I satisfied my craving for brains last night at Red Line Studios in New York when a group of creative living and undead gathered to film scenes for the pilot of an upcoming TV series. The zombie crew was headed by Vince Collura of ZombieNYC.com and featured 10 of us with full zombie face makeup and enough blood to satisfy the likes of Dracula! I’m no stranger to zombying around. Being friends with Vince, I have been to multiple Zombie-Crawls in New York including the recent Zombie Christmas Caroling event.
Heading into the city for these events is always amusing. I Wasn’t wearing any of the costume on my way in, but you could see the bottom of the suit sticking out of the bad that covered it and you get some interesting looks from people as you’re walking around with blood-stained and ripped clothing sticking out. Some people see the humor and are brave enough to approach you, while others just stare and keep their distance. I’m kind of surpised no police questioned me. Then again, I was running a bit late because of train closings, so better off.
Despite the trains I did get to the site on time, and helped flag down other zombies before sitting in the makeup chair. The shoot was only a few hours, and they only needed us for a handful of scenes. I don’t know too much about the show itself. I know that it takes place in the future after zombies have taken over. The main characters are survivors who have managed to find a secure location with the ability to reach the outside world. The zombie parts were filmed against a green screen, and while there were a few specific scenes shot, most of what we took part in were just scenes of zombies waffling around and eating flesh. what else would you have a zombie do?
After the shoot, we went out to dinner, and in the true ZombieNYC fashion, we decided to stay in costume. It’s always a blast seeing the range of people’s reactions. Some people fear you, others want to take pictures with you. I have no problem taking pictures with people, but I wish that I would find my pics sometime. The people you meet are generally very cool or interesting. For instance, sleeping on the train I was awoken by some loud and obnoxious kids who entered at Oceanside. Upon seeing me, still wearing my bloody dress shirt and makeup decided that they were going to sit with me on the train. I told them my story, and they explained to me how they were rappers and were nearly signed earlier. Two of them started rapping there for me. It’s not my thing, but they were pretty good. Better at their practiced stuff than free styling, but they were trying, and they were pretty entertaining so I went with it and it certainly helped the train ride go by. After all, the battery in my Zune was dead.
Every time I zombify myself and head into the city, it’s an adventure. When you’re willing to do something outside of the norm and outside of people’s comfort zones, they react differently and you just never know who you’ll meet or what you’ll experience when you stick yourself out there.
Check out my video-blog-short of the day.: