Posts Tagged ‘jezebel’

Trapped!

Posted: 19th August 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Inertia", "Jezebel", "Midnight", "Sorority", Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Concepts & Development
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On the theme of zombie stories with characters ‘trapped’ together, how the common motifs of these stories draw parallels to our experiences, and how Night Zero tries to avoid rehashing while continuing to explore this topic.

One of our favorite things to do in Night Zero storytelling, it seems, is to trap some people in a room in the midst of the zombie apocalypse and watch their relationships develop or collapse. We had first considered a “trapped” scene as early as Marion’s flashback in Episode One when her boyfriend comes home wounded, but in that case (for pacing reasons) we decided to jump straight into the action. So, our first true “trapped” story was our first vignette, ‘Jezebel’, and in the following years, we visited variations on this theme with the ‘Midnight’, twice over in ‘Inertia’, and now again in ‘Sorority’… not to mention the handful of unproduced scripts and treatments in our back-catalog, all addressing a small group of survivors stuck together in a collapsing world.
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Lawful Evil, Chaotic Evil

Posted: 21st January 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Concepts & Development, Episode 5 - "Reversals", On Location
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On the exchange between Valentin and Jezebel, following the protest attack and Dariya’s death

The Valentin/Jezebel scene we recently came out of was not the first meeting of these two characters, as eagle-eyed readers know, but it is their first significant exchange even though it arrives so near the end of the serial. We always knew this scene was coming, but its tone changed significantly as we discovered more and more about the two.
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Scratcher Catchers

Posted: 11th December 2009 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Episode 3 - "House Calls", On Location
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On the anti-zombie truck, skullhunter costumes, and real fire that went into the “scratcher catchers” scene in Episode Three

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.

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Post Vignette, Ergo Propter Vignette

Posted: 27th November 2009 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Jezebel", Concepts & Development, Episode 3 - "House Calls"
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On Jezebel’s arrival in the serial story arc, and how she came to star in her own vignette a year prior

It is with great pleasure and a greater smile that I welcome Jezebel back to Night Zero. She’s one of my favorites in our post-apocalyptic world, both on and off the camera. Her origin story you already know, at least to some extent, but her origins as a character are just as engrossing.

It amuses me that, even though it was produced and aired nearly a year before this scene and takes place as a prequel to the serial story, the Jezebel vignette is actually a spinoff of from this very scene. What you’re seeing now, here with the truck at the docks, was the first (and at the time, only) scene written with her character. After floating around in Alexander’s brain for who-knows-how-long she arrived in the first released draft of Episode Three, delivered to the production team in early November ’08. She was immediately notable for her opening character description, which was a full paragraph instead of the usual line or two, and revealed a complex character as well as the basic aesthetic notes. Even though she wasn’t going to be seen for a year, her mannerisms, costumes, and motivations were already an engaging topic of conversation amongst the production team members.
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The End of an Act

Posted: 6th February 2009 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Jezebel", Behind-the-Scenes Photos, On Location
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On the quick turnaround of the Jezebel vignette, and how the vignette concept fits with the overall Night Zero production model

This is the last week to preorder Night Zero: Volume One, so if you’d like to have a beautiful, tangible copy of the first batch of Night Zero stories, don’t delay.  The Jezebel vignette ends on Monday with a double-page update, we hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse into the survival stories of some new characters. Maybe we’ll see them again later on (wink wink).

The original Night Zero concept did not follow a serial episode arc like we’re currently producing—the design was to have a variety of unique characters, each with their own stories and objectives, all living their lives independently from (but connected to) each other. Stories would be told, cycling between the characters, as they developed and intertwined over time. Our first script was designed and drafted in this vision, but before production began we revisited this approach and decided that, while an interesting story mechanic, it would be too scattered and difficult to follow in a webcomic format, and that characters would be forgotten before they returned, storylines dismissed before they had a chance to gain traction. At that point we shifted to the six-episode story arcs that we’re now producing, and that’s got us to where we are today.
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