Cinematography for zombies

Short Film: Zombies are People Too

The Incident:

My good friend and director, Barri Chase, invited me to be cinematographer on her Short Zombie Comedy: Zombies Are People Too. This short film was one of many zombie films released as promotional materials for The Zombie Map App Kickstarter. Local filmmaker Roze united filmmakers all over the world who share his passion for zombies. You can see their awesome campaign here:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/945868094/zombie-map-app.

Field Report:

This zombie Comedy was no laughing matter from the camera team's perspective! Our director helped us see every opportunity for efficiency, coordinating up to three shooting sets simultaneously at times. Everyone on set worked together like clockwork. 
The camera team's prep meeting consisted of a photographer's dream: camera department prepped FIVE Canon DSLR's plus one Gopro for shooting. We joined minds during a roll call for camera bodies, lenses, support rigs/tripods/heads until we came up with the right allocation for our shooting needs. We all brought our picture style settings to a straight "neutral" setting. (Hopefully this made life easier for our editors: CJ Gilbreth and Michael Orlicki!)

We had River Demson operating two tripod-mounted cameras locked down in a set we used for the candid interviews. We had CJ Gilbreth  doing some ace operating from a shoulder-mounted rig throughout the interior of the historic home in Tempe, AZ. The wide areas covered by our zombie talent called for the use of a GlideCam, which meant that at times, I was in the front/back yard chasing zombie kids and neighbors around with the glide came. It was a blast! Ben Sanchez , Daniel Montoya, Irvin Uriarte and Troy Polverosa were the other superstars helping out camera department. I have had amazing experiences collaborating with Barri in the past, and this film made for a memorable experience as well. Much respect to Barri and the entire team for finding a unique angle from which to explore zombie lore. 

The evidence:

Readers of this humble blog post are in for a special treat: The first guest/featured artist: Sara Nevels of Talk Studios. In support of the Zombie Map App campaign, Sara visited several zombie short film sets including Barri's. On Set photography is one of the most beautiful forms of photography to me personally because it captures the beauty of filmmaking from a perspective most people don't have access to. Every person out there who has caught the filmmaking bug has experienced the camaraderie and the magic that goes into creating them. 
I have so much respect for Sara's craft as a photographer. Here are just a few shots she took on Barri's set to give you an idea what it was like putting this creation together. 

Check out these on set images courtesy of Sara Nevels 2014 Talk Studios. 
See more of her work here: http://www.talkstudiosphotography.com/

Photo Credit: Sara Nevels    2014 Talk Studios         http://www.talkstudiosphotography.com/