Filming the Undead

Terry Swadener

The book, Filming the Undead by Rod Durick is a very interesting and entertaining read. Rod Durick channels William Castle and Roger Cormen showing that anyone with any amount of money can make a quality zombie movie. Even though the book goes into many details about the technical aspects of making a movie, the overall theme Rod Durick has throughout the book is to have fun.
The book begins at the obvious starting point of creating a quality story. One gets the idea that no matter how much money or how famous someone is, there is no substitution for an entertaining story, whether that story is funny, scary, or exciting. The Story section of this book sets up the format the book will follow. Every couple pages are broken into different headings. Using this format, Durick makes sure to cover everything while at the same time not dragging out a topic to boring technical jargon. The story section the steps from coming up with an original idea to storyboarding.
The next section is very important part of creating a movie, pre-production. Pre-production may not be the most exciting part of creating a movie since it consists of legal aspects, fund raising, scheduling, and scouting; however Durick makes these boring topics very enjoyable to read using anecdotes and examples from his own experience.
Sections three and four are the meat and potatoes of making a zombie movie. The makeup and effects as well as the actual production and filming are the fun parts. Durick goes through many of the steps and techniques used to create amazing zombie makeup and gore. The beauty of Durick’s tips and tricks are that you do not need a lot of money for these effects and they look unreal. The production and actual filming of a movie is where the fun really is. Seeing everyone dressed up and having a blast feeding on humans is the reason people make movies.
The post production and “getting your movie seen” sections help cement your movie and make all of the work and effort worthwhile. Durick breaks everything down so everyone can understand all of these aspects. You do not have to be a rich movie producer to have your movie seen, and Durick shows you this. This book is perfect for any type of movie maker. Whether it is a low budget amateur maker or a big budget movie maker, anyone can benefit from this book. You can purchase a copy of the book from amazon or zombifiedstudios.com. To win an autographed copy of the book send your name and address to filming@zombiesandtoys.com