Dawn Of The Dead Page #2

- The cop car got loose and almost hit us.

We were following...

l was laying down in the back seat.

- Tell them how you did the rig.

- lt's a thing called the R1 ...

- Oh, here comes the helicopter.

- Yeah, the WGON...

This is the helicopter

from the original movie,

but it's computer rendered.

l was driving this van. And it was just...

We actually had to wrap at that point.

That was a Friday and...

- l was fine.

- ..we'd get what we needed on Monday.

But the R1 is mounted to

the back of the car and it's like an arm...

The car is actually driving. lt's here again.

And it allows us to follow her

wherever we go.

Now here's the naked woman

and thanks to Debbie Johnson,

that shot is in this cut cos she loved it.

We came up with this on a location scout.

- We had a huge traffic jam.

- Giant. Expensive.

But they told me, ''No. No traffic jam.

One bus, how's that?''

l was like, ''OK.'' Some of

the restrictions of filmmaking. Ouch.

We had to plant that tree.

That tree wasn't there.

So we put it in the ground.

l was just thinking,

the movie comes out tomorrow

and it's odd doing this now.

Either you got this DVD cos you bought it

or it was given away.

lt depends on what happens this weekend.

- We're talking about our movie and...

- ''Listen to them. Like it's great.''

This guy is awesome.

He was the first zombie we shot,

the guy on the gurney.

And he sort of set the bar a little bit.

- He was great.

- He's still one of the best zombies.

This sequence here, which Kyle Cooper

did an outstanding job on,

and l have to give Zack so much credit

for the musical choices,

cos this is one of a number of songs

that very early on he said,

''We gotta use this.''

There's the Jim Carroll song at the end,

the Richard Cheese version

of Down With The Sickness,

this Johnny Cash, The Man Comes Around,

were all Zack choices.

lt wasn't like we had a giant list

we chose from,

it was, ''We should just use this here.''

lt was almost like temp music

that all ended up in the movie.

This sequence was so important

because it really sells

the collapse of our society.

And all the information

that our characters were going to get

about the state of the world was gonna

come through this and the TV stuff later.

lt was important to me to not know

exactly where the zombie plague started.

Yeah.

Here's my cameo - l'm there to the left

with a machine gun.

That's my friend Kurt on the other side.

And there's blood, which clearly is a theme.

- There's a fair amount of blood.

- A little bit.

James Gunn, rock star.

George Romero, another rock star.

And this was the embedded reporter,

which we loved.

That's lstanbul. Not the Turkish capital.

No, which we referred to in our ignorance.

Not in this version - we cut that out.

''l'm in the Turkish capital,''

and it says lstanbul.

We're like, ''That was a mistake.''

Good geography.

A couple of people don't appear in

the credits that we're very grateful to.

One of them is Dylan Clark from Universal.

And Scott Stuber from Universal.

Scott Frank and Michael Tolkin,

who worked on the script,

- did a great job.

- Really great.

There were a lot of people,

and we'll mention more of them,

we were very lucky

with pretty much every level.

- Yeah, and Stacey.

- Stacey Snider, of course.

The folks at Universal instantly got

what this movie was

and l don't imagine

that there was another studio

that would let us make this movie

the way that it was made.

- Very incompetently.

- Yeah.

Most people would have paid attention and

sent somebody up to Canada to fire me,

and do a shot list for Zack every day -

''Here's what you get.''

l love that shot.

lt helps you to see,

that's sad to see that playground.

That's kind of scary.

- Or funny.

- Yeah. lt could be hilarious.

This was one of the first days with Ving.

lt's morning, we were shooting in this tunnel,

which is actually quite close to the mall.

Not as close as it appears in the movie,

but just down the street.

There's a fake mall coming up.

- There's Mekhi...

- Fake as in CG.

..Jake and lnna -

we were really lucky with our cast.

- Yeah, great.

- Really lucky.

Look at 'em. They believe it.

Ving's pissed there. ''Why are you

shooting at me? What are you doing?''

Ving is cool.

And Ving - it never happens -

Ving came after us and was like,

''l wanna be in that movie.''

And l don't think we thought

we could get him.

Then suddenly he was like, ''l wanna be

in this movie cos the black guy lives.''

- Which is awesome.

- Awesome.

l'm into that.

- Jake Weber.

- Look at Jake, he believes it.

- ''l'm going to the mall.''

- He believes it.

Guess where he's going?

- Good.

- That's awesome.

- He's seen some atrocities.

- That sequence going to the mall,

we weren't gonna have that in.

l thought that could be

a trailer moment or something,

then we put it in.

l thought it was

too on the nose on the day,

''We're going to the mall,''

it sounds cheeseball.

lt actually gets a laugh,

like, the right kind of laugh.

Exactly correct. lt's awesome.

There's your mall.

ln some of the earlier versions

- Eric said, ''Shrek's gonna come out.''

- The Shrek mall.

- lt was awesome.

- We got a lot of Shrek stuff.

- This sequence is not in the movie.

- ln the theatrical version.

And this guy actually was

missing that arm in real life.

And he's getting shot there

and doesn't really care.

- There's the MTV guy behind him, lan...

- He comes at the last second.

- He's right behind him.

- ln the leather vest.

- Here's this guy...

- He's the last guy you see.

- Gnash your teeth!

- Boom. There he is, oh.

- The teeth gnash is gone.

- No, we cut that out.

He gnashed his teeth in this crazy way.

lt was too much.

At some point we just had them,

here they were.

Remember we picked them up here,

and then for the theatrical

we kept whittling it away.

- Till they just smash a toilet.

- Which is great.

Scott Stuber asked me,

''What is your obsession with toilets?

''You've got these toilet shots -

a close-up of the toilet,

- ''it falls in slow motion...''

- Slo-mo toilet.

l don't know. l never realised

how obsessed l was with toilets until...

l think your next movie should be

basically a toilet story, a drama about...

lt'd be cool. But you don't want to be

POV the toilet.

- Toilet POV? No.

- That's something you don't want.

- A small minority does but...

- Guys get arrested for that.

They'll put a camera in the toilet.

Freak show.

- There's the toilet.

- There it is.

There it comes again. Close-up.

- That may have been the toilet's double.

- l love it.

There's our mall.

Andrew Neskoromny built this mall.

We took over -

only Hollywood people would do this -

we took over a mall

and built a mall inside of it.

That's true, we took a mall

and we redid the mall. Great.

There's a Wooley's Diner.

Yeah, Wooley from

the Pittsburgh Police Department.

- Gets chomped by a zombie.

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