The Last Stand - Martin Vavra

Posted by Steve on 30 April 2010 | 0 Comments

Tell us about your sci-fi web series.

The Last Stand is a zombie apocalypse series. It follows four people who struggle with hope, addiction, loss, and a various other issues in a world where surviving isn't always the best thing going.

Where did the idea/concept for your web series come from?

The first episode was never meant to be an episode. I was showing a friend a possible place to shoot something else (a zom-com she had in mind but not on paper) and I knew about this great building. Another friend worked for the proper owners, and when I called to ask if we could film there she told me that in about 24 to 48 hours they were going to bulldoze the building. So I called all my friends with one hand and wrote a script with the other. An hour later I have my friends and a script. The next day, half the people showed with half the gear, and I was feeding lines to people who didn't even know they were going to have parts. We filmed it in three hours, and then I shelved it for three months because I thought it was a travesty. When I went back to it, I thought it wasn't too bad. I slapped some sound on it, some color, and dropped it on The Lost Zombies site. I had a flooded inbox the next day asking when the next episode was coming out. I got everyone together and they all wanted back in, so I wrote the rest of the episodes after that.

Name some of your sci-fi influences. Any favorite movies, TV shows, novels?

I am a huge fan of Star Wars, some Star Trek, Babylon 5 (!). I got immersed in sci-fi at 6 with Star Wars in '77, and have been committed ever since. I was reading Tolkien at 11. I fell in love with Neil Gaiman a few years ago and got to meet him while dressed as a clone trooper. I started reading the Dark Tower series by Steven King a couple years ago, and keep chugging away on those (love'em).

Tell us about the technical production of your show. What camera & equipment did you use? Editing software & hardware? For visual effects, etc?

I have been trying to run this very professionally for me and my crew. Some people want to be in the industry of making film and video, so are talented friends who are along for the ride. I originally had a camera operator and an edit, but one stepped down and another was removed before filming, so I run the camera and direct and edit, and do sound design. The camera is the Canon XL H1a, and I shoot in the pseudo 30 fps, and it is HDV. It edits very nice and clean. It tends to be a little on the dull side for color, but I am a believer in color in post, so I have no worries about the flat colors. I edit in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, and I use Magic Bullet Looks and Colorista for color work. Premiere doesn't capture HDV, so I capture in HDV Split. I am sure I am getting snickers from people since I am not on a Mac. PCs are just fine, it Windows that is always the bugger of things. I have a custom made Falcon NorthWest computer with four cores, and it runs as a virtual 8 core with Windows7, and 12 gigs of ram. Both special effects guys use After Effects, but one is on a Mac, the other is on a PC.

Can you tell us any interesting facts or trivia about your show? Any funny stories?

All of our guns are 1 to 1 scale airsoft guns. A buddy works for a paintball and airsoft distributor in Washington State, and when they get defects they throw them on a pile. When we needed weapons, they said "Whatever you can carry out, $50." So we loaded an entire car with enough airsoft guns to take Iwo Jima. An afternoon of painting gave use the accurate look.

On our first day of shooting for episode 2, which was the first day of shooting for this as a known series after months from the first episode, we had every know problem occur, most where sound. First, our new character to be introduced to the series drove down the wrong road, got lost, tried to turn around on gravel, and slid his car into the ditch. While filming a different scene without him, we were setting up for our first zombies, and some people walked out of the woods, stopped 20 feet away from us, and four people put on blind folds. A fifth person got 50 feet up the hill from them, and when the blind folds were secure, began to ding brass chimes that the blind folded people would step toward. One ding equaled one step. It was a trust ritual to trust the sound and walk toward it, ignoring your senses. They did this for approximately 300 yards. This was the final audio issue after dive bombing planes, trains coupling for hours on end, and some guy in a dump truck backing up for, as near as I can tell, four hours.

You can find The Last Stand online here and on Twitter here.

The Last Stand - SciFinal Page

More pictures of the Cast & Crew of The Last Stand below.

 

Zombie Kids

Transfusion on Set!

Armed and Ready!

The Creepy Location

More Guns!