trio, who would have been needed online the same month had the premiere of Episode Three (and all shoots pertaining to it) not been delayed by the unexpected arrival of the Sisters vignette for the summer. By the time we wrapped Sisters we had no room for anything but the epic zombie-invasion shoot at the end of September, followed by a handful of low-key filler shoots in the wake of that exhausting endeavor. Fortunately we have Justin on the production team, who was able to hunt down and secure our location despite all these setbacks. And so, just a week before it would be needed online*, the Night Zero team descended upon the Seattle waterfront to shoot one of our wettest sets.

The crew for the shoot was myself directing, Eli on photography, Eric mastering the lights with Mark as his number two, and Justin handling the production management. The stage was my challenge for the shoot, to create a truck deadly enough for the post-apocalypse but light-hearted enough to be dubbed the “Scratcher Catcher”. Early talks of purchasing a company truck, for dual-utility in our convention and expo setups, were eventually dismissed due to simple logistics like “where the hell are we gonna park a truck all year?”. So it would be a rental truck, which meant any accessorizing and decorating would have to be non-permanent and non-destructive. I grew up with plenty of carpentry experience and started my theater career on stage crew, so I was undaunted by the prospect of tricking out a truck for the zombie apocalypse, rental vehicle or no.

The most important part of the design is the “cattle catcher”, which was initially conceived identically to how one would be found on a train or convoy truck. It later occurred to me, though, that a cattle catcher is designed to expel bovines away from the vehicle, whereas a zombie catcher would be much more effective if designed to draw the infected under the vehicle. The catcher concept was redesigned to act more as a funnel than a wedge, snagging any strays and grinding them under. Step two was the defensive, which entailed gates and grills to protect the cab from grabby hands. To be mounted non-destructively, I had no choice but to wait until the truck was rented and at my workshop (the day before the shoot) and construct a crude brace system based on the vehicle’s natural shape. Beams of 2×4 (recycled from boarding up the skullhunters house) rested on the footsteps and braced in the mirror mounts, providing a foundation for screws, bolts, and chains. A cross-section of 2×4 branching out towards the hood held mounting holes for a metal post, which mirrored an identical post running atop the vertical beams. Between these two poles, an iron grate could be rested in front of (but away from) the windshield. From the intersection of the vertical posts with the mirror frames, a heavy-gauge chain looped across the fenders and through holes in the zombie catcher, with enough slack to give the catcher its downward-driving angle. A length of rope was secured to the back of the bay door and routed through the undercarriage to the passenger door, enabling the riders to safely close the door from inside the cab, and chain-link fence was put up to protect the doors and side windows from assault.

All the gear for the truck transformation was conveniently stowed in the truck for transportation, and installed on-set once the truck was in shooting position. For the conclusion of the scene in the cab, all the decorations were removed and Eli set up camp on the hood, with Eric rigging up equipment to block the reflections on the windshield and light the actors from within the cab. At the same time, the back of the truck was converted from our shooting set to our base camp, complete with changing area, snack bar, and makeup station (for another shoot immediately following).

There were also some simpler logistical hurdles for the production of the shoot, each of which was handled in turn with as much preparedness as could be. The weather in Seattle for the weeks preceding the shoot was a nightmare: freezing temperatures and sunny, cloudless skies in the morning giving way to torrential storms and howling winds by mid-afternoon, or sometimes vice versa. In the event that our shoot was sunny, silk diffusers and post-production work would have to compensate, and in the event that it was torrential, the actors were warned that they would be getting wet. Fortunately the weather held its own, providing us a perfect overcast and constant drizzle throughout the morning, enough precipitation to dampen the faces and costumes but not so much to soak everything in sight… the afternoon was a different situation, but that’s a story for another time.

In the early summer we shot the skullhunters house on some swelteringly hot days, and we knew that Blaze would be wearing this same costume for the scratcher catcher scene so Ben had to suffer in his costume (if you’ve never worn a hoodie with a blazer, I’ll tell you – it’s a lot hotter than you’d think). Once on set for this shoot, though, the triple-layers with hood and gloves made him the warmest cast member around. Sidney, on the other hand, donned a costume that was designed for her most recent shoot (at the tail end of summer), and was frozen during the scratcher catcher shoot. Not a great trend for her, considering that the Jezebel shoot was also done in (literally) freezing temperatures. We had plenty of jackets and gloves and hand warmers waiting just of stage for her, but it was definitely a case of suffering for art. Dan, as Hoolie, had a costume specifically chosen for this shoot alone, so that struck a balance between being warm (in the event of rain) and cool (in the event of sun), and although he had no hat or gloves, he was a real champ the whole morning and did a great job with the two veterans.

Flares were another challenge to the shoot, thanks to their dangerous and unpredictable nature. It’s one thing for a genuine pyromaniac to light a flare as a precious toy, but quite another for an actor (in oversized wool gloves) to handle a burning flare, holding it close to his person and looking away for a full three seconds while the photos were shot. There were fire extinguishers just off-camera and crew members ready to smother the flares (or Ben), but it was still a stressful endeavor. But, as they usually do, the results speak for themselves. It should be noted that in Blaze’s closeup with the flame (page 38), there were no special lights or post-effects added to create that image. The red light glowing on Ben’s face and body is the actual light from the torch in his hand. It should also be noted that fifteen-minute highway flares do NOT last for fifteen minutes. It would be generous to give them five.

* According to the release schedule this shoot would have been produced four weeks in advance, but I opted to shuffle the scene order to improve the pacing of the episode.