DEATH OF THE DEAD

The producers of DISMAL asked me back to another round, this time to direct a comedy. I immediately thought about what I told my friends around 2003 when I first starting directing: "I'll never do a comedy." Thank god I was being stupid. 

Then the producers asked me if I could shoot the film (80 plus pages) in 12 days. "Uhhh sure…" I told them.

I suggested we shoot with a DSLR for efficiency. This was late 2009 and no one I knew really shot a feature with one yet. The producers were a little iffy on the idea until they saw the images. It was funny to see our DP (Aaron Moorhead) running around with a tiny camera and people always asking "so wait...you're shooting the movie, on THAT?"

I definitely had Troma and the Zucker Brothers in mind going into this. Nothing was taboo. If someone had an idea we tried it out. My whole approach to this film was "if the jokes don't offend someone then we were doing something wrong."

Directing this on location in Cleveland was probably one of the best times I've ever had on set. So many great fucking memories from this one. And I've got the videos to prove it. Maybe I'll share them someday.

And oh yeah, we did shoot it in 12 days. We wrapped each day on time. Sometimes even early.