User:Deadmoonmovie

      DEAD MOON RISING is a zombie romantic comedy set & shot entirely in downtown Louisville Kentucky. It features an ensemble cast of sympathetic, strong characters, hundreds of zombie extras, and gallons of blood & guts. It puts a slightly comedic spin on the genre, while keeping the threat believable.

"This zombie gut-muncher promises to be much more thoughtful than recent low-budget zombie fare..."

      Chris Haberman,
      Fangoria magazine

         Mark Poole and his wife, Janice are avid moviegoers, and co-producers. “DMR would have not been made without her enthusiastic support. Not only did she take on all of our domestic responsibilities, she also assumed several prominent jobs in the production. Casting Director, Video Assist, Script Supervisor and Craft Services. I am fortunate that she believed in me, the movie, and our ability to complete it.“ 
    DMR started as an idea to shoot a zombie film in the vein of SHAUN OF THE DEAD. After struggling for a theme, the idea of having the main character unwilling to pick up a gun, and using the film to explore why, caused the script to flow onto the page. “The film presented a tremendous opportunity for comedic situations, and I was laughing out loud when I wrote most of the script. Imagining the character’s reaction to some outrageous situation was just hilarious.” Poole wrote non-stock, personable characters to people the script. “A lot of horror films ignore that element. I wanted my people to be more than just zombie chow. You might not agree with them, but you should at least understand where they’re coming from.”
    Casting, rehearsals and production planning went on in tandem. Poole set the project up

as a collaborative venture, giving principal cast & crew a piece of the action in exchange for completing the project. This was partially due to budgetary constraints, but it paid a dividend in enhancing production value. “I’m a firm believer in setting high expectations from the outset. I asked everyone up front to realize what a huge sacrifice they would be making, and were they really up for it? That by signing on they would be making a promise to not only me, but to all their other team members, to give it their best and complete the job. We only had 3 people out of over two-dozen drop out. It happens; you deal with it and move on. Those that stuck it out gave 110%. We also picked up people who enhanced the picture in ways we could never imagine at the outset. Seriously, the picture is better for it.“

    All of the actors had some sort of experience, as either an extra on a major (SEABISCUIT, ELIZABETHTOWN, THE INSIDER), or local Indie films (KEEP YOUR DISTANCE, NICE GUYS SLEEP ALONE, BREAKING AND ENTERING), or local theater work. “We had a fantastic cast. I cannot believe our good fortune is securing talented people that were perfect for their roles.”
    Our crew gave it their all as well. Josh Stopfel has credit as the Key Grip, but he was also instrumental in securing several locations from his employers. Autumn Barefoot, who had training in theatrical makeup, became head of the Makeup department, but also served as wardrobe director. Karen Mack was a friend they had made while screening short films, and she quickly became adept at performing the vital role of clapper/loader, working with Janice using

DV Rack for video assist. “Without the two of them coordinating, I would have never kept the multiple takes from various angles straight.” Kevin Temple showed up as an extra, and kept coming back. “I finally gave him a job, and he became our boom/mike operator. But he also had connections that eventually got us the Fox Den bar and an audience with Barry Hunt, the Marketing Director at The Corner,” a complex of 6 interconnected bars with a variety of themes.

    Poole relied on over 20 years of project manager experience in all phases of production. “Most business projects succeed or fail because of one thing, appropriate & timely communication,” said Poole, “and that the lack of it just wasn’t going to happen here.” He created a custom electronic strip-board in MS Excel to plan out the shooting schedule, using the same color-coding as the pros. He had the advantage of being able to filter and sort the board in moments, in the case of weather or other unforeseen occurrence. He published timetables from the spreadsheet in PDF form, and emailed them out on a regular basis. He tracked the completion percentage, based on the number of script pages, and used metrics to determine if the filming was ahead or behind schedule. With an ensemble cast of fourteen, a crew of twelve, and almost weekly calls for hundreds of extras, that sort of organization was critical. Poole also created call sheets and shot lists for every shoot day, and emailed the information to all cast & crew days before. “We all have day jobs. I’ve read of indie nightmares where there was no attention to detail, and the film would implode because people would be asked to come back day after day, with no idea if they were getting anything done, and no apparent end. I told everyone up front that I value their time, as well as mine, and I would run a tight ship. Creating all of this was a chore, plain & simple, but it saved time and eliminated confusion for all involved. Everyone knew, before they got to the set, what we had to do for the day, and what it meant for the overall progress of the film.”
    Another aspect of being a producer/director is interpersonal relations. “I kept the atmosphere on the set pretty easygoing. Yeah, everyone here is working on a collaborative venture and will get something in the end, when it’s sold. But we are all essentially working on spec, and working very hard, under some pretty harsh conditions, while trying to balance family life and demands of school or work. The last thing they needed was some sawed-off dictatorial ass stomping around the set with an ego chip on his shoulder.” 
    An extra on the set one day took Poole aside and said he’d been on a lot of indie shoots, and was impressed at how smooth it was run and the easy-going jabs exchanged between cast, crew & director. Poole recalled, “He said he thought it was cool I was big enough to take the ribbing, but they also respected me enough to jump to it when we needed to get things done.” Poole believes in two military adages: “Praise in public, reprimand in private.” And the US Marine motto: “Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome.” “You can’t be a perfectionist in this business. Shit happens - on every shoot. One night we literally had a shit-storm in a basement we were filming in. A sewage drainpipe overflowed in the ceiling. We fixed the problem, mopped it up and got our shots. There’s no time to throw a pity party or a tantrum. You deal with it and move on.“ 
    A visitor might find it strange that every shoot concluded with a big hug. “We became a large extended family, and you might get pissed at something somebody said to you, like if your brother called you fat. But you’re still going to show up on Thanksgiving. Because you’ve got that connection, that bond. It’s not some technique - trust me, at the end of the day, I’d hear it if I forgot to call for the hug. Most of us really needed that.” 
    We were shooting in working warehouses. While the owners were very accommodating (for example they provided us an on-site vault to store all our equipment in), there were certain realities to be mindful of, since they were also running a business. We would come on set in the evening and not know where we were going to shoot. I would send Josh Stopfel (the Key Grip) on a scouting mission to find an open location. Then I’d look at it, do some preliminary blocking, develop a lighting plan, and Josh and his crew would have the set dressed & lit before the actors were in costume. Josh was always Johnny-on-the spot, anticipating the needs of the shoot before I even had to ask.” Stopfel was instrumental in securing the locations, as he asked his employers if they would be interested in letting their warehouses be used for filming a horror movie. The two owners, Dan Zink and Dan Barker, were enthusiastic supporters of the film. “These locations gave us an enormous range of potential sets to pick from. Over 90

percent of the movie was shot in just those two warehouses alone. Plus, Dan Zink brought his children to serve as part of the kid’s birthday party flashback scene.”

    It’s all about the zombies: You can’t have a zombie film without large crowds of zombies. And the job got a lot easier, once a huge article appeared in the Courier Journal, Louisville’s hometown paper. “Judith Egerton (the writer) and I had a brief conversation, and she asked a lot of good questions, and then the article hit the newsstands and everything went crazy. I got hundreds of emails from people from all walks of life. Doctors, nurses, lawyers, factory line workers, pilots, retirees, gradeschool kids. It seemed like everyone wanted to be a zombie.” “We got a very nice email from Susan Wilson, a flight nurse for an air ambulance firm (StatCare). She and pilot Richard Larson offered to secure a helicopter for our use.” Poole quickly revised the rooftop scene to incorporate an abortive helicopter rescue attempt. “We could only ask for two fly-bys, since they were on call for real emergencies. In fact, they got a call right before we were scheduled to shoot. I had to stay on the roof and direct the actors, so Josh rode in the ‘copter and shot from that viewpoint. I hated missing that ride, but Josh did a great job of it. The footage from the ‘copter, and the reactions of the actors as it flies away, really emphasizes the utter hopelessness of being trapped in the middle of a town full of zombies.”
    The outpouring of support from the community was overwhelming, and satisfying. On the day of the big shoot, which would feature a battle to the death of zombies versus bikers, 1200 extras showed up.
  “I have never attempted to marshal that many people in my life, there was nothing like it to make a comparison. 600 bikers on every ride you could imagine, plus 600 zombies. And they were all the most enthusiastic and well-behaved bunch you could every dream of working with.”
    Poole owes a debt of gratitude to Barry Hunt and Ward Plauche of The Corner, marketing

managers of the local complex of 6 bars under one enormous roof. They obtained the permits, pre-registered all of the extras and gave them with a laminated pass, closed off the street, provided free bottled water, a stretch HumVee limo, and a bucket truck. They set aside one entire bar for makeup artists to work, and opened the Fox Den, a drive-through motorcycle bar for the extras to sit in air-conditioned comfort, and imbibe in their favorite beverage between takes.

    “When we called for the first running of the zombies, it was the most eerie thing you could ever imagine. Nobody ever does what you ask them, but these people did. As they met and stretched across the entire street,they piled up 6 deep. It was incredible. Then we gave them the signal to run, and here is this wall of undead, barreling down the street in a lope. Just awesome. Similar effect with the bikers. Wave after wave keep roaring around the corner. We filled 4 lanes half a block deep with 600 motorcycles. They all revved their engines, and the ground shook. They also had lines. They got a big kick out of yelling ‘Hell Yeah!’ and another unprintable phrase in unison. So much so that when I asked them (via a megaphone) if they were having fun yet, they all shouted back, as if on cue. That was the highpoint of the entire film shoot.”
    Poole had originally planned to find an editor, so as to have the film cut as he shot,

but that did not come to pass. He can understand why. “Editing is a huge job. I knew this from my short films. So it was no real surprise that no one with editing experience jumped at the chance of spending 6 months hunched over a computer. So I did it.” Waking at 4:30 AM and working for a few hours before work, then 3 to 4 hours each weeknight, 12 hours on Saturdays, and 8 hours on Sundays. For 6 months. “I took off two or three weeks there in the middle, I was just burned out. It was that or quit or go crazy.” Poole did all Foley, muzzle flashes, some blood splatters and other compositing effects. “There was no way I was going to use real guns, or even blanks on set. Too much possibility for something to go horribly wrong.” He obtained Airsoft and other prop guns from local vendors. But one prop was needed that no one had locally, the PREDATOR – style minigun. “My main character, when he finally resolves his issues with guns, couldn’t just pick up a revolver, he had to pick up something special. The minigun is the ‘Mac-daddy of handheld weaponry.’ Of course we know it is all BS. Even though Governor Jesse Ventura and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have massive physiques, no human can freehand a weapon that shoots 1000 rounds a minute. But it’s a kick to see ‘everyman’ Jim pick that sucker up and mow down a hundred zombies.” Poole contacted a Hollywood prop house, and they said they wouldn’t ship their functional, but non-firing replica out of state. Poole talked to the owner, David Malki, and even sent him a copy of the script. “David wrote back and said he’d bend his rule in this chase. He even let me have it for 3 full weeks at a discount.” Having such an authentic prop on set wowed everyone involved. “It gave us so much production value. People’s eyes bugged out when we rigged it up and attached a belt of non-firing shells and used an ammo-box as a backpack. When the barrel spun up, it was just awesome.” Compositing in the tracer rounds, muzzleflash and bullet hits and the Foley to match wasn’t as fun. “That short sequence took forever to build up in post. The work involved was a real bear, but it looks & sounds fantastic.”

    The story behind finding a composer is a good one. “I was helping out a friend by directing background talent on another independent horror production, and Janice (Poole’s wife) struck up a conversation with a couple who had been zombie extras on one of our shoots. She pulled me aside and said I had to talk to these two.” Alan & Dawn Grosheider are both avid horror fans. Alan composes music, and was interested in scoring a horror film. I brought Alan over to screen some edited scenes, explained my vision for the film, and let him read a copy of

the script. We made a handshake agreement and Alan was off and running, turning in clips to match the rough cut, then trimming those to match the locked picture. Alan’s score adds another dimension to the film, and made already good scenes pop. Janice and I were amazed at how well the score reflected the mood.” Dawn helped out by lending her voice talent to two key scenes, having the background as a phone operator.

    DEAD MOON RISING started out as a little film with a big heart, and with the help of the

cast, crew and local community, became a big film with at least a million dollars worth of production value. “Calculate what it would cost Hollywood to put on a shoot with 1,200 extras, rent 600 motorcycles, and a stretch HumVee limo. That scene alone is worth hundreds of thousands. But, we also had several shoots with 50 or more extras, warehouses, Waterfront Park, helicopters - it goes on & on. We got so much from people being so willing to support our film. I can’t explain why they responded so well, but I am very grateful to everyone who helped us out.”