Fascinated/baffled by the Season 3 trailer?
Let the Zombloggers take you on a little tour…
AN UNDEAD CITY
Miles: This is in Episode 1 when we meet Ninja Hannah, who we quickly realise is not very much like the old Hannah, in that she has a body.
Hannah: I'm quite pleased about that. Bodies are useful, even when they aren't yours.
Tony: Also, very mean.
CREEPINESS
Hannah: This was part of the first thing we filmed for season 3 and it was a great way to get back into the swing of Zomblog. It was a creepy but hilarious scene and an awful lot of fun to film.
Tony: A future fan favourite is about to make an appearance. You heard it here first kids.
ABANDONED BUILDINGS
Miles: There are lots of crumbling buildings in Season 3. We wanted to show a variety of locations, some that were still ok and some that looked like the equivalent of a decaying human. Except you know, buildings.Hannah: I didn't feel safe in there but it was a cool location to use.
Tony: Also there wasn’t anyone around.
SECRET FEARS
Miles: Tony is looking at something genuinely fearsome… for him, anyway. We all have our secret fears. Believe me when I say you will enjoy seeing what he is seeing.Hannah: Old Hannah has many secret and not-so-secret fears because Old Hannah is based on Actual Hannah. Ninja Hannah isn't afraid of anything. Actual Hannah and Old Hannah would both be afraid of Ninja Hannah in real life.
Tony: Weird pretending to be afraid of something you would like to marry if society allowed.
ARTY SHOTS
Miles: Actually there aren’t many of these kinds of shots in Season 3, but we did want to shoot it with more of a pleasing aesthetic than the first two seasons, where we didn’t give that much thought to composition or the fact that a lot of handheld camera makes the audience sick. I think coming off CrimeFighters which was shot so meticulously we wanted to do something a bit nicer to look at. But it’s still Zomblog, and we hope some of it still makes you sick. Really, violently sick.Hannah: If we got the opportunity to get a really nice shot, we took it. I'd agree with Miles in saying that Season 3 will (hopefully) look better than 1 and 2.
Tony: It’s more of a mildly ugly ass show now. A five pinter.
I HEART YORK
Miles: These genius tees are made by our friend Adam Greenwood; technically the first Zomblogger! We love York as a filming location and we used it to the full on CrimeFighters and Zomblog, so we wanted to big up the ‘hood, as it were. This is the gore version of the tee that Adam did for Hallowe’en last year. In the other seasons Tony wears the normal one.Hannah: We do heart York.
Tony: I heart that tee. This year we actually tried to put some time into costume, prop and set design. There’s a much more cohesive look this year.
Miles: Even though we coped for a year without Hannah and managed to get through the end of Season 2 without her, we just had to have her back for Season 3. She plays a slightly different character this time around but it’s still very much us playing versions of ourselves. Apparently Hannah has two versions of herself, whereas Tony and I are just the same all the time. And just what IS everyone looking at?
Tony: I heart that tee. This year we actually tried to put some time into costume, prop and set design. There’s a much more cohesive look this year.
HANNAH…
Miles: Even though we coped for a year without Hannah and managed to get through the end of Season 2 without her, we just had to have her back for Season 3. She plays a slightly different character this time around but it’s still very much us playing versions of ourselves. Apparently Hannah has two versions of herself, whereas Tony and I are just the same all the time. And just what IS everyone looking at?Hannah: It's right there! But it's a secret! I can't wait for this episode to be released and to hear the reactions. I enjoyed playing Ninja Hannah because I got to be mean to everybody. Although, sometimes after I was very mean, we had a bit of a hug. Particularly after I made Tony's eyes water through violence.
Tony: Yes Hannah is back and we have jumped the shark whilst nuking the fridge. But then, this show is not known for realism.
Miles: I'm the only person in the world to like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Miles: We thought it would be fun to have Hannah, old Hannah, as kind of a fourth character in the third season, both to tie into the first two and also to wring lots of comedy out of it. The head was made by our FX guys (more on them later) while Hannah wasn’t even in the country, and I think they did an awesome job. It sits on Tony’s bookshelf now. And criticises him while he’s editing.
…AND HER SISTER
Miles: We thought it would be fun to have Hannah, old Hannah, as kind of a fourth character in the third season, both to tie into the first two and also to wring lots of comedy out of it. The head was made by our FX guys (more on them later) while Hannah wasn’t even in the country, and I think they did an awesome job. It sits on Tony’s bookshelf now. And criticises him while he’s editing.Hannah: The Hannahhead was a surprise to me and I only saw it for the first time when episode 12 was released. And it confused the crap out of me but was probably my favourite thing about season 2 (apart from when Tony says "Get them flies away from me."). When I went back to York for filming, I was worried that the universe might start to undo itself if the Hannahhead and I were in the same room. But we met and life continues. I can't say it isn't a little creepy looking at your own severed head but it provided a lot of laughs during filming.
Tony: Wish we could have the head still gurning away with animatronics but she’s a good listener.
THE FIFTH BEATLE
Miles: Speaking of new characters, this is Charlotte, some nutter we meet along the way, in the grand Zomblog tradition of us meeting nutters along the way. Hannah: Charlotte is hilarious. I met her for the first time when we started filming and she just got on with it. We sort of blabbled some vague/stupidly specific directions at her and she ran off and started doing it. It gives a different dynamic, which worked really well.
Tony: May get a tee that says ‘I heart Charlotte’ for the future.
NINJA SKILLS
Miles: Hannah’s a bit of a shit ninja (a shinja) but she does occasionally get to wield a sword and do things like this. Which freaked me out a little.Hannah: Ninja Hannah isn't shit! She's just really, really lazy.
Tony: This is one of the slightly less absurd moments. We push the boat out on stupid this year.
CURIOSER AND CURIOSER…
Miles: Talk about creepy locations. This is an abandoned hospital that we kind of blagged our way into filming some scenes in. It’s the absolute perfect location for a zombie series, it’s got that terrifyingly still, quiet, crumbling, apocalyptic feel.Hannah: It was a bit creepy there and also the weather was miserable all morning so we were cold and wet.
Tony: Always best to beg forgiveness than ask permission with locations. Especially when you try and contact the owners months in advance and they never reply.
NEW HQ
Miles: In Season 3 we’ve all moved into the local cinema as a base, and spend our days watching old zombie movies for research. We wanted a change from the ‘trying to find a house’ storyline from the other seasons, and decided on this. Of course, we don’t stay long in it…Hannah: It makes a nice first location I think, as we introduced it in Season 1. It's unusual but recognisable and the projection rooms look great on camera.
Tony: You got to have a den and not enough zombie flicks have their characters taking advantage of what they can help themselves to now. Trust me, an X-Box connected to a big screen, you won’t care if there are undead ghouls outside till you run out of toilet roll again.
MILES’ SCAR
Miles: I have a scar across my lips in some of this season, and you find out how it got there in Episode 1. I thought it looked cool and was pretty funny, apart from when we were filming and I’d forgotten to put it on.Hannah: Yes, in some of this season!
Tony: There’s a bit of fourth wall breakage this season and the appearing disappearing scar made good fodder for it.
ROAD TRIP
Miles: We hit the road in this season, we have a mission and this series moves pretty fast. We didn’t want to change the concept of some idiots hanging around blogging, but we felt this one needed to head somewhere, literally. So we take off on a road trip. Although there are quite a few moments of us hanging around talking shit.Hannah: Road trip stuff is fun to do. Except when there's a crazy girl behind the wheel. Except? Perhaps I mean especially.
Tony: I want Charlotte to drive me everywhere now. Exactly like this.
Miles: She can get from York to Bristol in less than three hours.
Miles: You don’t really get a sense of it in the trailer, but there are a ton of extremely gory and fun special effects in this season, from the zombies themselves to the various scars, gouges and exploding brains that occur. We were blessed this year to have the support of the fans and managed to raise an FX budget of £1000, and rest assured, we spent it well. Most of the gore is being filmed later in the year so there’s not much yet, but oh my god there will be. Darren Grassby and Ian Jowett of 2 Baldies FX are sick, twisted artistic geniuses. And so is Pete Tindall. He does Doctor Who ya know.
THE GORE FACTOR
Miles: You don’t really get a sense of it in the trailer, but there are a ton of extremely gory and fun special effects in this season, from the zombies themselves to the various scars, gouges and exploding brains that occur. We were blessed this year to have the support of the fans and managed to raise an FX budget of £1000, and rest assured, we spent it well. Most of the gore is being filmed later in the year so there’s not much yet, but oh my god there will be. Darren Grassby and Ian Jowett of 2 Baldies FX are sick, twisted artistic geniuses. And so is Pete Tindall. He does Doctor Who ya know.Hannah: The FX guys are absolute heroes. It was all really nasty, so perfect for Zomblog. I thought I'd be terrified watching them putting everything together (and I was a little, at times) but it was all just really interesting.
