Re: WE NEED YOUR HELP!! - Diary of the Dead DVD contest entry!

Wow, Tim. I'm really flattered that you liked the film! We put a lot of work into it in the short amount of time we had to make it.

Here's some information about it:

About the contest: You enter a 3 minute film. People vote on it. Top 10 films make it to the next round. In addition, the Weinstein Company and MySpace.com pick another 10 films based on artistic and creative merit.

These 20 films will be screened for George Romero and he picks the top 5. The top 5 make it on the DVD release of Mr. Romero's new film, Diary of the Dead. In addition, George Romero will pick his favorite film, and the winner will get set memorabilia and other prizes.


Our story:

When I heard about the contest, I called up my filmmaking partners Dave(actor,writer,producer) and Doug(writer,producer) and said, "Hey, let's enter. What's the worst that can happen? We spend a weekend shooting and people get to see our work and possibly check out our other work. It would be stupid of us not to enter."

So we entered.

All three of us wrote three different scripts. We picked the one we thought would be best for the competition and tweaked it a bit so that it would be even better for the competition. Basically the script was written and tweaked in not even a day.

Now it's Friday, Feb 22, 2008. We had planned to shoot during weekend but we got a nice blast of snow from a storm the previous night. Dave (the lead actor, writer, and co-producer) calls me up and asks if we still should make the flick. "What are we going to do about all this snow?"

Trying to convince him that it is still worth it, I say energetically, "We can use it to our advantage. Have you seen a zombie movie in the snow? I haven't. It'll be different."

He gets excited but I can tell there's still a hint of, "This is going to be a pain," or, "I'm still not so sure we should do this," in his voice... but he still agrees.

It's Saturday, Feb. 23rd, 2008. We went out with our trusty DVX. All the in-door stuff was shot on that Saturday. It's basically the majority of the second half of the film.

Saturday night, Dave gets a call. His sister is going into labor just as we're finishing up. After dinner, Dave and Dawn head out to see his sister.

Dave gets home at 6am or so. He planned to come back out at around 10am. Didn't happen. He tries to get 2 hours of sleep, but ends up sleeping until 12 or so.

Dave calls me when he wakes up and tells me the story, gets back out here at 2:30pm or so with Doug, and we head to the location - the park.

We meet the zombie extra there - Michael Zone (great guy). We do makeup on Michael as we wait til "Magic Hour", shoot all our outdoor stuff in maybe 1-1.5 hours and pack up to go home.

I edit, do special fx until Tuesday.

Tuesday, Dave comes out for ADR and to help with tightening up the film for it's entry into the contest (add music, sound fx, etc). We work from 6pm-3am, tightening up the film. It's finally done. I drive Dave home (Long Island to NYC - about 45 minutes).

It's about 4:30am when I get home. I sleep. When I wake up, I put the finishing touches on the fx, color grading, and editing. Finally, I render out the beast and send it in.

Mission Complete.

It was one hell of a ride and so much fun!

All shot on a DVX with natural light outside and Photofloods and practicals inside.

Definitely a fun experience!

We will be releasing a "Making Of.../Behind the Scenes" in the VERY NEAR future and I will be sure to post a link to it when it's up!


Thanks so much!





Paul Del Vecchio - Director
www.triple-e-productions.net