FX Designer Greg Nicotero Talks about Zombies from THE WALKING DEAD
Frank Darabont is currently shooting the AMC TV series Pilot for the horror comic book TV adaptation of The Walking Dead. The make-up and effects that we've seen on this series so far has been incredible, and now we have a little interview from the man who is creating it all, Greg Nicotero.
Nicotero is a master special effects artist who has worked on several films in his career. Most recently he worked on the Predators movie as well as the upcoming Piranha 3D. He's also worked on films like Drag me to Hell, Inglorious Basterds, The Mist, Grindhouse, several George Romero zombie flicks, and a ton of other movies. Let's just say that the guy knows what he's doing.
He gives some details on how these zombies are going to look and act in the show. He even talks about how the zombies are going to munch down on a horse.
The interview comes from AMCTV and here's a couple little segments from it.
Q: How do these zombies differ from the ones you created for Romero?
A: We used the graphic novel certainly as inspiration. We've always tried to push the envelope, and because I've done so many other projects it's always one of those things where you finish a movie and go, "Oh man next time I know how we can make it better. And after that I know how we can make it even better than that." We've taken everything that we've learned on all these other projects, and applied them in terms of using new materials and new techniques - even something as simple as a zombie getting shot in the head: We really sat down and worked through the best way to make that look realistic and practical.
Q: What was your solution?
A: Well in the '70s they just put squibs on extras' heads and detonated them. Then you got to the point where if you had to use explosive squibs it could only be on a stunt person. But for The Walking Dead, we're going for a very specific physical type: Every zombie that we see is really tall and really thin and really gaunt looking. One of the story points is that these characters have been dead for so long that they're starving, and will eat virtually anything. They'll eat a horse, they'll eat a rat. So we built this self-contained head-hit rig that runs off compressed air. You fill a tube with blood, and then you use a foot pump to get a really great blood spray. You can clip it on to anybody that you want, and then all of a sudden you have instantaneous head wound.
Q: One of the more infamous scenes in the comic is when the zombies do in fact eat a horse. What was that like to shoot?
A: It's almost like a Piranha attack - it really was like a feeding frenzy. We had thirty extras leaning over this prosthetic horse that we created, and they started ripping its insides and its entrails out and going crazy. They were sticking their heads in it and their hands in it. I kind of whipped them into a little bit of a frenzy before we shot, and it was funny because at one point I walked over to Frank and I'm like, "Dude, these guys are so amped up you better shoot this quick before they tear the horse apart!"
Q: What did you do to get them so pumped?
A: They saw me loading the horse. We made all these silicone guts and entrails and organs. So I came over with this big giant box of entrails and a big giant bucket of blood and I started soaking everything and stuffing all of it inside the abdomen of the horse. And literally, the more stuff I put in there, the more excited they were to reach in and start pulling it out. So by the time they had seen everything loaded and the stomach was all filled and there was blood on it, it was like "Ready. 3, 2, 1. Go!" Instantaneous gore.
To read the full interview Click Here.
Here is a little taste of what the progression of a rotting zombie will look like.
