Internet Zombie Movie

Frankie Ward blogs for 4Talent on being part of Internet Zombie Movie ‘World Wide Dead’

The project was begun four months ago by 25 year old graphic designer Bryony Matthewman, aka Paperlilies. After being bitten whilst using the London Underground she enthusiastically came up with the idea of getting the You Tube community to help her produce, write, act and direct a feature length horror film. With over 40,000 subscribers Bryony knew she had power to start something big, and big it became.

After a generous response Bryony set up a forum and was also approached by Hat Trick Productions. They wanted to make an online documentary on the project and follow it from beginning to its end; which was ambitiously scheduled for Halloween.

I first discovered the project when a ‘call to audition’ video was featured on You Tube. I submitted an audition for the female lead, then known as Maddie. There were also three more London based roles, a couple of American roles and a German pair who would be involved in a subplot, depicting how the zombie infection had quickly spread overseas.

On the forums, debates became quite heated. Controversy involving the script threatened to deteriorate the project, and with Bryony leaving for Canada over August, certain members of the forum felt that they were not being kept up to date and had to rely on the online documentary for news. Casting was also affected which meant that instead of announcing her shortlist for main roles in August, final preparations to start filming were only made in mid October.

I was told I had the part of Abbey, formerly known as Maddie, less than a week before I was due to film in London. On the 18^th October a camera crew, two directors, four actors and a handful of willing Zombies descended on Shoreditch. Fighting against darkness we moved from our original location to one outdoors and back again. Hat Trick followed us around for the majority of the day, asking to let them film me applying my makeup and recording general shooting. It felt strange being the subject, rather than behind the scenes for once! (Particularly with four cameras being pointed straight at me for parts of the day.)

Back on the Internet Zombie Movie forums, two scriptwriters wrote about how they felt the project was no longer their own and now unrecognisable. They disliked the casting and the actors themselves and despite the newly found positive attitude displayed by most of the contributors, they continued to write about their unhappiness. Had it not been for the support from the rest of the forum, I may have found this demeaning but as I was aware that nothing could be done, I was not alarmed.

The London screening will feature Video blogs from a worldwide You Tube community, some fearing the zombies, and others believing the outbreak to be pure rumours. Then we’ll see the segment shot early this month. 12 hours of work, which will probably yield less than five minutes screen time, but that’s showbiz, as they say!

The project will hopefully be completed after the screening depending on interest from outside parties. As a no budget movie however, I believe the results so far will be hugely impressive to all.