Archive for the ‘“Special Delivery”’ Category

Special Concept Delivery

Posted: 12th February 2010 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Special Delivery", Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Concepts & Development
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On the story concept for the “Special Delivery” vignette, and comparisons to past vignettes

Each vignette has its own origin story and purpose in the Night Zero world, and this newest is no exception. Jezebel was produced as a replacement for the untitled vignette (which was repeatedly postponed due to inclement weather), and its function was to tell a story of the night itself and how it changed the individual survivor’s world. The untitled vignette, in turn, was conceived and submitted by a fan writer, and was chosen for production as a means to introduce a zombie-centric story into our zombie-themed comic. Sisters was developed over many months as a full-scale endeavor and sought to broaden the relationship establishment and backstory of two known characters. The inception of “Special Delivery” was purely a matter of utility, and its purpose was to experiment with a brand-new production technique while throwing a different angle on the ‘messenger’ lore of the Night Zero world.
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From a Single Shot

Posted: 29th January 2010 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Special Delivery", On Location, Photography
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On shooting the “Special Delivery” vignette freehand, without the definitive ‘Night Zero’ HDR method

For the last two years, nothing has been more “Night Zero” than triple-exposure HDR, the very foundation that allows us to produce the surreal images that give Night Zero its unique look. With single-exposure shots, the low dynamic range lacks the information to calculate rendering such a look, and in the few instances where we’ve attempted to mix a single-exposure action shot with a page of multi-exposure HDR shots, the process is terribly time consuming and the result always muddy at best. High dynamic range means that the number of shades between the darkest black and the lightest light exceeds that which is physically visible at a single time, while low dynamic range has only a few shades between. From the same setup and procedure, a single exposure (after much fanangling) may be able to passably emulate part of the range of the HDR image, but the shadows will clip to black sooner and the highlights will blowout to white sooner, and the final image will be less colorful and more contrasting that its “true HDR” sibling. However, matching one single-exposure to dozens of HDR shots is different than shooting an entire story in single exposure.
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Delivering a New Kind of Night Zero

Posted: 22nd January 2010 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Special Delivery", Concepts & Development, Photography
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On the artistic and logistic factors that together created a unique approach for the “Special Delivery” vignette

Like “Jezebel”, this vignette is based on a very simple premise (ten words or less) and designed to be shot bare and plain. At the same time, while “Jezebel” was built around heavy dialogue and a confined space, “Special Delivery” was built around no dialogue and a very open space.

“Special Delivery” was, more than anything else, an experiment in which our hard-developed production techniques were upended: our tried-and-true methods were abandoned in the pursuit of something new, and there were two major factors (one logistic and one artistic) that prompted this decision.
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