With George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead arriving on DVD everywhere tomorrow, B-D stringer BC caught up with the legendary director to chat about the project, among other Romero related goodness. Read on for the chat. The film will follow a group of college students shooting a horror movie in the woods who stumble upon a real zombie uprising. When the onslaught begins, they seize the moment as any good film students would, capturing the undead in a "cinema verite" style that causes more than the usual production headaches.
BC: So what are the extras on Diary going to be like?
GR: There’s a commentary track, and there’s a long story behind that. They suddenly needed it, and I was in Paris, and the other guys were in Toronto... so they did this elaborate hookup. So it’s a bit of a lazy commentary. The other features are fabulous; this guy Michael Felcher did interviews with everyone involved in the film, and what he also did - which I asked him to do during the shooting of the film – I thought it’d be nice to have the characters do sort of like epitaphs for themselves, and I thought we might use them in the film. So Michael took each one of the actors and shot these things, as if they were shooting themselves, and I wound up using one of them in the film (Jason), but the others just didn’t fit. But they’re all in there, and those are really fun to see. There’s a very well made documentary, a hell of a lot of behind the scenes stuff. And this was a very small film, and there was definitely a sense of family atmosphere going on during the production, and the documentary really reflects that. Plus neat stuff from the computer and mechanical FX guys. But the film is the same; we didn’t shoot any more gore or anything like that. The director’s cut was what went in the theater.
BC: During shooting, how did you balance the creative needs of the film, which is supposed to be a hand-held documentary, vs. the technical needs of what you needed to see as the director? Because it’s actually the best shot film of all the recent ‘found footage’ movies, not a lot of jerky camera and out of focus stuff....
GR: We had to make that decision early on, and when we were shooting, I didn’t know about Cloverfield or Redacted or any of these other things. But we decided at the beginning of the film we’d be a bit jerkier to sort of sell the idea. So, other than that first scene (with the ambulance), the film gets gradually more stable as it goes, so the first shot in the woods is the most erratic, and the next scene less so, and so on. Because we wanted it to play more like a movie, we were afraid of being like Blair Witch, which at that time was my only other reference. And Deborah says at the beginning of the film that she “is trying to scare you; that she edited it and put music in it and blah blah blah”, so we thought that gave us license to make it appear like more of a film, while not violating the subjective camera “rules”.
BC: This is the first time you’ve done two zombie films in the same decade-
GR: -And there might be another one coming! (laughs) We’ll talk about that later.
BC: (laughs) Deal. So did the world change that much since Land came out, or did you just have so much to say that you couldn’t fit it all into one film?
GR: Well Land was more of a 9/11, nü-normal, paranoia kind of reference. But I wrote the first sketch for this film even before we made Land, because I wanted to do something about this emerging media: the Internet, how it’s mainstream... but I never beefed it up. But then we finished Land, and within those two years or whatever it was, this stuff became so much MORE pervasive. I mean, even the presidential debates are no longer being asked by an anchor anymore – they’re being asked by people out there with their fucking iPhones! So I said, “I gotta do this”, so I tweaked the script and said, “we gotta do this, SOMEBODY’s gotta do this.”
BC: Well I’m proud to say my phone doesn’t have a camera on it, it’s a cell phone and that’s it.
GR: I don’t even have a cell phone! (laughs). I just don’t like it much. You can’t even buy a computer anymore without a camera attached to it. I use the Internet for reference, that’s about it. 90% of what’s out there is either garbage or illegal (laughs).
BC: When Land was coming out you were talking about maybe following Simon Baker and Asia Argento’s characters in another film, is that still a possibility?
GR: It is. It’s all about financing. Universal originally said we want to do a sequel to this, and I said “if I have to do a sequel quickly, then it really needs to be a direct sequel. If I don’t have a new theme to write about then all I can do is continue their story”, so that’s where that came from. And that’s what’s happening now. This film was modestly budgeted, and it’s already made a ton of money worldwide. So again, there’s talk of doing a sequel. And I’ll probably do a continuation of that story; in fact I have a draft of a script. But I don’t know if it’s going to happen, but there is a lot more that I wanted to say, because there’s nothing in there yet... What I think happens is, with this new media, is that tribes are created. Just look at the way the media has affected these primary elections. They don’t just count “votes”, they count “the black vote”, “the old vote”, etc., and it just becomes tribal. And that’s a theme that the first film didn’t get to address.
BC: How about other characters, like Peter from Dawn or Sarah from Day… any chance of revisiting them down the road?
GR: I don’t know… I had to go to great lengths for Savini to appear in Land in his old costume from Dawn. The problem is those films are owned and controlled by other people. They're no longer mine, and it's very expensive. I can't do like Steve King did with Castle Rock. However, if i could get the permission.... there’s a character in my new script which could be become Bub, in other words, he would be alive now. But they'd probably want a lot of money for that. I'm bad with that business stuff (laughs)."
BC: You mentioned Stephen King; that was actually my next question – any plans for another collaboration with him?
We talk all the time (laughs). He did one of the voices in Diary, the preacher. A lot of folks came out and did voice work, old buddies that were willing to give me that support. We’re always talking about another one, it just never happens. The rights for his books go out and get sold for millions before the books themselves are published. He’s given me the rights to several things, like Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, we could never get off the ground. Buick 8 is another one. Neither of those have been made because they are so difficult. Buck 8 would be expensive, and Tom Gordon is all about a little girl, and unless you have a superstar little girl no one wants to take that risk.
BC: So Diary 2 the next project for sure?
I have no idea; I got like three different things. My agent just sent me a script today for something. You just never know. There’s a very good chance that it might happen, but it completely depends on the money. First guy that writes the check – I’ll be there! There are several things that I’d like to do, we’ll see.
BC: Well George, I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to talk to us. It really is an honor.
GR: Oh thank you. Take care.
DIARY OF THE DEAD arrives on DVD everywhere tomorrow.
Thanks for the interview... good questions. He says some enlightening stuff about the movie that I found interesting. I'll finally get to watch it tonight.
I'd love to see Buick 8 made into a movie by him.
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GR: There’s a commentary track, and there’s a long story behind that. They suddenly needed it, and I was in Paris, and the other guys were in Toronto... so they did this elaborate hookup. So it’s a bit of a lazy commentary. The other features are fabulous; this guy Michael Felcher did interviews with everyone involved in the film, and what he also did - which I asked him to do during the shooting of the film – I thought it’d be nice to have the characters do sort of like epitaphs for themselves, and I thought we might use them in the film. So Michael took each one of the actors and shot these things, as if they were shooting themselves, and I wound up using one of them in the film (Jason), but the others just didn’t fit. But they’re all in there, and those are really fun to see. There’s a very well made documentary, a hell of a lot of behind the scenes stuff. And this was a very small film, and there was definitely a sense of family atmosphere going on during the production, and the documentary really reflects that. Plus neat stuff from the computer and mechanical FX guys. But the film is the same; we didn’t shoot any more gore or anything like that. The director’s cut was what went in the theater.
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