Tony: So we’ve shot 85% of the series already but the effects require a lot of lead time so we’ve only shot a smattering of gore moments. We start shooting the big guns in May and all I’ll say is Season 3 starts with a literal bang.
GIVE THE MAN A HAND
Miles: This hand was so realistic that I had to hold it for most of the day, it was fascinating. It just felt and looked so real. Actually, hang on…Hannah: I was a bit afraid of this to start with and then I thought that if I showed my fear someone would throw the hand at me or something. So I went and picked it up and luckily it doesn't feel real. Close up, it looks just as realistic. This was maybe my favourite prop (apart from Manny!).
Tony: It is getting a bit Texas Chainsaw Massacre at the house now with body parts just lying around willy nilly.
Miles: Yeah the police turned up at the end of the shoot because some people walking their dogs had seen body parts and heard screaming. The police were very nice about it. Also, you said willy.
Miles: I love these shots, we do them in every season and it’s an obvious homage to first person shooter games like Doom and Duke Nukem (Hail to the king, baby). Cos let’s face it, we’re all geeks and if there was a real zombie apocalypse, we’d all do this occasionally.
WEAPONCAM
Miles: I love these shots, we do them in every season and it’s an obvious homage to first person shooter games like Doom and Duke Nukem (Hail to the king, baby). Cos let’s face it, we’re all geeks and if there was a real zombie apocalypse, we’d all do this occasionally.Hannah: I like the torch-on-the-gun-cam in 'Boredom'.
Tony: We ever do a movie, they’ll be first person sequence to melt face.
CRAZY CHARLOTTE
Miles: She’s the bastard child of Tank Girl and Ed from Cowboy Bebop. I just love these kinds of characters; the slightly tapped overgrown girl-child who’s off in a world of their own. Charlotte just came right in and immediately got the character and started doing cartwheels and babbling. Made more sense than we do most of the time.
Hannah: I think Charlotte had a lot of fun playing the crazy person! A lot of the time you'll just see her zipping about or doing strange things in the background. Actually, there's a lot of nice background action from everyone this season.
Tony: High professionalism and succinct direction. “Charlotte, put these goggles on and be brilliant”. First take nailed it and never let go.
THE CHERNOBYL EFFECT
Miles: I’m fascinated by ghost towns and I’m always looking them up online, and inside the abandoned hospital didn’t disappoint. There’s something really sad about a building that’s been left to decay; talk about ghosts in the walls. Without people living in them and maintaining them, like everything they start to lose their humanity and take on a really haunting, macabre and sad personality, which I love!Hannah: While I also enjoy looking at pictures of abandoned places, I am less happy about actually visiting them. So I'm pleased I didn't have to.
Tony: I enjoyed the sneaking around part of this. No one’s looking! Quick in there! Film! Film! Film!
ZOMBIES!
Miles: This is after all a zombie series. This is the mellifluous Holly Taymar, whom you wouldn’t know from this has a beautiful singing voice despite having no lips. The mouth prosthetic Darren and Ian created is one of the most disturbing things ever, it scared the crap out of Holly when she looked in the mirror!Hannah: If I remember correctly, this was an untested idea of the FX guys and we weren't sure how it would turn out. Is that right? Anyway, I think it's the scariest-looking zombie we've had on the whole series. Holly was great and very very nice but when she was made up I sort of stayed on the other side of the room. Eeeeeeek!
Tony: As soon as we saw this make up we added this scene as Holly was just going to be a general wandering zom. Face like that though, she will go far I think.
FUN AND GAMES
Miles: We wanted to show that we’d relaxed a bit into the apocalypse. I know in Seasons 1 and 2 we seemed not to give much of a stuff about the zombies, but we’re kind of on top of the situation now. However, they do say that pride comes before a fall.Hannah: Tony makes a great Game Zombie.
Tony: I don’t think our attitude has ever changed per se, always a question of where you’re holed up and what weapons you happen to have at hand. All I’ll say is I don’t think the apocalypse has had much of an impact on us as people, same as before but with an excuse to cause havoc now.
STEP ON IT!
Miles: Because yes, there is a dark side to this season! We wanted to have some dramatic bits akin to Episode 2 where the power goes out, because that really scared people. There are some really horrific moments in Season 3 and the pathos is heartbreaking sometimes! And also really funny.Hannah: I do think we need the dark parts. As much as we want people to enjoy laughing at our silly faces, we want to give them something else as well, something a little creepier and darker.
