Diary of the Dead: Report from the Set
Toronto, Canada
By: Jonathan Doyle and Sarah Duda

Halloween night, 2006. Along with a small group of cast and crew, we’re standing in a Toronto mansion, only a few feet away from George A. Romero as he shoots the fifth entry in his legendary “Dead” series. But this is not your typical horror movie. From the moment we arrive on set, something is clearly wrong with this picture. What are Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone doing in a George A. Romero zombie film? We appreciate “The Flintstones” as much as anyone, but this seems like a seriously high-risk concept. And then it comes to us. Romero hasn’t lost his mind. These are crew members, embracing the spirit of Halloween.

Within a few minutes, we’re behind a monitor, watching a zombie get cut in half (that’s more like it). Throughout the evening, several versions of this shot are photographed, each representing a different layer that will later be composited to create a gruesome effects shot. This seems awfully elaborate for a movie that’s been described as a low budget, documentary-style return to Romero’s roots. Leave it to the greatest horror director of his generation -- or any generation -- to break all expectations and re-invent the zombie film yet again.

Given the focused, single-minded nature of that night’s shoot, we saw little first-hand evidence of “Diary of the Dead.” We didn’t see any actors delivering lines and we didn’t catch any significant glimpses of the film’s unorthodox visual style. However, we did hear a lot about “Diary of the Dead”… and it sounds fascinating. While Mr. Romero’s zombie-killing obligations prevented him from speaking to us, we managed to interview several important members of the cast and crew. This is the story of “Diary of the Dead” in their words.



Scott Wentworth (Professor Maxwell): I certainly knew who George Romero is, but no, I wasn’t a fan. Once I got cast in this, I went out -- I live in Stratford, Ontario -- to the video store. Stratford’s a little town so I come into the video store and I said I want this, and this, and this, and this, and they’re like, “Planning a light, friendly evening?”

Michelle Morgan (Debra): I had seen two or three [of Romero’s “Dead” films] already when I was cast and I rushed the rest after I got cast.

Scott Wentworth (Professor Maxwell): I didn’t know what to expect when I met him. He’s such an interesting guy, you know. In many ways, he’s the least macabre person you could think of. If you were introduced to him at somebody’s house, I don’t think you would immediately assume that he had reinvented the horror genre.

John Harrison (executive producer): I had a small film production company in Pittsburgh back in the seventies when I was coming up and George was working there too. He had a series of sports documentaries that he was producing and directing at the time called “The Winners.” I called him up and said, “We’ve got some production services, maybe we can help you out.” He came over and saw some films we were making and we got to know each other. So we worked on those and then “Martin” came along and we shot that in my partner’s house at the time. Then “Dawn” came along and I was the screwdriver zombie and then there was “Knightriders,” “Creepshow,” “Day of the Dead,” and on, and on, and on.

Michael Felsher (Red Shirt Pictures): I’ve known George for many, many years and we’re pretty good friends and John Harrison’s a good friend of mine so it’s been fun just to hang out. Of course, having gotten to know George over the past several years has been a big treat because I started off as the biggest George Romero fan ever. And to have gone from being just this big fan to being someone who talks to him like a regular guy, it’s like, “How the hell did that happen?”



John Harrison (executive producer): We started talking about this a few years ago, George’s partner Peter and I. George had written this terrific script that we are now making and Peter, George, and I thought maybe we could turn this into a television series. Because of the nature of the story, we thought that this could franchise out and be a continuing series of stories about the documentation that’s going on in this story. We didn’t set it up at the time. One thing led to the next, George and Peter came up here to do “Land,” I went down to South Africa to direct a mini-series, and it kind of just sat on the shelf and we didn’t do anything with it. And then about eight months ago, Peter called and said, “Look, I’ve got these guys from Art Fire -- really wonderful people -- and they want to finance the movie and they want to do it as a theatrical.” So we just said, “Okay. Let’s go.” And here we are.

