I have an entirely new respect for the acting and movie-making biz. Three days on the set, mostly milling around in makeup with fellow zombie extras, was plenty enough for me. And I was surprised to learn that, on average, a 12-13 hour day of take after take after take after take produced THREE MINUTES of actual footage used in the final cut! And that’s a B-movie, where expectations are somewhat lower than the big Hollywood films! Actors and crew have MUCH patience, that’s for sure! (No wonder actors come across as rude or even go berserk sometimes! : )
Note: other than one German I met on the third day, there were no other foreigners involved with the making of this film. Just wonderful Kiwis, who welcomed me into the fold in very short order! In fact, it wasn’t long at all before a fellow zombie extra (Wendy) invited me to stay at her nearby home. Instant Kiwi family!
On Day 2, I was chosen to be a “Special Effects Zombie,” e.g. one whose slaughtering is filmed up close! (Not just the milling-around-in-the-background faceless sort who may not even make the final cut.) And not just any old special effects zombie (like getting shot (boring)) – I’m to be taken out with the ultimate in special effects – HAVE MY HEAD SLICED OPEN WITH A MACHETE! WHOO HOO!!!!! The two uber-cool make-up artists (one being Julie – the one who I serendipitously connected with while dancing the previous Saturday night in Dunedin) spent close to TWO HOURS fixing the machete to my face and decorating it with blood and guts – the end result was apparently awesome, because EVERYONE on set was admiring and taking photos of Machete Van. Instant movie star! (Although, I give all the credit to the makeup artists.) Even the stars of the film were admiring and taking photos of me. I had to be guided around by hand by the makeup artists, as the machete through my left eye limited my vision tremendously (I don’t see very well out of my right eye – very blurry, and the machete limited the angle of vision to about 75 degrees). Besides, if the machete whacked against anything, it would start to pull away from my face, and back to the make-up drawing board! And there were LOADS of things on which to trip.
So, with all eyes of cast, crew, and cameras on me (acting solo – I was a little nervous!), I acted out the part of the typical old-school zombie who’s just been whacked in the face with a machete. Aaaaaaaand, action! “AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHH”! [Fall backward.] It took about twenty minutes – not bad (the scene will probably be about 3-4 seconds in length). Then, the make-up artists guided me to a place in the back of the barn and I was instructed to lie down on a mattress (to protect the machete special effects from gravity) because I was to be in another scene to be filmed later in the day. I proceeded to lie down and stayed in that position for FIVE HOURS (with one quick trip to the loo)! Had a few catnaps, listened to the filming going on in the background, had more photos taken of me – the usual. Turned out there was not enough time to film the next scene (it was 8pm at this time), so all those special effects preservation efforts weren’t necessary. No worries – I was having a blast just being a part of the film! But as I was hand-led out of the barn, the director opened up a big cheer and applause for “Machete Vanessa!” Several cast and crew approached me with kudos for how patient and high spirited I was for bearing a machete in my head for so many hours (Blush!).
Day 3: Back to the drawing board. This time, 45-minute make-up job, as they were running out of wax and this is a low budget film and I was just going to be in the background anyway. SIX MORE HOURS of machete-head existence – at least I could stand up and move around this time. It took at least three hours on the set, doing the same actions over and over and over and over and over and over and OVER) to film about 1 minute of footage. Look for Machete Van feeling up hot male star Mike’s huge, sexy bicep in that scene. :) :) :)
I spent another laughter-filled evening with Wendy and her mum, Sharon, at their home in the nearby town of Waikouaiti. (Sharon was also a zombie extra, having acted several days the previous week.) The next morning, Sharon and I and awesome horses General and Girlie went for a ride on the beach! I absolutely love my new Kiwi family – the whole UNDEAD lot of them!
P.S. I cannot post photos, as this movie-making stuff is all top-secret and we have signed paperwork swearing we will not post this stuff on social networking sites. However, the name of the film is "I Survived a Zombie Holocaust" - try this link for some photos http://www.facebook.com/isazh?sk=photos What's also really cool is the film location is at an old lunatic asylum in a village with a spooky-horror-film-like name of Seacliff. More info about the film, like articles and such, can be found on Google by using keywords such as Dunedin zombie film and the movie title. The movie will be out in theatres (in NZ - maybe U.S.! What am I saying, of COURSE it will be in U.S. theatres, with a superstar like me in it! ;) ) and on DVD in a year or so - you better believe we'll have a copy at our home in Rockland, Maine, if you ever wanna check it out!
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