In the second part of his series, zombie wrangler Ray Brown looks back at the making of Stag Night of the Dead. You can read his previous blog post Dawn of the Dead? here.

When there’s no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the earth. At least, that’s what I was hoping. I’m still standing outside the ‘Star Wars’ building at Bentwaters waiting for our zombie supporting artists to arrive.

But before I get to that, lets flashback in time just a little, like they do in those movies that open with a kick-arse action sequence, the hero cornered and almost certain to die. The Nazis/Aliens/Natural disaster closing in and suddenly the title card – ‘Twenty Four hours earlier’…

The last day had seen me drive around 400 miles, load, unload, re-load and get lost in a clapped out old Luton van that we’d hired to transport everything up to RAF Bentwaters. Man, did we overload it! Trying to pull away from a junction took forever. I think my top speed was 40mph.

After finally reaching the base and meeting up with a few more of the crew, we put together the production office, set up the make-up, blue screen and wardrobe room, made sure everyone had something to sleep on and finally treated ourselves to a fish supper. I think I finally hit the hay around 2am, absolutely destroyed.

Coffee, cigarettes and a bucket load of nervousness are the only things keeping me from collapsing as I help the First Unit load their equipment onto that bloody Luton van, ready for an ‘easy first day’s shooting’ that will ‘ease everyone into it before the zombie battle at the weekend’ (I’m sure The Guvnor or The Mascot will have something to say about their Day 1 experiences in the ‘Hush House’.)

‘Build it and they will come’ (yeah, maybe I am overdoing the taglines a bit!) and sure enough they did. All of sudden there’s people everywhere.

The make-up team arrive and get straight to it, churning out our first zombies. Everyone seems to be having a good time. Spirits are high and the excitement (coupled with a few more cigarettes, of course) kicks in making me ready for some hardcore zombie genocide!

Now, I can’t quite remember who was the first person to turn up, or get into make-up? There’s no prize, but maybe someone wants to stake a claim in the comments section below?

It’s 5.30am and I’m woken by the tune from the end credits of ‘Dawn of the Dead‘ (it’s called ‘The Gonk’ by the way) blasting from my mobile phone. I hit the snooze button.

So, today’s the day. It’s the first day of filming at RAF Bentwaters near Ipswich. We’ve spent the last 7 months planning ‘Stag Night of the Dead’, the latest opus from Neil Jones, and today will be the first time that I meet the ‘zombie horde’ that I have been frantically e-mailing for the last few weeks.

As I rub the sleep from my eyes I think about what might motivate a person to come to a decommissioned army base in the middle of nowhere so that they can get covered in latex and blood then shamble around for 12 hours (or so). Is it the allure of seeing their name as it rolls by during the closing credits? Some vein hope that this will be their first step (or stumble) into the realm of Hollywood glitz and glamour? Or is it just something different to do on an Easter Bank holiday weekend?

I don’t know, but I guess that I’ll find out soon enough. And that’s when it hits me. Will anyone actually turn up at all? Will our epic zombie battle be reduced to a minor skirmish at the edge of the frame?

‘The Gonk’ plays again, no rest for the wicked.

The hot water urn is on and heating up, the release forms are neatly stacked next to a pile of pens, the make-up tables are in place (no make-up team though!) and I’ve managed to blag an extra packet of biscuits from the production office. All there is to do now is to wait for the first victim arrival.

Three cigarettes later and Neil bowls out of the production office. “How many have we got?” he asks. I curl my bottom lip upward and shake my head.

“Still, it’s only 06.15 and we did say 07.00”, I say trying to be optimistic. Neil lights his second cigarette of the conversation (well actually, it’s one of my cigarettes – he’s conveniently ‘lost’ his) and marches off.

Mike is next to check on the numbers. Two ‘corporate’ cigarettes later and I’m alone again wondering how many different types of zombies the make-up girls can make me up as (that is, assuming they ever get up!) and if I will have enough ciggies to last me the morning, let alone the whole week!

To be continued…

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The Directors Diaries: Stag Night director, Neil Jones, spills the beans on the making of the movie from the initial concept all the way up to the present day.

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Behind The Blog

Meet the team behind the SNOTD blog:

Neil Jones aka The Guvnor
Mike Busson aka The Mascot
Ray Brown aka The Wrangler

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