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Your upcoming film The Undead - in a few words, what's it
going to be about?
It's going to be about life during a post nuclear accident, think
Chernobyl. Where people need to adjust to their new lives - which consists
of radioactive material floating through the air and zombies! With The Undead being a zombie
movie, is that a genre you can at all relate to, and what will set your film
apart from the usual genre fare? Ironically I'm not a huge
zombie fan but I do like Night
of the Living Dead. What will separate
this from most zombie films is the unique story line and character
development.
concept art by
Dan Brownlie |
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Suzi Lorraine |
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Ashleigh Lawrence |
Your inspirations when
writing The Undead? Night
of the Living Dead, The
Walking Dead. What got the project off the
ground, what made you decide to produce it? The project
somehow came to me, it was jut one of those things that took off. It's
hard to explain, when things seemed like they were falling apart in my
life they were actually falling into place. Your
director Dan Brownlie [Dan Brownlie
interview - click here] - why him, what will he bring to the table? I
chose Dan because he has worked with Suzi Lorraine [Suzi
Lorraine interview - click here] before and I fell in
love with Three's a Shroud. He brings professionalism and name recognition
to the film, especially in the UK as he works for Loaded TV. Being
in charge of both script and production, how much creative control are you
planning to keep/give up during the actual shoot? Depends -
I
trust Dan and other collaborators, we're all like-minded individuals so
we're going to make the best film possible. Zombie
movies demand quite a bit of gore almost by definition - so how far do you
plan to go in this department? We'll leave that up to our
make up and VFX department, we're currently attaching some well known
names in that field so stay tuned.
Kaylee Williams |
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Anthony Del Negro |
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Jessica Mazo |
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concept art by
Dan Brownlie |
Anything you can tell us
about your projected cast yet, and why exactly these people? It's
all about chemistry, people who have worked with each other before. Suzi
Lorraine [Suzi
Lorraine interview - click here] because she has come highly recommended from Dan Brownlie and her
voice is identical to my cousin Pam, so every time I speak with her it
feels like I've known her my entire life. Kaylee Williams is a grinder,
that girl can act! Jessica Mazo is a perfect fit for her character being
from New York and being Italian. My distant cousin Anthony Del Negro is a
very talented actor who has just completed a high profile project, he also
works well with Kaylee. Victoria Broom is a very talented British actress
who has also worked with Dan and Suzi on Three's a Shroud, her character
Dr. Victoria Good is probably going to steal the show. Then there is
Ashleigh Lawrence, I can't say enough about her, I fell in love with this
girl the first time we met on Skype. Not love as in wanting to marry her
or anything like that, but from the first minute I met her I said to
myself. "This girl is going to be in my film and I need to steal her
before a big studio or agency casts her in something big." It's
ironic at first I did not think even want to interview her, Dan told me to
contact her because he had just finished Serial Kaller with her. However
she killed her audition and there is a good story behind that, she
originally auditioned for Sara, so I turned her down, she was disappointed
but professional. However then I told her that the reason she was being
turned down for Sara was because I thought she would do better as Tiffany
and she lit up! Kaylee Williams was originally cast as Tiffany but after
Anthony came on I wanted the chemistry between Kaylee and Anthony without
recreating Tiffany. Therefore I gave custom written characters to both
Anthony and Kaylee which they're going to knock out of the park! In
my opinion, the effectiveness of zombie movies more often than not also
depends on the right locations - so
what can you tell us about yours? We're shooting in
Massachusetts so right off the bat we have the tax incentives to our favor
:) $$$ We're also shooting during the New England Fall Foliage, so we're
going to capture some great scenery shots, there is no place more
beautiful than New England in the mid-to-late fall.
So what's the
schedule, when will the film go into production, and any idea when it'll
be out yet? Right now we're slated for mid to late October,
we're planning on an early 2014 release, but we're going to do it right. We're
not going to rush through post to just spit out a movie. Our primary
intention is to win awards at festivals and have it sold to a major
distributor.
What got you into the filmworld to begin
with, and did you receive any formal training on the subject?
concept art by
Dan Brownlie |
I've
always been a natural entertainer so to say, in terms of formal training
with writing I have an MBA so I've been writing over 20 years, lol. I also
attended a couple seminars in LA at The Great American Pitch Fest. I have
placed highly in The Nicholl Fellowship, which is conducted by The Academy
Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. I have several friends who have written
produced scripts who have read my work and let me read theirs provided
feed back to each other. I also bought a book called the Screenwriter's
Bible which I use as a guide if I get lost. In terms of acting I was
Meisner and Stanislavski trained in high school, but got a traditional
degree in college. I'm currently taking acting courses at CP Casting in
Boston, their resume speaks for itself as they have cast for films like Mystic
River, Good Will Hunting, Shutter Island, The Town and
RIPD to
name a few. What
can you tell us about your filmwork apart from The Undead - and any
future projects you'd like to share? There are a couple of
other projects in the works but nothing compared to the hype we're
receiving for The Undead. Writers,
filmmakers, whatever else who inspire you? Writers Francis
Ford Coppola, filmmakers Steven Spielberg, and I inspire myself to always
be better tomorrow from what I am today. Your
favourite movies?
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Feeling lucky?
Want to
search
any of my partnershops yourself
for more, better results?
(commissions earned) |
The links below
will take you
just there!!!
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Star Wars, Jaws, Saving Private Ryan,
Indiana Jones, All Quiet on the Western Front, Stalag
17, Casablanca,
Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Silver Linings Playbook, Halloween,
Friday
the 13th, Nightmare on Elm
Street. ... and of course, films you really
deplore? None, I wish everyone the best of luck as fellow
filmmakers. Your/your movie's website, Facebook, whatever
else? https://www.facebook.com/THEUNDEADTHEMOVIE
is our Facebook fan page. In terms of our website, our IT guy Richard Ducat
has just been engaged so we're giving him some R & R for now, but
he'll show up on game day when we need him. Congratulations Rich! Anything else you are dying to mention and I have
merely forgotten to ask? Please join our Facebook page for
more details: https://www.facebook.com/THEUNDEADTHEMOVIE. Thanks for the interview! Thank
you for having me, it's been a great pleasure.
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amazon.com
amazon.co.uk
amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
find Mark Anthony Del Negro at adultvideouniverse.com
