Archive for the ‘Guest Posts’ Category

Laying It Out There

Posted: 9th July 2010 by Jen Kaiser
Categories: Concepts & Development, Guest Posts
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Jen Kaiser on how she met and joined the Night Zero team as post-production designer

I love comics and was eager to attend this year’s Emerald City Comicon to meet the legendary Stan Lee. Armed with a bag of comic books, and dressed as American McGee’s Alice, I ran from booth to booth getting books signed and commissions drawn by my favorite artists. The booth for Night Zero stood out among the many vendors present at the show, and I stopped by for a closer look.

Night Zero’s friendly cast and crew often attend local events (like the recent Red, White and Dead Zombie Walk in Seattle) and part of their booth is outfitted to take HDR photos with a backdrop right out of the comic (gun props and all).
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Words of the Gaffer

Posted: 2nd July 2010 by Eric Thomas
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Guest Posts, On Location
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Eric Thomas on his experiences as gaffer with the Night Zero team
I met the Night Zero Crew at the Emerald City Comicon back in 2009.  We chatted and discussed my potential involvement in the series, although it was not until September (when they needed to shoot the courthouse) scene that I got an email from Anthony asking if I could help.

As a gaffer who really only works on narrative films, I was amazed at the difference in workflow and the speed with which they were able to work through all the required shots.

When dealing with full-motion action and dialog there are many moving parts, where failure in any one of these parts will render the take unusable.  The camera can bump or fall out of focus on a dolly or a pan. An actor can stumble over a line or start laughing.  A light or stand can wind up in the shot, or have to be fiddled with to prevent that. The list of things that can ruin a take is long, and the workflow is such that it can take a couple of hours to light a scene before the first shot is in the can.

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Hi, I’m Night Zero

Posted: 25th December 2009 by Jon Axell
Categories: "Untitled", Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Guest Posts
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Longtime contributor Jon Axell, on his experiences with the Night Zero team

This week, a special guest blog post by a longtime friend of Night Zero, mister Jon Axell.

I’ve been a part of Night Zero since day zero. I can even remember the first day that the project had officially begun (day zero), and I still had the nerve to ask why it was not going to be named “Day Zero.” And if the pilot issue is, in fact, canon, then I am the first casualty of Night Zero to appear on the page. So that hour I spent lying face-up in the rain while the blood ran into my eyes made me famous, I hope.

Needless to say, I’ve been involved in the project as much as anybody, if you’re counting consecutive months of at least some involvement. But I’ve probably donated fewer hours than anyone who has appeared as more than just a scratcher. You see, I am afraid of commitment. I’m surrounded by suspiciously hard-working friends who have devoted a great deal of their time and capital to this endeavor, and I was thrilled to see it take form as a full-fledged production at ComiCon Seattle, and the record-breaking Fremont Zombie Walk.
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The Trio

Posted: 18th September 2009 by Jana Hutchison
Categories: Concepts & Development, Episode 3 - "House Calls", Guest Posts
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Jana Hutchison on developing the costumes and characteristics of the Trio

The beginning of Episode three gave us a wonderful opportunity to introduce three new characters, and also a whole subset of the Night Zero world: the Skullhunters. Except for fragments about the charming Edge, we haven’t quite gotten the whole story on the Skullhunters. So now, meet the trio: West, Axel and Sawtooth. We thought it’d be interesting to discuss the process of how each of the trio wound up with their distinctive look.

These characters allowed for us to really branch out past our born-of-utility drab and dingy color. The skullhunters are personas of their own invention, without societal constraints (think super-villains).  The script presented descriptions of the trio, ranging from specific to vague. This was the most premeditated costume design, with a small costuming budget and a long back-and-forth process between myself and Anthony, the director. I did some visual research for my ideas for each character with photographs found online, which allowed us to speak with the same language when discussing ideas, which we had not before. We found that we don’t all use the same words for describing costuming. What comes to mind when I say “suit”? Does that just mean a tie with jacket? Is it a three-piece matching affair, or perhaps a jacket isn’t essential for the “suit” look? Sending off two pictures and saying “more like this one or the other?” helps us narrow down ideas and pick out essential elements.
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The Blood and Gore

Posted: 21st August 2009 by Jana Hutchison
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Guest Posts
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Jana Hutchison on the evolution of Night Zero’s makeup technique and quality

At our ever popular photo & makeup booths, I’m often asked, “Where did you learn to do this?” The short answer is always, “I’m a big Halloween dork.” The long answer is below.

I was always into theater and found myself the go-to girl for makeup effects as early as high school. I did basic aging back then with just trial and error. I took a stage makeup course as a theater major in college, which reinforced the basics of shadow and highlight that I’d already been doing, but didn’t get too much into special effects. I do love Halloween and look for any excuse to give myself a black eye or big goopy wound. Luckily I can do most of the effects on myself for experimentation. What I know now has come through home experimentation, lots of research and also doing a TON of zombie makeup. With the booths that we’ve done at Comicon, Crypticon, the Guinness record breaking Fremont Zombie Walk and the West Hollywood Zombie event, I can easily say that I’ve had the opportunity to do gore effects on hundreds of people in the last 6 months.
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Tales from the Past

Posted: 26th June 2009 by Forest Gibson
Categories: "Untitled", Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Guest Posts, On Location
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Forest Gibson on directing the “Untitled” vignette

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.
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