Interview with Marc Price - writer and director of Colin

By Geoff Bough

The zombie film has been shifting gears recently as film maker's are taking the subgenre in new and exciting directions. The lastest film from director Marc Price and Nowhere Fast Productions is a film entitled 'Colin' and is the first feature film of it's kind to portray the story through the eyes of a zombie named Colin.

We got the opportunity to speak with 'Colin' writer and director Marc Price about the film:

Rev: We're very excited about this film after learning that the film is told from the perspective of a zombie named Colin, can you tell us a little more about that idea?

Marc: I’m worried this could sound very pretentious but I’ll try my best to explain it… Shortly before writing the script for Colin I’d read John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle which is about two guys organizing a strike of migrant apple pickers in California and what that book does so well is show this idea of a large group of people (the strikers) responding and reacting en masse with unified emotional response to a given situation… like a single, primal animal. Yet, this group is comprised of workers with different attitudes, opinions, different physical attributes and everything else that can make an individual seem unique. But in the throng this individuality is abandoned and a sort of mob-mentality takes over.
As strange as it seems, this kind of felt like a good basis to approach a situation like a zombie horde besieging a house… the creatures would function as this all-powerful indefatigable force driven towards a single goal: to feed.

What was even more interesting with the Steinbeck novel was that if an individual were removed from the throng he would regress back to his everyday state of mind and become an individual once again. Where this works in Colin is that it allowed us to track the trajectory of our main zombie’s existence. He exists mainly to feed, but when dinnertime’s over his mind is occupied by something else. The shadow of familiarity spawned out of his surroundings. Objects he finds, colors, places that tease a sense of memory.

Our story takes place during the early stages of the zombie take-over so the discovery that zombies hold onto a part of their life when they’re not feeding hasn’t necessarily been explored to its fullest amongst the humans occupying that world which should hopefully make it a pretty dangerous place for our zombie.

Rev: Do we get to see who Colin was before becoming infected? His family? friends?

Marc: We don’t see a lot of the human-Colin, but we do see his last moments of panic before he becomes zombie-Colin. The trick was to allow anyone watching to see that (as a human) he’s kind of a regular guy and give just enough information so we can see that there’s absolutely no similarity between human-Colin and zombie-Colin.

There is a section of the film that deals with his family. Daisy Aitkens plays Colin’s sister and there’s a nice little arc for her character to go through (I think she gets the most lines in the film). That’s one of the areas we’ve been very lucky. To have an actress like Daisy who’ll react to Colin like she’s looking at a member of family dying from a terminal disease rather than a monster that should be killed.

That was one of the most fun aspects exploring the story for me. Taking something that starts off initially black and white (humans = good /zombies = bad) and then adding layers of complexity to that premise.

Colin is our story guide, we’re following his narrative so we already start to sympathize with him and see a side of the creatures that the humans may not have picked up on.

So the humans become the threat.
But then we start to explore that and are introduced to characters (like Colin’s sister) who feel that there’s more to the creatures than the monster element.
Other guys just play games and tease the creatures whereas other characters feel a spiteful hate towards them.

Rev: Can you tell us how the idea to create this film came about?

Marc: I’ve always wanted to make a zombie movie. A few years back (as a way to get to know people when I first moved to London) I decided to shoot a sort of fake-zombie-movie-trailer for my showreel. I had so much fun working on it that I thought it’d be amazing to make a full length zombie movie, but there didn’t seem to be much left to do with a zombie film that hasn’t already been done so perfectly before.

I showed this zombie trailer around a lot and thought nothing more about a zombie film until one drunken evening with some buddies and a DVD of Dawn of the Dead. Being an early riser (especially when alcohol is concerned) I woke up to a pretty quiet house (zombies being foremost on my mind) and at some point thought “a zombie film from the zombie’s perspective!”

I got thinking about what the character’s journey would be and how we could handle his motivations and explain these without having to resort to the more obvious use of flashbacks, which would effectively stop the story and kill all the mystery of who the zombie was when he was alive (especially if we see him frequently as a human intermittently throughout the whole film).

I got pretty excited because technically it would be a chance to tell a story visually and from a sound perspective I could shoot anywhere at any time and just replace the soundtrack and build it up entirely (similar to animated film) in post production. It seemed like a fun movie to make.

Another main reason was because I hadn’t really seen anything from a zombie’s perspective before. I did some research and the closest thing I could find to a zombie’s view of a cadaverous apocalypse was a video game, and apparently that focused more on how many humans you could kill, so there was room to do what we wanted and it would appear to be fairly original if we kept the tone just right. Since then I’ve been told that there are plenty of comic books that tell the zombie side of things so at least there’s the slim chance we may strike a chord somewhere if we’re the first to try it with a movie.

Rev: How long did it take to write the script for Colin and were there a number of people involved in the writing process?

Marc: I think it took a couple of months to write the script. It took that long because I’d only allow myself to write whilst I was at work (money earning work answering telephones late at night). It seems a bit odd, but by denying any writing time outside of work-hours resulted in approaching the writing duties with a lot more enthusiasm… and it made going to work that bit more interesting!

