Hey Z-Troop

So HOAW is in a film festival called Halloween in July that exhibits both features and short films of the most deranged kind. Here are the details:

30th of July in Nashville, TN
5:00pm (short films at 7) 2102 Belcourt Avenue

www.halloweeninjuly.com

If you’re anywhere near Nashville, check it out!

George

Tons of zombie action today! First things to film of course were some vital “story” elements in which we get to know the characters a little.

The zombie extras started to roll in around noon. We had leisure suit zombie, booty short zombie, the trio of giggling girl zombies and of course, the all important jaws zombie!

It was lots of fun and we had a real hollywood stunt man John Sampson come out and assist us with our action scenes. He was by far the most gung ho person I’ve ever met. It was good to have people like him around set and the energy level was through the roof! Every one is into making this little film the best it can be and it gives me bonafied tingles knowing that so many people out there support us! Great make up artists, actors, crew and technicians, and not to mention zombie and wedding guest extras!

George Somerwill

Hey!

It’s been fairly boring on the pre production front in terms of no huge leaps forward. This is why writing and production are the best parts of filmmaking! We are right now slowly chipping away at the beaurocracy behind making a no budget short film.

When I revealed my budget to the insurance guy hey said “you’re kidding me…you can’t possibly do a zombie film with stunts and effects”. I just quietly asked how painful the insurance was gonna hurt. Who needs insurance…

To use a public location there are a number of fees a production needs to pay. For example, its 80 bucks an hour to have a cop stand around and make sure nobody gets shot with a fake gun. There are other silly restrictions when filming on public property. No burning things. No killing living things. No Top Gun-esque shirtless volleyball scenes. We’re working on getting those fees waived.

Tomorrow we go about making a fake instrument for one of the sequences in the film. We’ll tape it and post it here soon. I’m warning you, it’ll be super budget! Laughable? We have yet to see.

Now, back to fighting The Man (i.e. the laws that keep us all safe at night but prevent obscure films from happening)!

George Somerwill