And so, after a very intense month in which our Producer Steve Piper – we should start calling him Producer Piper – went to Cannes to stake out the possibility of a Zomblog movie, as well as various other film projects; after dozens of meetings and emails and at least 30 drafts, the Zomblogalypse The Movie script treatment is done.
This is kind of how we work.
At nearly 20 pages, the scriptment – with action and dialogue from the film peppered throughout – represents pretty much everything that’s going into the full-length script, which we’ve been working on in tandem. In length, the script is about a fifth of what it’ll end up as, but it should be enough to give folk an idea what we’re planning.
Fun times.
The treatment was designed not only to present to potential investors and distributors but also to start us putting onto paper what we would actually do with a Zomblog film. Ideas are great but the abstractions of ‘this would be cool, that would be awesome’ at some point need to be made practical. In words, at least, at this stage. We’ll worry about how to film it all later.
And this will be quite a film. Zomblogalypse the Movie is everything we would do with Zomblog if we ever had more than a few quid to make it. The snarky spirit of three callow fools surviving in a scary apocalyptic world is in there to the core, but we have so much more planned for the movie, in scope and ambition. Plus explosions. And gore. TONS of gore.
Zombies by SC4V3NG3R on DeviantArt
The ‘how in the name of knickers are we going to do this?’ element never goes away when you’re writing a script, but at least with this treatment we didn’t have to spend the entire time thinking there’s NO WAY we can do any of this. There are some utterly bonkers stunts, effects and sequences that we are going to have to figure out how to film, but as much as we can, we shall.
And there are some truly SPECTACULAR moments.
The most satisfying thing, as ever with Zomblog, was working together to combat apathy and make sure we one-upped each other’s ideas to create the best script we could. A lot of the dialogue will be improvised but we’re determined to get a butt load of great jokes in there, and many of them are better off scripted. We were very grateful to have Steve guiding us through the process this time, challenging us to better ourselves and constantly improve.
It’s not about who’s got the best idea and whose ego gets served, it’s about making the best film we can. The best ideas get into the script, regardless of who had them, and that’s a very satisfying way to work. Tiring and obsessively nit-picky, but satisfying.
Zomblog Season 3 Crew, March 2010.
Having signed off the treatment, we then read Steve’s funding proposal, which… let’s just say if I had a ton of money, I would give it to us to see this film get made. It’s going to be a hoot, and everything we would want a Zomblogalypse movie to be. The future beckons hungrily, like a… hungry zombie.
Out of similes. We’re tired.
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