Interview with '2' Director Andy Davis - posted 1.14.08 @ 5:30pm

By Geoff Bough

At Revenant, we are constantly keeping our eyes peeled for exciting independent films and we have certainly found one in Andy Davis' new film '2'. The story of 2 survivors of a biological attack that turns the world upside down and how they cope with their plight.

We were honored to have Andy Davis answer a few of our questions about his film and excited to share his answers with you all...

Rev: Hey Andy! Can you tell us more about how the project for '2'started?

Andy: I am a HUGE zombie fan, I have a Night of the Living Dead tattoo on my
back, and when I got out of high school, I made sure that I was
heading for the zombie capitol of the world- Pittsburgh.

Down there, I visited all of the cool movie sites for Night, Dawn and Day of the
Dead, and met and talked with alot of the people that worked on the
films, from Savini down to the Cletus and Barb Anderson.

,I also wrote the story that would eventually become "2" there. It took 10 years for
me to re-visit it and add new ideas to it. My Producer Olin Smith
and I were looking for our next project and it really seemed to be a
pretty fresh take on the zombie genre, so we went for it. Then we
hired writer Al Lamanda to come on board and flesh the story into a
screenplay.

Rev: Where was the film shot? Was there community involvement with the film?

Andy: We shot the film in a medium sized city in Maine called Biddeford.
Primarily the city is in a state of abandonment/reconcieving, so we
were very lucky that we could really take this city and make it look
empty, for the end of the world.

We got even more lucky when we were able to use a huge old mill for our offices and main shooting
locations. The community support in the city was amazing, from the
understanding people had of 200 zombies roaming around to the press
and support. We also had some really great zombies from whole families to people I am sure we will be lifelong friends with.

We premiered the film in October 2007 at the city theatre in Biddeford, so it really came full circle there.

Rev: Was there a casting process or was it more friends and family?

Andy: We did a huge casting call for people who wanted to be zombie extras and turned it into a press day as well. We had people come to the audition AS ZOMBIES, so it was quite a spectacle.

Overall we had 200 or more people in our film as zombies. We have a 5 minute fun video on youtube that you can watch to see parts of the casting day, here

For the real actors in the film, I went to my good friends Jim
and Molly Roberts who are amazing actors, to play the leads.

Rev: What was the budget for the film and how was that raised?

Andy: The budget for "2" all together is around $100,000 and Olin Smith, my
producer put up half, then our executive producer John Lane put in the
other half.

Rev: Were you able to accomplish what you set out to do with the film?

Andy: Very much so. We were a bit short on footage after our primary shoot, so we went back in the Winter and shot a few additional scenes, then Summer came and we had a great idea for a new ending, so we added 20
minutes to the film there too.

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