Platoon of the Dead Production Diary - September 1 & 5, 2007

Platoon of the Dead Production Diary - September 1, 2007
John liked the Platoon of the Dead concept that was my favorite as well. Used my webcam to grab a shot of myself making a zombie face, then pulled that into Photoshop, overlaid a skull on half my face and made myself up as a zombie. Used that behind the main logo and sent it off to John. He dug it, as did the producer, which was way cool to hear.

The house visit didn't happen as Marie and Joe were heading out of town that afternoon. Plan to try again in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I'm going to e-mail John a rough layout of the house so he can use that and the photos for reference when he works on his rewrite.

Had dinner with Rob the other night and he'd decided that he couldn't do the movie project as it was currently scheduled. Too close to his finishing up two weeks of play production plus a Disneyland trip, catching up at work and being out of vacation. He said that if the shoot could be moved out even just two weeks he could probably do a weekend of effects work (he'd still be out of vacation days). John had previously said that's the only time he had to shoot it, but I wasn't sure what the reason was. I e-mailed John and told him what Rob had said, adding that I could probably change my vacation at this point. John called me and said that he could probably push the shoot out two weeks. The key was finding out if Tom Stedham had bought his plane tickets yet. If he hadn't, or could change his dates without too much hassle, the plan would work. Otherwise John would be faced with finding another effects person. He'd talked about us trying to do it ourselves but my concern is not only the quality but having the time to do make-up on top of all the other stuff we'll need to be doing.

I've e-mailed Tom about it.


Platoon of the Dead Production Diary - September 5, 2007
Tom Stedham e-mailed back and said that the new dates were fine. Then my wife asked me what the new shooting schedule was. Turns out it was scheduled right over days my son has off from school and parent/teacher conferences. Changing the schedule again in less than 24 hours might make John, Rob and Tom mad at me, but I don't have to live with them! So I talked to Rob and called John and called Tom and luckily everyone was able to make it work for the week in between the original shooting schedule and the first revised shooting schedule. As long as the house is available then, we're good to go. So now we are looking at shooting October 27 - November 4. Halloween is smack dab in the middle, so we'll need to take that night off to take our kids trick or treating, but can shoot during the day. I'll also miss my sister's birthday, but will just have to have a belated celebration for her.

Rob skimmed through the script the other night when he was over, looking for effects he needed to do. He seemed to get excited about the project, despite the busy schedule he has leading up to it.


We got an Oriental Trading Company catalog in the mail the other day and my wife pointed out a "bag of bones" that looked pretty realistic and was only about $30. I suggested it to John for the "pile of bones" outside of the house in the script. He said he'd take a look when he was in town next week. Hoping to check out the house that night, but waiting to get an OK from Joe and Marie.

John is working on the script revisions and hopes to have them done by the end of the week.