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Written, produced, edited, and directed by Jason Sheedy
This is the Dead Winter movie page. Stills, front cover art, and some notes and such. |
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DEAD WINTER (UNRATED: Graphic Violence/ Mild Language) A simple milkshake for him and his girlfriend evolves into the most hellaciously frightening two days for a young man named Dylan (Jimmy Vallarta) when he realizes the town he lives in has spontaneously become a host to the living dead. Forced to flee from his home, he searches for life, but finds only the corpses that crave his warm flesh around every corner. Dylan's journey finds him a group of kids that have also been in search of anyone still living. Together they must struggle to survive in a town full of zombies with their only exits blockaded by the military to contain the sickness. This new film features a much darker tone than Flirting With Disaster but keeps up with some minimal comedy, plenty of adventure, and some moments of sporadic terror. It is expected to be done sometime around November 2004. Cast List Jimmy Vallarta Allison Williams Andrew Behrens Danielle Prince Tim Gunier (principal cast, more will probably come later)
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Pre-Production
I actually built upon a script for a short film for this movie. The short film was to be a project for my art class, but I decided I wanted to make another "longer than 12 minutes" film over the summer. Andrew Behrens and myself discussed its possibilites in our Ceramics class up until the summer and Jimmy was ready to go as the lead sometime before then. We picked up everyone else pretty randomly, asking "wanna be in a movie" here and there. |
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Production Notes
Shooting began on June 7th, 2004, and wrapped up on August 27th, 2004. Scene 1 was shot first (really? neato!) at night on a road near my house. Frank Mata, (a lead from Flirting With Disaster) took on a much smaller role in this movie as a zombie who doesn't live past the first four minutes. His head, my car's trunk. Part of Scene 2 was shot the very next day where we got a girl named Megan to play Dylan's "going to die" girlfriend. We enjoyed some milkshakes that day and got to spend two or so hours in my bathroom doing the scene. Easily the most fun, and overall entertaining, day of production. After that we took break I think and shot again the following Monday. |
Make-Up Effects
Principal Effects Artist: Jason Sheedy Make-Up Effects Team: Jason Sheedy Jimmy Vallarta Danielle Prince Andrew Behrens |
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The Incredu-scene
Scene 8 in the script called for three days total, but one massive day. We needed 15 zombies for a Monday. It was Saturday, and I had two people with maybe's. Luckily, Jimmy and Allison Williams (She plays the lead girl Cale) opened the fridge of hope and on Monday we had exactly 15 people. Our make-up effects team completed 15 zombies in about an hour and a half. I think we started about ten that morning with make-up and we started shooting about eleven thirty or so, wrapping up around four. One thing's for sure, there was blood all over the place, and because we shot in my front yard, it was all over the lawn, trees, and our shed. Cleaning up has never been so awkard. The mailman was also quite confused. Ah yes, funny how such a hobbie (career? yes?!) can be so misunderstood. |
Special Needs
Special needs? What? Well, for certain instances in the script we needed "special needs". One scene actually called for the characters Dylan and Dominick to search a Subway. Luckily, I'm "tight" with my boss, oh by the way I work at a Subway, and he let us shoot after closing time one night. It wasn't a very big scene, but I was there until one or so cleaning blood off of the bathroom walls and off the floor. I'm thinking of doing a romantic comedy musical next, something that doesn't involve clean-up. My camera will thank me too. After that incredu-scene it had a translucent layer of sticky redness all over it. It has never been the same, both physically and emotionally. I think I need to go digital anyway, by the way I have a Hi8. |
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Genre-McTwist
I wanted this movie to be a comedy/horror. I'm actually quite glad it turned out more serious and really more of an adventure because I think it would seem to much like a Shaun of the Dead ripoff if it focused more on comedy. Whatever though, it don't matter dawg. I'm finding I can actually make things relatively spooky, or suprising. Shock value. That's good to have - you know those moments of silence and then ZEBRA! It has a lot of those. Zebra? I mainly used a lot of screams and just played with their speed, added reverb or boosts here and there, and some sharp orchestra hits which I compiled in a program called Fruity Loops. Genuine horror is not easy to concieve. It is but a boat drifting in an ocean of "Damn it, where's Grandpa with that canoe!" You know? No. Oh. Okay. |
Props/FX
I used a lot of food items in this movie. Honeydew melons for fake heads, Knox brand gelatine powder mix for zombie faces or cuts, or skin too, and so many other things. Raw meat tips and meat slices for guts or organs, baking materials for fake blood and blood gel. For one certain blood gel that looks great and sticks nice on faces or in cuts-get some red colored mini frosting tubes, the ones that have a very tomato red color and are essentially a gel, and mix it with chocolate milk powder in say, a dixie cup. Voila! I bought a fake arm to use in a scene where a kid gets his hand ripped off, and there were so many weapons (Axes, Garden shears, knives, garden hoe, garden hook, blank firing guns, scissors...) I had to buy two of each in many cases so one could be cut and utilized for impalement shots. Oh, yes, and let us not forget buying shirts to rip and cover in dirt and blood at the local thrift store. |
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Software
I'm using Adobe Premiere 6.0 to edit my film, and Pinnacle Studio to capture footage because something screwy with Premiere won't let me capture through analog. For music, I generate percussion, or synth sounds with a program called Fruity Loops, and I can record my guitar tracks in a program called Cakewalk. I make toast every now and then but I find eggos are more convenient in a timed sense, for you see, they can be microwaved. Breakfast? |
Post Production
I started editing this film in late July/Early August and am currently finishing it up. All I really need to do is add music. It's about fifty minutes long and has outtakes that are about twenty minutes long. There are no real composite effects or anything involving CGI, minus a lens flare, if you can really count that. I like to stick to the 80's style of "shoot what you can see" and only rely on the computer when I absolutely have too, which didn't really happen in this film, unlike Flirting With Disaster. That involved a lot of work with After Effects and some long nights. |
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Jason's Responsibilities For This Film
Director Editor Producer Writer Music/Soundtrack Actor (oh please, you call that acting?)
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Anyone getting the feeling that I'm running out of things to say? I mean, come on, "Jason's Responsibilities For This Film". Don't I mention that on the about page? I'm so hopelessly redundant, and yet, it is the might which has guided me to my strict knowledge concerning the collection of broken hearts I summarize as "headphones." Again with the awkard words? Please don't think ill of me. Just don't think of me at all. |
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DEAD WINTER Updates
Currently in post-production. Music needs to be added.
Music is complete. Encoding will begin within days, DVD authoring process underway.
DEAD WINTER is complete. I've started making copies and hopefully I can set up an official premiere.
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