Zombie Adventures

So my brother David, the co-creator of the Zooby News Team as well as such short films as Searching for Sasquatch and Uncovering Unicorns, is now co-directing and producing a full length film entitled Day/Night. The idea the movie explores is that one day zombies might actually become a reality. "So?" you might say, "Don't we already have Dawn of the Dead, Shawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, and so forth covering this topic?" Well, yes, but those movies mostly deal with the immediate reaction to a zombie uprising. This movie will deal with surviving for the long term. What happens after the people make it through the zombie swarms to the remote island? How do they survive? Day/Night answers all these questions and more. As always, I am my brother's biggest fan and his willing assistant/slave in this project for whatever he needs. So far that has included smothering my face in liquid latex to be a zombie (tearing off my eyebrows in the process), getting hit on the head with a shovel, driving car loads of people to kingdom come. Today my role was a little more adventurous.

My brother's idea is that in the event of a zombie invasion, people will hole up away from the places that were heavily populate deep in the woods/countryside. Not only do they get to hide away from the zombies, but this also means we don't have to try to build any elaborate sets or find abandoned apartments to film in. Today's scene was to be filmed at the entrance of a cave, the cave the survivors are living in, and I was going to be the Camera Girl. Unfortunately there was a cement blockade and a cop car blocking us from driving to the cave, and the stream that was fordable in late winter has now become a raging river. So my brother decided we would come at the cave entrance in a more... vertical fashion, by which I mean that we drove to a lookout directly over the cave mouth and attempted to climb down.

First let me say that I'm not the most athletic of girls, partly because I have asthma and mostly because I'm lazy. But in the name of art (or theater?) I'm willing to try anything. Unfortunately for me, that didn't change the fact that I was wearing Jelly Shoes, that the terrain consisted of both shale and loose dirt rather than convenient stairs or ladder rungs, that the wind was blowing about 70 mph, or that I have absolutely no sense of balance. So rather than skipping merrily down to the cave entrance, I stumbled and huffed my way yards behind my brother and his co-creator/cast member. Finally I caught up to them only to find that the ground had switched from the not-so-ideal loose ground to even worse sheer rock. As it turned out, we were no match for a rock face worn smooth by decades of running water. No problem, right? We turned around and headed due north.

This is where I became a hassle rather than a help. I'm pretty sure after today that if there were zombies, I'd be the first sacrificed to their clutches. But I digress. Once again I quickly fell behind the men, but this time it wasn't because the rocks in my jellies were cutting my toes, it was because the asthma was seizing and clutching my lungs. Or maybe it was because I'm way out of shape. At any rate, long before I reached the top I was convinced I would collapse and be left to join the mysterious skeletal remains I found mingling in the shale. But before I could give up for good, the cheerful calls of my brother pulled me on until I finally made it to the top.

For future reference I'll be glad to help in any way the cast and crew need, unless it involves hiking!

ADDENDUM: Since I'm vain and self important, I wanted to add this quote from another blog (wewatch.wordpress.com) about my participation in the aforementioned zombie movie:
"Susan too–a queen of unyielding support...." Hey, it's not much but it's all about me.