Journal Zero

A great thank-you the thousands of fans who came by to visit at the Emerald City Comicon this year. The Night Zero team had a great time meeting fans new and old, applying free makeup effects, shooting in the HDR photobooth, and sharing the joy that is what we do.

For those who missed the email or missed ECCC 2010, the Night Zero photobooth gallery can be found at Night Zero’s Flickr page.

Below are some words from the team members who were at the show, sharing their thoughts of the crazy, incredible weekend.

KELLY OTA

I was only there the first day, and I don’t know how much we sold, but I loved that by noon, Anthony had to rush home to grab a second box of Volume One books, and by the time he got back, we also sold out of the Special Edition Volume Two Survival Packs. I feel like in the year since we first went to ECCC, Night Zero has not only become more known as a local business, but also much more popular. It was exciting to sell so many books to so many people that were excited about Night Zero!

KATRINA HAMILTON

I talked to so many people at ECCC, it wasn’t long before I couldn’t keep track of the conversations. People would come by that I recognized but I couldn’t remember if I talked to them last year or that morning. At one point I actually stopped in the middle of a sentence, looked up at the woman I was speaking to and said, “I already told you how HDR works, didn’t I.”

Many of you may not know that Alexander Theoharis, a writer for Night Zero and the man most likely to say “Do me a favor and hold this?” while handing you a gun, is also a lawyer. Alexander was in charge of helping people in and out of the photo booth, as well as offering them the guns and/or girls of their choice. Halfway through Day One I expressed to Alexander that all of the power he has as an attorney doesn’t seem to make him nearly as happy as the power to yell “Babes!” and have girls literally run towards him.

One of my favorite moments of the convention was a guy who came over to the booth during the later half of the day and told us how great he thought Volume One was. I asked him where he had heard about Night Zero and he told me that he had just bought the book from us less than an hour ago. He had been walking around the convention reading his copy of Night Zero, and was already a fan.

I still can’t get over how good Indiana Jones looks in HDR.

JANA HUTCHISON

Last year, our makeup area was separate from the rest of the Night Zero crew by (what felt like) a great distance.   It was a blast and we learned so much, but the main booth area was simply not large enough to contain us all! That was our first attempt at offering this fun experience to the public, and it was a definite success, but we struggled to tie-in the makeup with the Night Zero brand.

Since that first booth, we’ve taken our makeup to Crypticon, helped break the zombie world record with Fremont Outdoor movies and created zombies for a Shawn of the Dead event down in LA. We zombified or killed nearly 100 extras for the big downtown protest shoot that you’ll start to see next month, and over the last year our setups have ranged from  just me with my own little kit and a chair to a freestanding tent with four professional makeup artists. All this in addition to the small but demanding shoots that Night Zero does every single month.

This year at ECCC, I was elated to be at the main booth. The energy and support and fun in our space was palpable, and we were mobbed the entire show… I was fortunate enough to have the help of a professional makeup effects artist, Anne Sellery. Side by side, we gored or zombified over 120 people through the course of the show. Having had hundreds of people in my makeup chair since that first ECCC really changed how we approached each person, and I’m still proud that we don’t do “canned” makeup effects. Everyone is a great sport, often waiting in line 45-60 minutes to get in the chair. Some of my favorites (and this was true last year) were the whole families that wanted to be bloodied. Parents would become zombies, kids would become battle-scarred warriors, then they’d go get (what I hope is) their Christmas card photo taken at our famous HDR photo booth.

We always love to hear stories of your convention experience and what happened when you left the convention center all dolled up in blood and bruises, so please send us pictures and stories or leave them in the comments below!

ELI BLACK-MIZUTA

Saturday I took one five minute break at about 4:00. I ate lunch with one hand while taking pictures with the other, and by the end of the weekend I figure I’d photographed (counting group shots) probably in excess of 1,500 people. You guys were all awesome… though I’m concerned by the number of people who, when handed a gun, immediately pointed it at either their head or their friend. In the event of the apocalypse, we’re all going to die.

At the Washington State Convention Center

The booth as a blank canvas

Comic shots and behind-the-scenes from the past two and a half years

Just before opening on Saturday morning

The crowds were thick and constant throughout the weekend

Even the Batman came through for a photo

Blood and smiles from the wee ones

Alexander and Katrina tirelessly offered weapons to thousands of strangers

Anne makes a rough survivor out of this nice young lady

This gentleman didn't fare so well, though.

