Interview With The Walking Dead Special Effects Make-Up Designer Greg Nicotero

The Special Effects Make-Up Artist for Romero’s Day of the Dead and Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds describes getting the extras pumped in The Walking Dead and sizing up potential zombies over dinner.

Q: You’ve been creating zombies for George Romero for years. What made you want to tackle The Walking Dead?

A: I’ve been best friends with Frank Darabont since before he directed The Shawshank Redemption, and we share a similar interest and nostalgic devotion to George Romero and Night of the Living Dead. We started talking about this project probably three or four years ago, when Frank was talking about wanting to do something different with zombies, and what we could do to make these guys look fresh and original. And from then on, it’s just been like, Hey man! We get to create zombies!

Q: How do these zombies differ from the ones you created for Romero?

A: We used the graphic novel certainly as inspiration. We’ve always tried to push the envelope, and because I’ve done so many other projects it’s always one of those things where you finish a movie and go, “Oh man next time I know how we can make it better. And after that I know how we can make it even better than that.” We’ve taken everything that we’ve learned on all these other projects, and applied them in terms of using new materials and new techniques – even something as simple as a zombie getting shot in the head: We really sat down and worked through the best way to make that look realistic and practical.

Q: What was your solution?

A: Well in the ’70s they just put squibs on extras’ heads and detonated them. Then you got to the point where if you had to use explosive squibs it could only be on a stunt person. But for The Walking Dead, we’re going for a very specific physical type: Every zombie that we see is really tall and really thin and really gaunt looking. One of the story points is that these characters have been dead for so long that they’re starving, and will eat virtually anything. They’ll eat a horse, they’ll eat a rat. So we built this self-contained head-hit rig that runs off compressed air. You fill a tube with blood, and then you use a foot pump to get a really great blood spray. You can clip it on to anybody that you want, and then all of a sudden you have instantaneous head wound.

Q: One of the more infamous scenes in the comic is when the zombies do in fact eat a horse. What was that like to shoot?

A: It’s almost like a Piranha attack – it really was like a feeding frenzy. We had thirty extras leaning over this prosthetic horse that we created, and they started ripping its insides and its entrails out and going crazy. They were sticking their heads in it and their hands in it. I kind of whipped them into a little bit of a frenzy before we shot, and it was funny because at one point I walked over to Frank and I’m like, “Dude, these guys are so amped up you better shoot this quick before they tear the horse apart!” Click here to read more.

AMC Interview With Comic Creator and Series Executive Producer Robert Kirkman

Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead comic and Executive Producer of the series, explains what it’s like to bring his story to life and witness the end of the world (or at least the end of Atlanta) in the process.

Warning: The following contains plot spoilers for The Walking Dead comic series.

Q: You started writing The Walking Dead in 2003. What’s it like to finally be on set?

A: “Surreal,” I guess, is a word I’ve been saying a lot. “Amazing” is another word. I was on a movie set last summer that was like a big budget blockbuster, and before I got out here I told myself, “I’m not going to be seeing the same kind of stuff because they don’t have a budget like a summer blockbuster.” But you know what? It’s almost bigger. The first day I was here was the day after they had flipped the car and there was a big shootout that we saw. It was just absolutely mind-blowing.

Q: Are you finding things are being physically realized as you had imagined them?

A: Everyone is really trying to do good by the comic, and there are scenes that are straight out of it. I think that fans are just going to be thrilled. But at the same time, [Frank Darabont] is vastly improving the material. And there are things here and there that along the way I should have caught, but didn’t. There’s some amazing stuff he added for Morgan’s character in the Pilot episode that’s just not in the comic. It was back story, but he handles it in a way that just really brings it to the forefront. It’s like, Morgan, that guy is an awesome character!

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