Michael Felsher (Red Shirt Pictures): He’s wanted to go back to his independent roots for a while, especially with the zombie films because the last independent zombie film he did was “Day” back in 1985. He’s wanted to get back to his roots and kind of do guerilla filmmaking again. He’s said that to me several times. He’s said that to a lot of people. Because “Land” was a rough experience. It was a grueling shoot. He is extremely proud of “Land” and he’s very happy with the way it turned out, but I think this is more of a return to the kind of filmmaking he used to do in the seventies.

Scott Wentworth (Professor Maxwell): My first impression when I read the script was that there was a kind of elegance in it that you don’t normally run into these days in a movie. Movies seem to be put together by committee and sometimes you’re dealing with half a dozen personalities and you feel them in the writing and it’s all kind of packaged and slick and thrown together in order to appeal to a certain audience. And it was so refreshing to get a script that was written from one person’s point-of-view.



Michelle Morgan (Debra): We’re film students making a mummy movie at the beginning and then the dead begin to walk and we all escape together in a Winnebago.

Michael Felsher (Red Shirt Pictures): The Winnebago has a TV in it and one of the characters comes out and says, “Hey, what’s all this on the news?” They leave and try to get home, but very quickly everything has gone to hell and they’re just trying to survive on their own.

Scott Wentworth (Professor Maxwell): So they’ve got all this equipment and, while they’re trying to get home, this student Jason feels the need to sort of document the experience so he becomes a sort of diarist and is uploading the film he’s shooting on the internet and kind of assembling the movie that we’re watching as it goes along.
Michael Felsher (Red Shirt Pictures): It occurs over two days. They try to hole up in a few different places, but basically it’s all about them being on their own and trying to survive. They quickly come to the realization that there is no safe harbor and so they’re never at any one given place for that long.

Scott Wentworth (Professor Maxwell): Maxwell is the film professor who teaches the students who are making the film-within-the-film, but you only catch a very small glimpse at the beginning of how he might function as a teacher. Once people start coming back from the dead and these guys decide they’ve got to start heading for their various homes, he ends up going along for the ride. It’s kind of interesting that an authority figure is sort of stripped of all authority and then has to kind of regain it through his actions and not through the fact that he gets to sit at the front of the class. It’s not an orthodox, older person, voice-of-authority. The voice-of-authority that emerges in this film is Debra, the young woman.

Michelle Morgan (Debra): Jason’s my boyfriend, but because he’s filming it’s pissing me off, and I’ve sort of started hanging out with Tony. That’s the dynamic. Tony’s a tough guy from Queens.

Shawn Roberts (Tony): It’s set in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In that region. It’s a bunch of film students and the camera never goes away. It’s all from the characters’ point-of-view.



Michael Felsher (Red Shirt Pictures): There’s no conventional camera watching everything. It’s told literally through the eyes of a filmmaker. As they’re trying to escape and get back to their homes and find out what’s going on, he’s taping the whole thing. His opinion is that this has to be documented and he becomes kind of obsessed with it. So we never really see the director. And they pick up a couple of cameras along the way. So it’s only seen from the cameras that the kids are shooting from.

Paula Devonshire (line producer): One of the surviving characters goes around and accesses all these things, whether it’s someone’s cell phone, whether it’s Jason’s video camera, whether it’s another camera they find along the way, whether it’s security camera footage that may come from hospitals -- or wherever they’re at -- and then that person has compiled this movie from the tapes that they have accessed.

Michelle Morgan (Debra): The idea is that Jason has made this movie, has filmed everything, and you’re watching the finished product after it has been edited together. So it’s not supposed to be continuous, like, every single moment.

Michael Felsher (Red Shirt Pictures): The movie is very unique. A problem has been that the initial press release went out and mentioned “Blair Witch” in comparison and I suppose that there is some similarity in concept, but George’s approach is a very constructed narrative. We’re watching the filmmakers literally as the dead outbreak happens and we don’t get to see the big picture.

John Harrison (executive producer): It’s not gonna be “Blair Witch.” It’s not just gonna be a handheld camera that’s found in the woods somewhere. It’s a little more sophisticated than that. George has a really sophisticated stylistic sensibility about how this movie is going to play out. The best way I can describe it is that it’s a real documentary, in a way, of what’s going on. You know those guys in New York who just happened to be there when the planes hit the towers and then got all that great footage? It’s got that kind of feel and that kind of immediacy.



Scott Wentworth (Professor Maxwell): The movie that the character Jason is making -- that we catch a glimpse of at the beginning -- is a horror movie. I extol its virtues because it has glimpses of social satire, which I think might be Mr. Romero poking fun at his younger self.

Alex Kavanagh (costume designer): Ridley is in his mummy costume for the whole movie. At the beginning, he actually leaves and, when they hook back up with him, he’s still wearing his mummy costume. He’s a strange guy. It’s never really explained in the script, but I think he keeps his costume on to freak out his parents. He’s a shit disturber. And then when everything goes down, he just doesn’t have a chance to get changed. That’s something I’ve made up in my mind. It’s not official.

Scott Wentworth (Professor Maxwell): George has a lot of fun with referencing horror movies in general, but not specifically zombie movies. There’s this odd line when the director is criticizing one of the cast, he says, “The dead don’t move that fast. You’re a mummy. You have to move slow.” And then when the real dead attack, he’s like, “See, look!” So we do have some fun with it.



Scott Wentworth (Professor Maxwell): I think it’s a real style piece and I think that if you can kind of get your head into the world he’s creating, then you’re okay. But if you can’t get your head into that world, if you can’t figure out what style language he wants to tell the story in, then you could be lost as an actor. It’s a very particular style. It’s not tongue-in-cheek, but it’s not completely realistic. It’s bloody, but it’s not bloody the way some of these newer, “Saw”-kind-of-movies are.

Paula Devonshire (line producer): I think a lot of the horror will arise from the feeling of being there because, if you’re there with them, shooting someone’s point-of-view, you’re going to feel like it’s happening around you.

Alex Kavanagh (costume designer): George approaches every movie he does with a very different style, different look. “Land of the Dead” was supposed to be set in the future and we did a lot of heavy palate control and everything had a very sort of stylized look, even normal clothes. In this movie, we’re just going ultra real. We’re shooting it like a documentary.

Paula Devonshire (line producer): Every scene is, for the most part, done in one shot. Not one take, but one shot. So you might take a while lighting it just because you’re lighting it from every possible angle and every possible movement. But once they’re lit, they’re lit everywhere and then they just rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, do a couple of takes, then it’s done. No coverage.

Philip Riccio (Ridley): As an actor, it makes it interesting because, if you fuck up later in a scene, everyone gets more angry because you can’t just use a different take. You have to start from the beginning again.

Michelle Morgan (Debra): George is very aware of not wanting to make the audience feel sick. And the idea is that it’s supposed to be made by a director so he’s actually trying to shoot it well.

Paula Devonshire (line producer): By the time they’re actually rolling the camera, everyone has to know where they’re going because the camera operator -- who’s pretending to be the filmmaker -- has to know where the cast is going to be so that it looks loose and natural, but he knows where everyone is going to be and he’s just forcing the handheld look to it.

Shawn Roberts (Tony): We have moments where there’s just no other way to do it so the camera goes in the actor’s hands. We’re not professionals. We’re not doing any great zooms or pans or anything like that, but there are definitely times when we have the camera.

Michael Felsher (Red Shirt Pictures): This is a new technique of filming for George. He’s doing things that he’s never attempted before. He’s not relying on a lot of -- I don’t want to say “tricks of the trade” -- but you know, there’s no musical score in this film. In some ways, he’s limiting himself in what he can do, but that’s opening up whole new creative avenues to express himself. I mean, he’s in his late sixties now and most filmmakers, at that point, are just happy to coast on what they’ve done before. But George is consistently pushing himself and consistently trying new things and trying to learn more about filmmaking. This film will be as distinctive as any film he’s ever done.



Alex Kavanagh (costume designer): My team is four people: myself and three other people. On “Land of the Dead,” I had myself and twelve other people. So this is low budget filmmaking, but it’s great fun. We’ve got a great crew and everybody wants to be here so it’s really fun.