Tami proudly shows a photo of herself, mauled and thirsty for blood

Jana prepares the cutest zombie on record

Lauren and Tara explain the comic while Alexander and Eli make an amazing photobooth team

Emily explains the HDR technique with examples from the brand-new Volume Two

Lauren chats with some outpatients of the makeup booth

Katrina offers her weapon to a potential apocalypse survivor.

So that’s a new one, but better safe than sorry. With two new pages going up and the possibility that the second one would spoil the first, I have hidden one from view. Awkward, but effective.

Depending on the size and complexity of the work at hand, Night Zero produces either a full-scale shoot or a skeleton shoot. Full-scale shoots are equivalent to a feature film, including the DP and AD, a gaffer, grips, production assistants, catering, location contracts, and the works. The Sisters vignette, the skullhunter’s house and Yevgeniy’s house in episode three, and most of episodes one and two were produced in this method. A skeleton shoot is just the opposite, where the crew is minimally a director, photographer, and (occasional) production assistant, shooting in a single simple location with a small cast. Jezebel and the untitled vignette, Claire’s escape montage in episode two, and the Nazarov sisters in episode three were all produced quickly on minimal staff, as was the just-concluded Midnight vignette.

With some shoots, using a skeleton crew is a matter of scheduling or speed, but with Midnight and Jezebel it was more a matter of practicality. For this vignette we were shooting the near-entirety in a basement space measuring 10′ square, with two actors, a camera tripod, and three light instruments. Add a director and cameraman in the mix and there’s not much room for anybody else. Jana was present in the morning to apply the necessary makeup damage, and Justin filled dual-roles as production manager and assistant director, usually just outside the room we were shooting in.

The shoot began with a 10:00am call time for the crew (Eli, Justin, and myself) to walk the space, rearrange any furniture or lighting, and setup our equipment. Kristina and Shawn arrived at 10:30 to get into costume, and Jana at 10:45 to apply makeup. The first shoot sequence was for Shawn, already in costume, who went upstairs with us to shoot the dark opening sequence while Kristina got her makeup, and the second sequence was a series of Kristina’s close-ups while Shawn got his grit and sweat makeup. From there the day progressed smoothly, running a sequence of ten different lighting setups (Kristina medium shots, Shawn closeups, Shawn over-the-shoulder, Kristina low-angle, et cetera). Jumping around in chronology so much required constantly refreshing the cast on where in the story we were shooting, but it dramatically accelerated the production time by consolidating setup work.

Shooting in a confined space, having that lack of mobility, makes an even stronger opportunity for swift production. The tight limit on possible shots leads to a lot of duplicate frame- and light-setups, which may seem less artistic but is much, much faster to produce. Every new camera angle or focus costs 2-3 minutes and every change of lights costs 5-8 minutes, which may not seem like much but amalgamated with the time of setting actors and tweaking poses, over the course of a day every delay adds up to serious time. By carefully planning each shot in advance, and developing the non-chronological shoot schedule that consolidated lighting setups and camera positions as much as possible, we were able to efficiently move through 82 shots in a seven-hour day (including lunch break). Compare that to the full-scale production of Sisters (7 crew and 5-12 cast), which also moved swiftly through a highly-efficient shoot schedule, and at peak speed produced 40-50 shots in an eight-hour day.

All told, Midnight was a comfortable and relaxed shoot, a nice change from our previous outing to the cold and rainy shipyard for Special Delivery. In color, tone, style, and speed, Midnight and Special Delivery couldn’t be farther apart, which is why I’m pleased that they ran online back-to-back. As fun as it is to build the slow drama and relationships of the serial story, the variety of the vignettes is a pleasant tangent to our ongoing work.

For ways to spend a day in a concrete basement, with Shawn and Kristina was an excellent choice

Director and photographer bringing vision to life

Shawn gets some instruction while Kristina gets some powder

The power of makeup, the power of Jana

Getting ready for a close-up

Kristina takes it past the last page

As comfortable as two people could be between shots

Alternate ending: fight to the death

Alternate alternate ending