Getting into a Zombieland Mood

Mark Breakspear tells VFXWorld what it was like making a zombie flick.

By Bill Desowitz | Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 1:09 am

Posted In | Magazines: VFXWorld | Site Categories: CG, Films, Visual Effects

BD: That's quite a change of pace for you.

MB: Yeah, it's a fun romp around America heading towards this theme park, where they all seem to want to go. They've heard there are no zombies there, which couldn't be further from the truth. And this fantastic battle ensues in this theme park.

Wireframe Greyscale - The opening, which turned out to be a full CG environment of Washington, D.C, was re-worked and then re-roto'd because it was more complicated than originally envisioned. © 2009 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. all rights reserved. Images courtesy of CIS Vancouver.

Plate with Pan - The opening, which turned out to be a full CG environment of Washington, D.C, was re-worked and then re-roto'd because it was more complicated than originally envisioned. © 2009 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. all rights reserved. Images courtesy of CIS Vancouver.

Final Comp - The opening, which turned out to be a full CG environment of Washington, D.C, was re-worked and then re-roto'd because it was more complicated than originally envisioned. © 2009 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. all rights reserved. Images courtesy of CIS Vancouver.

BD: And talk about the opening shot.

MB: It's this introduction to Zombieland and it's a documentary-style guy just filming and describing how America has been destroyed and he's looking at the Presidential limo, which is upside down, and flags flying and you see the capitol building in the background and it's burning, and there's smoke and fire everywhere on the buildings and there's blood on the ground and you pull back a bit further and suddenly you hear this noise and it swish pans across and you see a zombie jump over the Presidential limo and almost down on top of [this guy with the camera]. He starts to run away -- it's all one shot about a minute long -- and the zombie finally catches up to him, pulls him down on the ground, tears him apart and eats him. So if you can make it through that…

BD: How did you pull that off?

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Filma me titra shqip (not verified) | Wed, 08/17/2011 - 16:16 | Permalink

It is about how almost everyone in the world has turned into vicious, man-eating zombies. And one of the plot gimmicks is a series of rules one of the survivors follows to avoid becoming "zombie chow."