John Harrison (executive producer): It’s a more personal story, it’s a more intimate production, and it’s going to be every bit as powerful and maybe more [than “Land of the Dead”]. I’m a good friend of his [Romero] and I think I’ve heard him talk about it and I share his opinion about this. The baggage that comes with doing a huge, big studio movie -- there are advantages to the extent that you can do some big shots, you can do some epic production value kinds of things -- but at the end of it, the movie has got to have a great story and great characterizations. And we have much more control on a smaller movie like this. I don’t think George would say for one minute that he’s deprived of anything he wants to do to make this movie. He’s got all the resources.

Shawn Roberts (Tony): It’s going back to his roots of being an independent filmmaker where he has creative control. When you do something for a studio, you have a lot of people to answer to and that can torment somebody. In this, George gets to be a freer man and really bring his vision to the screen.



Michael Felsher (Red Shirt Pictures): If I had to compare it, in terms of the way it’s being made, it’s “Night of the Living Dead.” This is happening very fast, it’s very efficient, and it’s just George really putting himself on the line.

John Harrison (executive producer): Well it’s not a sequel. It’s not a continuation of the story. George is actually back-flipping to the “Night of the Living Dead” era when the whole mythology began. Even though it’s updated and it’s set today -- it’s not set in 1968 -- it’s really kind of the beginnings of the thing again. But it’s told in a completely different and unique way so we’re kind of getting into the mythology of it a little bit more, some detail about how it starts and what happens to people and it’s told in a really unique way. This whole thing about it being a documentary about what’s going on, I think makes it really visceral, really immediate. So again, it’s not a continuation of the mythology, it’s not where the zombies have come to and how they’ve become more intelligent. It’s kind of going back to the beginning.

Philip Riccio (Ridley): I’m not an expert on the other films. I’ve actually only seen “Land of the Dead,” but I think this one’s really -- just the way that he’s using the device of it, just being all handheld and all point-of-view -- is really interesting. The fact that he’s bringing it all the way back to the first “Night of the Living Dead” and the beginning makes it pretty cool, to be able to re-start the mythology, as opposed to being so evolved in “Land.”

Michael Felsher (Red Shirt Pictures): It’s not a big epic in terms of zombies. “Land of the Dead” had a lot of special effects and huge set pieces. This isn’t like that. There are some big moments – some great zombie gags – but this is George’s way of trying to tell the origin story with today’s technology and within today’s political and social climate.



John Harrison (executive producer): One of the thematic things that George is dealing with is how are we getting our news? How is the news spun? What is the responsibility of the person with the camera? Are you really so disconnected that you can continue to shoot while all of this is going on around you, even to your own friends in front of you?

Scott Wentworth (Professor Maxwell): What’s interesting about him [Romero] to me is that, although he obviously feels a real need to fulfill this genre that he helped create -- so there’s plenty of blood and plenty of suspense and plenty of zombies and plenty of gore -- he’s equally interested in the smaller movie, the relationships between these students and this teacher and what it means to be a victim of the media and how do you participate in a world that is changing? Is it morally corrupt to observe it? Or do you have to get involved in it?

Michael Felsher (Red Shirt Pictures): Katrina has happened since “Land” and there’s a sense that it’s reflected in here. That’s my take on it -- I’m not speaking for George -- but when I read the script, it felt like these guys are on their own and they’re getting the news and watching the news programs and everything. They’re realizing that they have no clue and that the media is misdirecting the public and sometimes outright lying. What they’re seeing represents a whole different reality than what they’re seeing on the television. I mean, you can’t help but feel like it’s Katrina that he’s responding to.



Paula Devonshire (line producer): I can’t imagine that the editing is going to take that long, quite honestly, considering you’re not cutting scenes together, you’re just going, “Okay, here’s scene one.” There’s the odd time that there’s two camera’s shooting because one of the other crew members has accessed another camera so there will be some cutting back-and-forth but, for the most part, I can’t imagine it would take as long as traditional picture editing would take.

John Harrison (executive producer): We’re hoping maybe this will franchise out into more and I’d love to do more with George because I love working with him. This is the first film we’ve been able to work together on in almost fifteen years. I mean, we’ve been friends and we hang out, but this is the first project we’ve been able to do together. We’ve had a couple of false starts.

Michael Felsher (Red Shirt Pictures): I don’t want to speak for George, but this is what I know to be true. The Stephen King projects are not happening right now. “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” is certainly not happening. “Solitary Isle” is in development. That actually got reported a bit prematurely. I was with George at a convention the day after that got reported on the web and he was like, “God, we talked about it, but there’s no deal in place.” But he’s still keen to do that. I think that will happen. There have been a few other things around, but that’s the problem: George’s name gets associated with a lot of stuff and sometimes it’s reported way before it should be.



Philip Riccio (Ridley): It’s been a great experience. George is really interesting. I didn’t know much about him before, but he definitely creates a really good environment for the actors to work in and I think, because everyone around him respects him so much, he’s able to create the environment he wants and it’s very friendly and playful and pretty calm.

Michelle Morgan (Debra): The first time I met him, I said, “Oh, I was watching ‘Day of the Dead’ yesterday” and he was like, “Oh, I’m sorry.” And I said, “Why are you sorry?” And he said, “It’s my usual reaction. When people tell me they watch my films, I apologize.”

Shawn Roberts (Tony): The way he can just laugh about, “Well, we’re going to slice somebody in half now” and then just kind of crack a joke about it. Even in odd circumstances, he’s got this great sense of humor and it’s not like a business sort of relationship we have with him. It’s definitely not like work.

Paula Devonshire (line producer): George is great. He’s so nice and friendly. Everyone’s smiling and happy all the time. And it’s funny, Vincenzo Natali came to the set on Sunday and he really wanted to meet George. I said, “Oh George, this is my friend Vincenzo, he’s a director too. He directed a movie called ‘Cube.’ Have you heard of it?” And George was like, “Wow man, that’s an awesome movie. That’s so cool.” And Vincenzo’s beaming from ear-to-ear. It was really nice.

John Harrison (executive producer): I’m having a great time. George and Peter and I have been good friends for a long time so it’s a lot of fun and a lot of yuks and, you know, we’re just making a movie here, as George says, so we try to have fun and not take ourselves too seriously.

Scott Wentworth (Professor Maxwell): When you hear about George Romero and you know about these films with these flesh-eating zombies, you sort of expect this very eccentric personality. But he’s a filmmaker, he’s a writer, he’s an artist. And when you talk to him and you work with him, you very much see him in that spirit of independent films that came out of the sixties, the inheritors of the kind of movies that John Cassavetes invented.

Paula Devonshire (line producer): It’s a really different kind of film. I’ve never worked on anything that’s been shot like this before. I think it’s gonna be great.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS:

Line producer Paula Devonshire’s credits include “Ginger Snaps: Unleashed,” “Ginger Snaps: The Beginning,” and “Nothing.”

Red Shirt Pictures’ Michael Felsher supervised the filming of behind-the-scenes content on the set of “Diary of the Dead.” He has worked with Romero on several DVD projects in the past and recently directed “Flesh Wounds: 7 Stories of the Soul” for Dark Sky Films’ DVD release of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

Executive producer John Harrison has been involved as an actor, assistant director, and composer on several George A. Romero projects. His directing credits include “Tales from the Darkside: The Movie” and the “Dune” mini-series.

Costume designer Alex Kavanagh is a veteran of several horror films. Her credits include “Ginger Snaps: Unleashed,” “Ginger Snaps: The Beginning,” “Saw II,” “Saw III,” and “Land of the Dead.”

Actress Michelle Morgan’s credits include “Last to Surrender,” “Road Rage,” and the recent Sci-Fi Channel production, “Alien Fire.”

Actor Philip Riccio has appeared in several TV series, including “Doc,” “Puppets Who Kill,” and “Rent-a-Goalie.”

Actor Shawn Roberts’s credits include “X-Men,” “Taking Lives,” “Going the Distance,” and “Man of the Year.” He also played Mike in “Land of the Dead.”

Actor Scott Wentworth is a Tony-nominated stage actor, who has also appeared in several films (including “Sing,” “The Ice Storm,” and “Free Fall”) and TV series (including “Kung Fu: The Legend Continues” and “Law & Order”).

Thanks to publicist Kim Yu for making this article possible and special thanks to driver Rosalind Callahan for coming to our rescue during a near-disastrous tape recorder emergency.