BD: How did you come on board this project?

Zeb: Zombies have always been an obsession of mine. Night of the Living Dead Origins has been quietly gestating in the Reese's pieces of my candy coated zombie obsessed mind for quite some time. And as a true fan boy of the genre, I've felt that it was necessary to go and make the most kick ass zombie film every f**king created. I eventually took the project to Simon and Jib and described to them what my vision of the movie was to be and they got very excited about the project. And it just sort of took off from there.

BD: Can you tell me a bit more about the "origins" story, how Barbara is in the movie?

Zeb: I've always been a big a fan of George Romero's zombie series and I really wanted to approach the story from the standpoint of staying true to the original which is kind of a catch 22. There had been some pretty bad remakes in the past and they were all regurgitating the same thing that Romero had already done. No one can compete with Romero's vision of Night. That film was perfection. So I asked myself, “how do you remake a movie with the intention of staying true to the original while not repeating the same ol' shit that everybody has seen?” And that's when I came up with the concept. There were always bits of dialogue in the original film describing everybody's personal back story in terms of their journey that led them to this house. Cooper and his family were attacked by the zombie plague and found themselves in the car being overturned. Ben found himself in the middle of a zombie riot witnessing a truck being chased down by a horde of these things. And these were all really cool ideas but we never got to see it. That is when I decided to do Night of the Living Dead Origins. I wanted to tell a part of the story that we never got to see. But I always wanted to give it a scope that has never been seen before in a zombie film, which is why I set it in New York. I think of this movie almost like an alternate time line in which this event takes place. As a zombie fan, I have always wanted to see those zombie riots that we have always yearned for. I wanted to see thousands of these things tearing apart the city in a post 9/11 world. Death, chaos, madness, explosions. I wanted to make my “Zombie Empire of the Sun”. I want this to be a very serious film minus the bad cliches which has become a pretty common practice in the making of a zombie film.

BD: So what is the exact time period?

Zeb: It's now.

BD: Who else have you cast?

Zeb: We have Joseph Pilato aka Captain Rhodes cast as Cooper. We sent the script to a couple different actors in Hollywood that I thought would be great in the role of Ben. I wanted to make sure that we got just the right type of guy for the role. And to my happy surprise, one of my favorite actors responded quite positively to the project. It felt like it was kind of a stretch at the time when we sent the material to Mos Def considering the fact that he is pretty picky about the projects that he works on and a lot of people are just turned off by zombie films. That being said, we are currently talking to him and hopefully we will be able to work out something that is suitable for everybody's schedule. Danielle Harris? Barbara? Awesome! Enough said. Mike Diskint will be playing Tom. Alona Tal will be playing Helen Cooper. In regards to the rest of the cast, we'll be making some announcements in the next week or so.

BD: This is fully animated, featuring voices, or computer generated animation like your trailers online?

Zeb: The best way to describe the look of this film would be that of a “living painting”. And yes, all characters and environments will be CG animated.

BD: Can you talk me through your process?

Zeb: My company, New Golden Digital, has developed some new technology that we are utilizing on the film. The technology is somewhat similar to James Cameron's system in the sense that if you were to do a side by side comparison, our system would be a Ferrari and his system would be a Model T Ford. Yes they both have four wheels and drive but one is clearly superior to the other. And don't get me wrong, I love James Cameron. Upon request, I would have his children. Our system essentially allows us to, amongst other things, motion capture actor's performances with a real time preview like Avatar or Beowolf. The only difference being, our system is non-optical, 60 pounds, and fits in a two foot by two foot portable pelican case and is compatible with nearly every single camera and lens on the market from prosumer cameras up to film. What does that mean? Our system can go outside, inside, and be set up in less than nine minutes ready to provide us with all the pertinent meta data needed to create our animations.

BD: I hear you have your own studio that you work out of?

Zeb: Yes.

BD: Will the film be in black and white at all?

Zeb: No.

BD: Can you talk about the 3D being used?

Zeb: Check out the test render and then you'll understand what I mean when I say “living painting” in 3D. But to be more specific, the movie will be portrayed by 3D animated characters and environments and be viewable in 3D. Meaning you can go to a theater, put on some polarized glasses and see the movie jump off the screen. None of those red and blue glasses for us! Haha.

BD: Is the plan for this to go theatrical?

Zeb: Yes.

BD: Do you have sequels in mind?

Zeb: I have a television series in mind.