On shooting the guards and the crowd versus scratchers in the protest scene

Things are not going well for our little town, but after dearth of death in episode three, this kind of shot-in-the-arm is exactly what’s needed for both the comic’s characters and its creators. At the same time, so as to not overwhelm the web updates with pages and pages of gore and destruction (like most zombie comics), we have broken up our pandemonium and interspersed it throughout the other concurrent storylines. What you see here is just a glimpse of what’s yet to come. As part four continues towards its conclusion and the action ramps up even further, these cuts will become shorter and more frequent. Understandably, this is less than ideal for the monday-wednesday-friday updates, but I feel it provides the overall episode with the proper pacing and balance it needs.

Throwing up two pages on Wednesday was an impromptu decision related to this. As I was preparing the mid-week files I felt as though just a page of montage wasn’t much of a substantive update (despite the visual stimulation) so I paired the two together as a doubleshot of zombie action. Both of those pages, as well as Friday’s demise, were on-the-spot guest directed by mister Gale Benning, who was already heading major production responsibilities on set when I called him out to take the helm of the principal photography unit.

We had finished the morning’s work and I had some logistically complex shots to work out for the afternoon, and our schedule in-between was to shoot a variety of snapshots from the carnage unfolding outside the Nazarov government. Confidently up to the challenge, Gale put together dozens of these little moments, some of which appear in this week’s content and others which will appear throughout the episode. I was pleased to have some time to step away and handle my producer responsibilities for the shoot, and ready to see what a new set of eyes could bring to what we were shooting.

The entire sequence on Friday’s page, for example, was an improvised scene that was put together as part of this open shooting time, and I’m very happy that for that. We had so little time to devote to our charming yet tragically-short-lived guardsmen, so bringing them back for a classic former-partner-now-zombie moment was a nice finishing touch.

Justin and Dan, both of the soldiers featured on Friday’s page, are also on the cover of our beautiful book Night Zero: Volume Two. They’re not easy to recognize under the gruesome and gore, but after having such a wonderful time with them at the protest shoot it seemed the perfect fit to invite them back for some more bloody fun. Another of their squadmates, Tami, is featured as the zombie on the back cover of the book, and if you haven’t picked up your copy yet of this gorgeous full-color book, now seems like a perfect time to mention that they are on sale and help support what we do.

Those three, plus Nate, Trevor, (the other) Dan, and Keith all together round out our now-defunct guardsmen. Despite their utter failure as guards, though, they are quite proficient as infected and can be frequently seen spreading their chaos (and virus) throughout the crowd in the coming weeks. Keep your eyes open, there’s plenty more of them to come.