Dawn Of The Dead

l'm Zack Snyder, the director.

l'm Eric Newman, one of

the one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,

eight producers it took

to bring this film to the screen.

And here comes the Strike logo,

which l love.

l'm actually very proud of it.

Originally we had this idea to go

from the Universal globe...

- To the sun.

- Zack was really proud of it

and then l said we had to have

the Strike logo after the Universal logo.

- That was great.

- lt worked well.

Really great.

There's Sarah Polley, our first choice.

l don't know who that guy is but he's great.

He sells this kind of doctor vibe that l love.

This was the first day of shooting, wasn't it?

The first day we shot

the first scene, very rare.

l'd never directed a movie before and said,

''lt's the beginning of the movie

''so we should shoot the first scene, right?''

They said, ''Normally you shoot

the last death scene first.''

There were so many things we didn't know.

- lt worked out, though.

- lt did.

Sarah liked it cos that's the indie method,

you can shoot it in sequence

and it's more naturalistic.

The actors can experience

the movie as it goes.

And she's into gentle indoor lighting.

- She didn't know she'd be running so much.

- l know.

That Dr Dandewar is a reference to

Tarsin Dandewar, a friend of mine.

- People don't know his last name, do they?

- No. But now they do.

Sorry about that, brother.

Originally in the script we started

the movie later, we started it...

- ln her house.

- Sh*t goes crazy.

We added this stuff,

particularly this scene, just to sort of milk it.

l like that people think that that guy

on the gurney was the first case.

People say, ''That was the first case!''

l'll be like, ''Clearly that's not.''

Unless they could report it

on the radio five minutes later.

- lt started in Everett, Wisconsin.

- Great.

- Mythical, by the way.

- There is no Everett, Wisconsin.

My father said, ''Everett, Washington,''

and l was like, ''No, Wisconsin.''

He goes, ''ls there an Everett, Wisconsin?''

and l am like, ''lt's near Milwaukee, clearly.''

Notice those houses, you can't get

into them there. There's no driveways.

- The helicopter couldn't get low enough.

- We couldn't get that third giant size

cos we thought we would do

a closer size being lower,

so the huge giant shot we had to redo,

so there's no driveways

to the bottom row of houses.

- Not really a f***-up, but it's fun.

- lt worked.

- lt is a f***-up but l love it.

- A good f***-up.

Hannah Lochner, destined to be

a giant star in Japan.

Much of the Japanese marketing is

around her, which is cool.

They love the idea of that little blonde girl

who will rip your throat out.

Yeah. And people think she's their daughter,

which l love.

- l like that too.

- And she skated away.

She lives in the guest house.

That's Old Milwaukee but it's not.

lt's fake beer.

l don't think a single company,

with the exception of Panasonic and Roots -

my assistant Meg Davies somehow got

them to agree to appear in the movie -

but we got no help from any sponsors.

People were like, ''Do we wanna have blood

sprayed all over our thing?''

- They ran away. Everyone passed.

- That was fun.

Even companies that were going

out of business passed.

Here's a shower scene.

They gave me the hardest time -

''Nobody kisses in the shower.''

- A Zack Snyder commercial.

- l directed that for Subaru.

That was a WR.

And then they miss the bulletin.

And now it's tomorrow.

This is all fun here.

Yeah, this is great.

We shot this all pretty early.

Yeah, this is like day three or four.

Right? Something like that.

There's probably some second unit stuff

mixed in from later

but pretty much up until a point

well into the movie,

- we shot everything chronologically.

- Yeah.

lt was cool to do that.

Here comes Vivian. She's mad.

And people think that's their kid.

- There's good old Justin waking up.

- Yeah, he was cool.

We shot this all in the back of the mall.

There was an abandoned department store

and we built this set inside the mall.

So we were actually inside

a department store where we built this set.

That's David Anderson make-up work.

Watch this stretchy bit.

l love this stretchy bit.

Right there, that's all good.

l also like the arterial pump,

that was just great.

This is a bad morning for her, clearly.

That was the eyes

that were done by Mr. later.

And everybody loves that jump up,

she was on a wire,

where she jumped up there.

- People do like that.

- lt's subtle.

She's banging to get in.

Now here comes a good...

Basically what she's doing is

reaching for the artery.

Damon Caro, who was

the zombie movement coordinator,

was saying, ''With that injury you'd reach in

and try and pinch the artery off.''

But she couldn't, that's why she's upset.

And then clearly here he squirts the last...

That's too bad.

And Sarah sold it so well.

We met with her up in Toronto.

We didn't think we'd get her

and she was the first person we wanted,

the person we wanted most, top of our list.

For some reason, some lapse

in judgement on her part, she was...

This is one of my favourite bits,

crashing into the tub.

- Yeah. People love this.

- Ow!

- ''How'd you do that?''

- A stuntwoman did it in one take.

Crashed into the tub.

And she goes, ''What do you think?''

And l go, ''What do l think?

You're a rock star.

''What do l think''? Who cares that much?

lt's great. l really like that.

This is where Sarah discovered

how physical this job would be.

Yeah, here. She actually...

When she ran to the car,

l made her run three times.

And she said, ''l've never run in a movie,

an entire film,

''as much as l just ran

in those last three takes.''

l said, ''Get used to that,

cos this is the easy day.''

That's it. Yeah.

- That's a little Mr. .

- There's a little... ''Here's Johnny.''

Didn't want to rip it off too much.

Another stuntwoman. Different one.

lf you know Sarah, you'd know

she shouldn't land on her back like that.

No.

Here's the friendly neighbour.

When did this get into the script?

We had talked about

all these different ways of revealing...

bad stuff.

That was a match cut.

You can go through that slowly and see...

lt's at the point of impact

where the dummy takes over.

lt's nice. He's still moving to the last second.

We had all these ideas -

a helicopter machine-gunning a family

and car crashes, a bunch of great stuff.

lt was really important to sell some chaos.

Something as absurd as an ambulance

running a guy over is awesome.

That told the story in one moment.

l love it when he peels off.

That's gold. Everybody says,

''l love when he peels off for the neighbour.''

That tells you what kind of a movie you're in.

You know now what you're in for.

- Yeah, what you're in for.

- You're like, ''OK.''

There's a guy crawling

in the background, l love that.

You saw it in the other angle,

he was crawling on the ground.

- That was almost an accident.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes