Jumba Juice: The Making Of A ‘Zombieless’ Zombie Film – Part 2
Don’t forget to watch the film first – Jumba Juice and read part 1
Production
So I turn up for my first day of shooting missing my two lead actress’, thankfully my other leads have not followed suit and left too. They are loyal. The only thing that can be shot is the fight scene as it is the only part of the film where the only people you can see are the two male leads. So I get my fight choreographer, my step-dad, to speak to the two actors and show them what exactly I want the fight to look like. As this happens I speak to my producer about what we can do about new actress’. She reassures me that she has been able to find one girl to fill the role of Ruby and now we just need to find a Faith. I thank her and then go and see if the two guys are ready to film their fight. I watch them rehearse and it is excellent. In a short few hours they have learnt it perfectly and are ready to go. So we head outside to the location and begin. It doesn’t take long before we’ve got everything we can with just the two actors that have actually turned up and we have to finish for the day.
We get back inside and I am handed an actress’ CV by my producer. I take one look at it and tell her that she will work and to let her know we’d love to have her come down and help. With nothing left to do for the day my crew and I pack up and head on home, with the hope of returning tomorrow with a full cast.
It’s early morning the next day, I’ve turned up to location with my crew early to set up and introduce the two new actress’ to the material and the people they will be working with. Once all my actors have arrived we have a table read and I answer any questions they have. My crew and I set up as the new actress’ rehearse the script and within and hour we are all ready to shoot their first scene. They are each perfect for their roles. By lunch we have filmed three scenes and so we all take a break and get something to eat.
Once lunch is over my ‘zombie’ extras turn up and I give them their 15 seconds of fame. With that done I continue filming everything I can with my actors as this is the final day I have at this location and we are rapidly losing light. By the end of the day we have filmed everything we can, with one scene having to be cut short due to lack of time. I look back at the day as a good second day of production everything went to plan or went better. Apart from one thing, the f&*%^$£ planes. About every two minutes a plane would pass over my location and ruin the sound of a take. Due to this each scene had to be filmed within the space of two minutes before the inevitable plane would interrupt.
My final day of shooting went perfectly. There were no planes. I shot everything I needed to and got the actors out early as I had everything I could hope to shoot. If only every day of production could have gone as well…
ZC: Tune in tomorrow for the conclusion of The Making of Jumba Juice. Will our heroes make it out alive?!