Tony: Yes, this season has a plot, a budget, and dare I say... emotion? There may be haters come the finale.... ;-)
SOMETHING OF THE LIVING DEAD
Miles: I haven’t enjoyed Romero’s last zombie trilogy but I still admire the guy as the daddy of zombie films, and Night of the Living Dead still scares the bejesus out of me, so we’ve done a few homages to it, with those haunted, lost looking souls that you kind of feel sorry for until they chew your fingers off. This one has a particularly horrific demise.Hannah: Ha! No comment so as not to give away any spoilers.
Tony: The comeuppance of this zom was the only gag to make me feel slightly sick, but then we were doing a number of inappropriate things off camera with the prosthetics!
BANG BANG YOU’RE DEAF
Hannah: Yes the least said about the episode 2 incident the better. Luckily, this time I didn't have to be anywhere near the gunfire. I would have quite liked to shoot some zombies but perhaps next time.
Tony: At night I can still hear Miles complaining about my Glock.
TRUSTY BAT
Miles: I just love batting those undead fuckers to smoosh. Guns don’t interest me. Tony’s the gun guy.Hannah: Guns do interest me but you can't beat the heavy swing of a baseball bat. Smacking things is a lot more satisfying than shooting things, although shooting things can be fun too. Slicing things is a whole different thing.
Tony: I have the gun rep, but I’m an equal rights weapon enthusiast. Sword/pistol combo for me.
MORE ZOMBIES
Miles: This is Ceri, who’s been in every season. He scares the shit out of me when he goes into character because his cold, dead eyes just STARE at you…Hannah: Ceri and I are good friends when he's not pulling this face. I like how much he enjoys being a zombie but he does it a bit too well.
Tony: Excellent at the zombie prat fall as well.
NO
Miles: Charlotte isn’t giving Tony a blow job.Hannah: If that's true then I have no idea what is going here. I don't even remember filming it.
Tony: Wait for the movie.
LOST IN THE WOODS
Miles: I can cite a couple of films that were a direct influence on Zomblog; Diary of the Dead and The Blair Witch Project. Diary because it was so disappointing that I wanted to make my own handheld zombie film, and Blair Witch because it’s just still one of the best ‘found footage’ films. And every filmmaker must admit they’d love to shoot something in 4 days for a few grand and make millions. I still think Blair Witch is genuinely scary. So in this scene we do a little homage to it and get lost in the woods, although Hannah has the line ‘I’m sure we’ve passed that zombie before’. Don’t use zombies to mark your trail, folks. They may be slow but they MOVE. Unless you peg them down.Hannah: We should've pegged them down.
Tony: Everything should have a scene in the woods.
Miles: You're a scene in the woods.
Miles: This is one of those ‘scary’ scenes I was telling you about. Horrors lurk within, and the scene that follows this is absolutely one of the most horrific and yet pant-wettingly hilarious things we’ve ever filmed. We were doubled up with laughter making it. I think it could be everyone’s favourite scene when it comes out.
CAREFUL…
Miles: This is one of those ‘scary’ scenes I was telling you about. Horrors lurk within, and the scene that follows this is absolutely one of the most horrific and yet pant-wettingly hilarious things we’ve ever filmed. We were doubled up with laughter making it. I think it could be everyone’s favourite scene when it comes out.Hannah: I was glad I got to film parts of it. It meant I could grin my head off and not have to hide it.
Tony: We veer from comedy to mildly serious to horrific to absurd in the space of a minute in this ep. References galore as well.
Z3
Miles: You know, like T2! This is a bit crass I suppose but I started referring to Season 3 early on as Z3, which Tony didn’t like and then did like. The tagline is ‘Stop Moaning’.Hannah: Zed 3? That doesn't even rhyme.....
Tony: I like it but feel dirty about it.
OLD SCHOOL ZOMBLOG
Miles: There are a lot of jokes in this season, and character moments that I really love. Some were planned but most were improvised, which is the way we make the show. This is from one of the funniest and most offbeat scenes ever, based on the mother of all films for references. Everyone else has parodied it and we thought we would. But that’s all I’m saying for now.Hannah: That was a good day. Season 3 is the most fun I've had filming Zomblog. Everything about it was right. The plot, the locations, the zombies and the crew. Excellent times.
Tony: Deleted scene!!!
FINALLY... always end on a fart gag.
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