Zombie FPS: Director's Notes

The zombie apocalypse as seen from the first-person perspective of the undead.  Watch what a zombie sees as it rises from the dead and chases the living throughout the city.

Director's Notes:  Fear and Memories

FEAR

You have to plan your route!

We were prepping to film at our second location when the conversation somehow started.  I was laying out the equipment, checking battery charges, going over the shot and cast list - essentially covering up my nervousness by looking busy - when one of the crew and I made eye contact.  I think she said (knowing that her part was coming up) that she was kind of scared, to which I admitted that I was nervous, too.  That caught her by surprise, and she asked, "why are you nervous?!"

I'm finding that the type of fear I deal with when I film movies never really goes away.  Instead, fear for me is a test to see how badly I want something. 

I'm always afraid that I'm going to fail somehow, that a movie isn't going to turn out, that we're not going to get the footage, that I'm not going to be the creditable director and leader I need to be, that maybe this whole idea is stupid, that people aren't going to show up, any everything else that runs through my mind. 

But I just have to ignore what I can't control, and lie to myself that it's going to work.  And amazingly, it always has, somehow.

As for the remaining fear - like when an ensemble of people are looking at you like you know what you're doing, even though this is your first time doing this kind movie, and this is the first time you've met half these people - well, that's when you have to decide how badly you want this to happen.

And your actors' blocking.

Yet, there's something else at stake in those moments.  Take Zombie FPS:  I had 11 actors, which might be the most amount of people I've ever directed at one time.  I'd only ever filmed with 4 of them before.  5 of them I had never met until the day of filming.  3 of them were minors.  These 11 friends and strangers all gave up their Saturday for me, for the chance to be part of some dude's silly, unpaid project.  I've never truly understood why, and it's amazed me that people will jump on that bandwagon.  Honestly, I don't know if a friend of mine came up and said, "Hey, this guy you don't know is making a movie this weekend.  Do you want to come with and be in it?" if I'd do it.  I can think of plenty else I could do with a Saturday off.

So, these people are giving me their day off for free, and on faith, that I - little ol' silly me - won't let them down.  At points like that, fear doesn't matter anymore.  You just do it, and as you pick up momentum, the magic happens and things get done.

The same goes with editing the film.  When it's just down to you and the computer screen, it's easy to get lazy.  Or worse, overwhelmed and burnt out.  For me, the weight of not wanting to let everyone down is one of the many things that keeps me going, because, until I finish the movie, I have nothing to show them, which means they have nothing to show their family and friends.   

I don't know how anyone can do this much
location scouting without Google Maps

And this movie, in particular, was a nightmare to edit.  When I finish my first cut of a movie, where all the shots are lined up correctly, and its timed to the pace that the final product will be, I've hit the halfway mark.  With Zombie FPS, I hit that mark after 3 weeks of editing.  I had only 1 week to do the second half of the work.  To pull it off before Halloween, I just didn't sleep.  That last week I only got in 14 hours of sleep.  One night in particular I only got 45 minutes of shut-eye!

But I got it done, and it was totally worth it.

MEMORIES

My brother, who was kind enough to loan me his GoPro so that we could shoot this movie, text me two weeks after the movie came out.  In so many words he said, "Loved the movie.  I have some critiques and some questions.  First off, did you warn people or were you just running through unsuspecting bystanders?"

How to mount a GoPro to your head.

We didn't warn anyone.  I figured that we'd be zipping by so fast, that by the time someone would object, we'd be gone.  With how tight our timetable was, there wouldn't be a second take either.  Almost all the footage you see in the movie is the only take we shot.

Also, even though I played the main zombie,  I wasn't really dressed up, because outside of my arms and legs, I'm never on camera.  I was a dude in scrubs; wearing a GoPro hanging in front of my face, suspended from a headband going across my forehead; with a baseball cap to help hold it all in place.  I wasn't scary at all, and I didn't look like a zombie.  I looked like an idiot.

We also didn't make a lot of noise, really.  All the sound was dubbed in afterwards.  The GoPro mounting case muffled all the sound.  The only real audio is the people talking at the very beginning, and a few things said when they're standing over the zombie at the end.  Everything else was done in a recording session in my living room a week later.  That was fun, yet really kind of awkward, to be chilling on a couch or standing in front of everyone and shouting frantic exclamations in time with the video playing on the TV.

Freeze-frame of a Zombie beating at the glass.

The craziest thing I did during filming wasn't jumping into a public fountain, or attacking a guy in an elevator who I had met for the first time less than an hour beforehand - but falling out of the back of a moving vehicle on purpose.  Originally, I was going to have the zombie get hit by a car, but strangely, this was the safer idea.  However, Derick, who was to drive the car, was hyper-worried about my well being.  I put two extra layers of clothes on, along with a knee and elbow brace on my right side to help absorb the impact.   We fought over the car's top speed, and did a test run/drag beforehand.  I think we settled on something around 15 mph.

I didn't think it would be that big of a deal.  I honestly thought we could go faster.  I mean, I was going to hit the ground and roll anyways.

Nope.  That only happens in the movies, I guess.  I let go of the tailgate and hit the ground like silly putty.  It didn't hurt in the moment, but by the time I got home my whole body was stiff, and my right side hurt for two days.

Our First Attempt at making blood splatters.  It worked out pretty well!

But I survived.  And speaking of surviving, DJ was stupid excited to play the dude with the baseball bat.  As he put it, he got to be the first black guy ever to survive in a horror film.  That's pretty funny; I'm glad we could make that happen for him.