I tried to create the best script for anyone unfortunate enough to have to read the thing but I’m not a writer, so I saw the script as a starting point that constantly developed by the time we got to shooting.

The script’s major function was to map out the structure of Colin’s journey for others to read and understand where it’s all going, which makes it the perfect way to encourage others to throw a few ideas into the mix.

Rev: The press release mentions some ambitious shooting locations, can you tell us more about where you shot the film?

Marc: The film was shot in London. There were plenty of opportunities to do the 28 Days Later thing and have Colin wandering around a deserted Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus (which really isn’t too difficult if you go early enough on a bright summer morning) but I think that’s been done before. Even though 28 Days Later doesn’t deal with zombies there are enough loving nods to the genre that its kind of earned it’s place in the zombie pantheon and I felt there were certain things familiar to other zombie movies that we should stay well away from for Colin.

We obviously wanted a feeling of isolation and loneliness because it represented the character. So we’d look for locations that were vast and sprawling but very urban like Rowley Way in Kilburn (which I’ve noticed in about a million films and TV shows since we shot there!)

One of the bigger challenges involved finding a location to shoot the street massacre of about 30 zombies by 20 angry humans with nasty weapons. This was tough because the script called for an explosion (as things developed we needed TWO explosions whilst we were still figuring out how to do the first one). The danger is that, in the real world, this sort of chaos can look like a genuine riot and at one point a cop did show up to find mutilated body parts strewn across the street and seemingly injured people calmly drinking tea and eating biscuits. After a bit of explaining the cop walked away smiling and I think he took a few pictures on his mobile phone!

Rev: That arm bite wound in the trailer looks incredibly awesome! Was there an effects team working on the film?

Marc: It’s wicked that you recognize it as a bite because we really don’t go into the details of the infestation any more than what you see in the trailer. I didn’t want any scenes of people saying “I’ve been bitten!” or “It’s a virus!” or anything like that. In this world everyone knows enough that these things exist and if you’re bitten you change. Anyone familiar with zombie films will get that… people who aren’t familiar with zombie films won’t, but we find ways to make it clear that a bite will finish you off (even a seemingly harmless nibble).

But with those make-up effects we were extremely lucky in that we found Michelle Webb who ended up taking on the responsibility of head make-up artist.
I was at a stage where I’d met with a lot of make-up people and they were all reasonably jaded, angry guys who seemed to hate every film that ever had impressive make-up effects/miniatures/animatronics all the stuff you’d think a make-up guy would go crazy over.

Michelle phoned me up in response to an older ad I’d put out asking for make-up people who were prepared to use their own equipment to make zombies for one of the biggest moments in the movie (where over 40 zombies are crammed into a living room whilst seven humans fight them off as they’re gradually killed over a 9 minute action sequence).
I met with her and we got along extremely well. She’s one of the warmest, talented, genuinely nicest people I’ve ever met and her make-up work is the real star of the film. It was one area at the start of production that I knew absolutely nothing about and instead of keeping it like that Michelle showed me how simple some make-up effects were and encouraged us to try stuff ourselves. She started as a make-up lady and ended up our mentor!

There are a few key people who have really thrown absolutely everything into this film. Michelle is one of them. Leigh Crocombe (my flat mate) is another. The guy’s like McGuyver! If I ever needed a prop he has a skill for finding random objects and carving them into something perfect.

There was one instance where about an hour before shooting a scene I mentioned that it would have been great if we could have had a brick bounce off a zombie’s head and have it bleed in the same shot. I had an idea for the blood, but not much of an idea for the brick hitting the head. I was prepared to settle for a pair of brown socks thrown so fast that it’d just be a blur. Leigh went away and came back with a perfect looking brick that he’d made from foam and hot chocolate powder!

Rev: Can you tell us about the lead actors in the film? How did the casting process go?

Marc: Alastair Kirton plays Colin… again I was extremely lucky that he did it. He’s created a character with a lot of menace and innocence. I described Colin like he was a baby. His depth of focus is extremely short (just a few feet), he responds to sound, he is awkward, inarticulate, quiet and in a strange way curious about his world. But when there’s stimulation he can be this vicious face-chewing animal.

I’d always wanted Alastair to play Colin, but I wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to do it. One of the most fun aspects of having Alastair as an actor is that we have very different ideas on how to approach a scene so he’ll almost always do something very different from what I was expecting and the process is to work from both ends of the spectrum and somewhere in the middle there’s usually something that makes the both of us sit up and pay attention. It’s a very fun way to work with someone.

On this occasion I thought the idea of playing a zombie didn’t interest him, so I put an ad out and explored other actors and got chatting to a few of them and there was one guy who seemed like he could have done a good job but he still wasn’t right.
Then Al called me one day after seeing the ad I’d put out looking for potential Colins and he said “I want to do this, you know” and I said “Really? Lets meet up!” so I filled him in on how I wanted to do the film and he went away to think about it and called me up that same afternoon and said he’d love to do it.
I’m glad he did because I don’t think anyone else would put up with what I’ve put him through!

Rev: Colin is the first independently financed feature for you and Nowhere Fast Productions. Was it more rewarding to not be tied down by budgetary concerns or was it more an obstacle?

Marc: I’ve never really made anything with a budget so the idea of having money to make something seems very alien (but alien in a friendly E.T. sort of way… a budget would be quite nice!)
Even though we’ve financed the film I’m very proud of the fact that no-one’s really spent any money on it. The make-up people have used their own equipment (most of which was inherited from other film shoots, Michelle worked on X-Men 3 amongst others) and the beauty of an end-of-the-world zombie film is that people would grab anything lying around and use it as a weapon (which is pretty much what we did when we were looking for props).

I think that film is an end result process. And a big part of that end result is the effect the film has on an audience and I haven’t once lamented over losing something because we don’t have the money because we’ve always worked to find a way to create the desired effect. When I first showed 2 minutes of the street fight clip to a large group of people I was terrified that they’d sit there in silence, but they went crazy for it (especially the eye gouging!)

Rev: Can you tell us about your background in film? Did you study film?

Marc: I studied A-level film when I was younger and it introduced me to the sort of film I didn’t know existed before. But it seemed to be very one-sided. It had a lot of respect for directors such as Tarkovsky, Bergman, Hitchcock and Truffaut which is obviously a fantastic thing. To analyse the life changing films of these guys and try to understand their style and motives was a fascinating experience. Tracking film history and how editing styles had evolved over the last 100 years or so was an eye opener. I never realized studying could be that intriguing!
But where it left me a little cold was the complete and total dismissive ness of populist cinema. I like to think of myself as a fan of all film, and to say a certain type of film is not worth analyzing because it’s deemed low-level is kind of insulting.

But of course film courses are structured around the opinions of film critics rather than film makers. With the arrival of DVD I found all these little tricks that directors and effects guys were giving away on commentary tracks, featurettes and intensive making-of documentaries which meant that all of a sudden this door was opened to reveal thousands of different approaches to making a film.

Rev: From the trailer, I am really enjoying the gritty, earthy tone of the film and the zombies. Is that something you planned to capture?

Marc: We definitely wanted the zombies to have lots of character. We wanted each one to tell a story. Ideally you should be able to pause the DVD on any one zombie and work out its background.

So if you spot one with a bite on its arm, some slashes on its face and bloody handprints on its t-shirt you could work out that: this human was bitten on the arm… became a zombie… as a zombie it tried attacking another human who slashed at it’s face to stop it but failed because it’s still around and the bloody handprints on it’s t-shirt probably belong to knife guy as he tried to fight it off with the last of his strength! (Does that make sense?)

We also wanted to avoid the horror-movie cliché that people are made out of jelly… so it takes a lot more to take down a zombie than simply having a blunt object. We’ve got a fun scene early on in the film where a character is trying to stab a zombie in the head, but can’t get his knife to penetrate the skull as it’s attacking him.

Rev: What kind of camera equipment was used to make Colin?

Marc: We used a pretty average camcorder. I did a lot of research into what filters can take Mini DV footage and make it look exciting and I think we’ve found a look that’s gritty and dirty which, on this format, looks much better than it would if we were trying to make it look glossy and clean.

I think it may work thanks to films like Open Water, Tadpole, Pieces of April and, of course, 28 Days Later which were shot on a similar format and have proven that it is safe to tell a story on a DV movie and not hide behind the Video-Diary approach that Blair Witch did so well.

Rev: What are some of your favorite films that may have inspired your work?

Marc: The 1933 King Kong was a big inspiration for Colin. I have a thing for Kong (including the De Laurentis version!) We even put a “King Kong Lives!” badge on Colin for the first few scenes of the film if you can spot it.

I was amazed that he could be so dangerous (tossing people off the log, squishing villagers and eating tuxedo-wearing New Yorkers) but at the same time incredibly sympathetic. I really love how Peter Jackson made Kong funny in the scene where Naomi Watts did the little vaudevillian pratfalls and then it’s instantly contrasted by that long shot of Kong looking so vulnerable at Anne’s rejection to him pushing her around.
I loved the idea of having such a volatile main character with which an audience can naturally find anthropomorphic traits.

Rev: Any favorite zombie films?

Marc: I could try to be esoteric here and run off a list of obscure zombie films but I’m not gonna lie. I have a thing for Romero’s zombie films. I like Day of the Dead an awful lot (mainly because of Bub and his relationship with Dr. Logan) but I think Dawn of the Dead is just perfect. It’s like your ideal fantasy and your worst nightmare all rolled into one. I’d love to have free reign over a shopping mall, I confess I’m a consumer! (That said I’d probably only raid the video store!)

Rev: What can we expect to see from you and Nowhere Fast in the future?

Marc: I love Bad Taste and I think my biggest kick out of first seeing the Lord of the Rings movies was when I saw the same “Wingnut Films Production” credit fade up on a film of that scale.
If I ever get a career making films I’d love to slowly try to increase the budgets as we go along and try to make bigger and more exciting films, but to do it with a spin that people haven’t seen before.

Thanks for taking the time to speak with us Marc, it's been a pleasure learning about your film. Colin is currently in post-production and is aiming for a London screen premiere very soon. We'll keep you posted about where and when! For now, check out the trailer: