Journal Zero

It feels good to be back in the flow of a regular comic, after two weeks of other charming content. This “Jezebel” vignette is the result of a fast-track production schedule, having been conceptualized, drafted, coordinated, and shot in a mere sixteen days. It’s taking the place of another story that cannot be shot in the current Seattle weather, so look for the original vignette after Episode Two finishes its online run.

Production of Episode Three has been put on the back burner while all our resources are focused on the  last round of proofing the book. Night Zero: Volume One heads off to the printers in its final form this Monday, and shortly thereafter we will begin accepting preorders for this fantastic piece of art. Ninety-six heavyweight pages of full-color Night Zero will be coming your way at the end of the month, so keep your eye out for that preorder form.

The distinction between bright HDR and comic noir that I discussed last week is already evident in the Jezebel vignette, and more striking examples are yet to come. With such a small shooting space and a more powerful light kit, we were for the first time able to shoot the entire sequence at ISO 100 for richer, cleaner blacks and less grain. Forest and I played to the strengths of the shadows, building tension and contrasting emotions through the use of darkness, and I think the results speak for themselves.

For the vignette we had an all-new cast, featuring the fabulous Graham Downing, Sidney Hunt, and Meagan Karimi-Naser. It was our longest and most ambitious shoot schedule, and still freezing despite being under shelter, but those three kept their energies high and their faces smiling as they worked through their first (and hopefully not last) Night Zero experience. It’s always a joy to work with new people, as every person involved has new ideas and a unique energy that makes this project what it is.

I’m keeping it short this week, because my brain is overloading on the book. Instead of behind-the-scenes photos, I invite you to check out the latest episode of the Webcomic Beacon, a weekly netcast about the world of webcomics. Forest Gibson and yours truly sat down with the Beacon to discuss the concept of Night Zero, the challenges of production, and photographic novels in general.

Happy holidays and best wishes for the new year, from all of us at Night Zero. See you next week!

As anticipated, last weekend’s shoot was snowed out. We’ve rescheduled for this weekend, and will be fast-tracking through post-production to maintain our ambitious schedule. Concurrent to this vignette production, we’re prepping for the final few shots needed to wrap up Episode Two, scouting locations for Episode Three (which features eight unique locations), and running our final rounds of proofreading for the book. Make no mistake, the Night Zero team is a busy, busy bunch.

I often speak of how Night Zero was formed as a combination of various, disparate influences. The influence that was major in jump-starting the project, but that’s been difficult to synchronize with the rest of the work, is the notion of ‘film noir.’ I love classic noir, both in film and fiction, and wanted my zombie comic book to play in that dark, ambiguous world. The pilot episode played a lot of strengths in this arena: heavy shadows, dark characters, cold narration.

It became more difficult in producing Episode One, when we shot in more vibrant environments with more colorful settings. The function of HDR is to minimize shadowing and even out depth, while the defining feature of noir is heavy shadowing and stark contrasts. For a long while, it was a constant battle trying to define the Night Zero look. We couldn’t make progress on the comic until we had a consistent style, but the struggle between tonemapping and noir was crippling.

What ultimately got us through was the unrelated trouble we were having with our desire to publish. As I’ve mentioned in the past, early on we learned that the visual quality of Night Zero on the computer screen is nothing compared to having it in print, and Forest and I were long deliberating how we could produce it in print at a reasonable price and a high value. The standard comic approach of releasing serial episodes (the classic “comic book” issue) was never going to work, not with the print quality and affordable price we were demanding. It came down to the decision to create books– larger volumes of Night Zero stories, including episodes of the serial comic, plus commentaries, short stories, vignettes, and other bits. By producing fewer, larger volumes, we could bring down the cost and provide more quality content to our fans.

In this decision, a new light came on– if we were to be producing vignettes and short stories parallel to the serial comic story, then I could have my cake and eat it too. The serial comic would be free to shake off the noir and run as a full, bright, colorful comic book, and I could use the vignettes and short stories to get my film noir fix. We then locked down the serial comic look and moved forward with a fresh energy.

Comparing the preview photos from Episode Two to the majority of Episode One, you can see that we’re getting a bit darker overall. Particularly that lowest frame, we’ve started playing with shadows and high-contrast again, but here we are using it as a visual device rather than a standard. Episode Three, which is even darker in tone, will have more shadows and darkness than Episode Two. Episode Four? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.

One of the advantages of having an incredible photographer doing behind-the-scenes photos is that you get some amazing shots. More than just smiles and waves, the photos that Eli captures on location often inspire us to revise our framing and explore more angles and lighting. Today, while on the topic of shadows and darkness, I’d like to share some of my favorite of his behind-the-scenes shots that play with light composition. Most of these are from Episode Two, like a gift from the ghost of Christmas-yet-to-be.

This four page short story is an example of the broad artistic range that Night Zero is able to utilize. In the post-apocalypse, everybody’s got a story, from the highest leaders of the land to the lowest deviants that prowl the night. There are stories of life in the aftermath, chaos in the collapse of society, and dreams of days past, before it all turned to hell. We hope you enjoy these variations on the theme, and look forward to joining back up with Marion, Claire, and that whole saga in late January.

This has been a busy, busy production week for the Night Zero team. The scheduled vignette shoot for last weekend was cancelled due to severe temperatures. A replacement shoot has been scheduled for this weekend, and moved to an indoor location, but icy roads and continued low temperatures could bring this shoot to a halt as well. This past Tuesday we shot 8:00am to 6:30pm and completed an ambitious schedule, wrapping up the major shooting for Episode Two. The hardest part about it is now having these gorgeous and exciting photos that won’t be part of the story for another three or four months.

A challenging task in the pre-production process is location scouting and securing. On the one hand, we do have a number of advantages over film productions including that we can shoot in loud locations, we can work in short bursts, and that we can more easily stitch non-contiguous locations. On the other hand, HDR requires its own special conditions– we need to be able to secure the camera (no boats, no rafts, no trees), the actors need to be able to hold (no realtime action, no extreme cold), and we need a disproportionate amount of time to produce each segment.

Our possible locations are broken down into four major groups: personal, private, commercial, and public, and each has its own process for use. Personal locations are the easiest: these are locations directly owned and accessible by someone in the Night Zero family. Typically homes, yards, and apartments fall into this category, but offices and commercial buildings can as well. These require little coordination and are the most casual shoots.

Private locations are spaces owned and accessible to a person or business that is not part of the Night Zero family, but willing to allow use of their space. Typically, a location is scouted during an area sweep, or suggested by a crew member based on their own knowledge of it. If the location is directly related to a business or residence, we can send a permission request to their address. If it is not known, a check with the King County Assessors Office will reveal who owns the property, and we can then begin the request process. How it goes from there varies wildy from situation to situation– some people and businesses are more than happy to let us in with free reign, others won’t even give the time of day. For every location we always keep at least two backups on hand, because we never know what to expect.

The University of Washington is the largest private space we use, which requires coordination with the head communications director, the police department (for our weapons), and the head of the appropriate education department (in class halls) or facility (in student housing & common areas). The process begins with a proposal sent forth by Kelly, the Assistant Director, covering the times, areas, logistics, and special needs of the shoot. After discussions and clarifications with the head of communications and media director, we sign the paperwork that allows us to shoot, and we’re good to go. In the past year, this process has been friendly and fantastic, and we have the utmost respect and admiration for the entire coordinating staff at the university.

Commercial locations are about as easy to produce in as personal locations, except they can be more difficult to secure. A commercial location is any space that is made available as part of a business or service– hotel rooms, ballrooms, bars, and clubs fit in to this category. A large section of Episode Two was shot in one such commercial room, provided by a local theater group that rents rehearsal spaces for all manner of art projects. Once in the space, it’s a comfortable and convenient shooting location, but scheduling the cast & crew around when the space is available can be difficult, and overtime has to be planned for and reserved in advance.

Public locations are the most prevalent and necessary for establishment, and are generally easy to get. Sidewalks, streets, parks, alleys, underpasses, and other non-committed lands are considered public property, and are coordinated through the Seattle Mayor’s Office of Film + Music. When we have a location in mind, with shoot dates and logistics, we draft a detailed proposal of the shoot, including the number of cast and crew, the exact locations of the scenes, equipment, and vehicles, and a summary of the action that will be taking place, and send the complete package to the director of film projects for review. Within a week, a film permit is returned to us, at a very low price, and including any requests or requirements made by the police, fire department, or department of transportation. If any businesses or residences are within or bordering the shooting area, flyers of advance notice are delivered three days in advance, with contact information for questions.

The pilot and first episode were shot primarily on personal locations and UW property, to keep it simple. Episode two features more commercial locations, and episode three will feature a slew of private, commercial, and public spaces. What you’ve seen so far is just us getting our feet wet. I can’t wait to show you what comes next.

But oh, the places we’ve been…

Pilot Shoot - University Bridge

Pilot Shoot - Wall of Death

Pilot Shoot - Burke Gilman Trail

Episode One - Katrina's Place

Episode One - UW Courts

Episode One - Public Alley in Ballard

Episode One - Industrial Ballard

Episode One - UW Parking Lot

Episode One - UW Parking Annex

Episodes One & Two - Downtown Seattle

Episode Two - Downtown Seattle

Episode Two - Seattle Center

Episode Two - Theater Puget Sound

Episode Two - Coming Soon...

And that’s a wrap! Thus concludes the first episode of the Night Zero serial comic series, “Ashes”, and soon will begin the second episode, “Quarantine”. Although part two won’t begin until January 19th, stick around because nightzero.com will still be getting it’s thrice-weekly updates.

The serial comic is just a scratch on the surface of the post-apocalyptic world, and this gap between episodes is the perfect opportunity to present some other perspectives of life after infection. Coming up next week is a piece of short fiction about a one-man “search-and-rescue” business, and then a stand-alone comic story of love and loss. Add in a few one-shot photographs, and we’ll be back to Marion and Claire before you know it.

The office sequences that wrapped up this episode, which I consider to be a sort of ‘epilogue’, were a very different beast from what we’d been shooting up until that point. This was June, before the Marion-flashback sequence and before the warehouse fire, so the office was actually our first indoor shoot, and the first with more than two non-infected non-deceased characters.

Filling out this scene and subsequent scenes in episode two, to date we have done four shoots in this location, and not until the most recent one did we finally get light rigging on location. Everything in this scene is lit entirely with practical and natural light, just as the rest of the episode. But here, instead of having to diffuse the sun and redirect it, we had to compensate for aggregious backlighting through the use of reflectors and HDR “background” shots– for every frame we shoot with actors on-camera, we shoot the identical frame with just the background. Not only does this provide us with a full-focus frame, but it allows us to mask out the backlighting and tone down the contrast for a more consistent image.

Of course, the sun is just one of the difficulties in shooting these office sequences. The location itself is a real office suite in downtown Seattle, complete with a secure lobby, RFID keycards, access-limited elevators, and plenty of locks and bolts. We made a concentrated effort to stick together, but if anybody arrived late, or needed to fetch something from outside the shooting office, our keycard-equipped location manager would have to escort them back. Every time. But absolutely worth it, for those views.

Another difficulty we encountered is with the expansion of the cast, because the more people you have, the harder it is to get them all together at the same time. It actually wasn’t until our third shoot in this location, at the end of September, that we had all six principles at the same time. Thanks to diligent shot tracking and storyboarding, we were nevertheless able to shoot the entire sequence as we wanted, using the cast available each time, without compromising our shots.

In the next few weeks, I’ll talk more about the pre-production process we’re going through to produce episode three (a very dark and brutal episode, entitled “House Calls”), and have some guest blogs from other cast and crew members. If you’ve got questions you’d like answered, send them our way, and enjoy the photos.

Josh plays the bringer of bad news

Forest plays the photographer

Tamara, happy to be in a climate-controlled environment

A cameo by Alexandra Larsson, the production manager for episode one

Everyone prepares for the shot, in their own way.

The cast takes instruction from the reflecting director

Heeeeeeere's Josh!

Here's what it all comes down to.

It was one year ago this Monday that Katrina Hamilton joined the Night Zero family, becoming the first actor in our ranks, and we couldn’t be more blessed. She gave her all when Night Zero was still just a concept, help nurture the idea and develop not only her character, but the world as a whole. She stuck through the learning adventure of creating the pilot episode, with long cold nights and early freezing mornings, trials and reshoots, blood and guts. Without her committment and enthusiasm, we’d never have made it to where we are.

Katrina is one of the many people in the production family that we recruited directly.  Forest and I both knew her from the improv troupe at the University of Washington, for which I was Technical Director and they both in the ensemble. She was also in the cast of a show I directed for the Undergraduate Theater Society at UW (in which Tara Miller also starred, and Forest stage managed). Having worked with her for years, having seen many sides of what she can do, and knowing that she meshed well with the other members of the team, she was a natural first choice for the lead.

A number of other cast members were directly approached, some as ideal actors to fill specific roles and others as creative minds to develop their own characters.  Having spent so many years working with the drama department at the University, combined with my current work at two local improv theaters, my network of actors and improvisors spans all sizes and ages.

The best part about theater networks is that they are self-propagating. News and excitement about Night Zero travels quickly through casts and ensembles, spreading and generating interest well after the original Night Zero member has left. With this kind of persistence, we have another pool of potential cast members– those who approach us directly, because they’ve worked with somebody involved or heard about it in a show they were working on.

Of course, nothing keeps a group stimulated like fresh blood, which is why our third pool of actors comes from those who have no affiliation with Night Zero or its crew. These are the local area actors, models, and improvisors, who have attended our open castings or responded to our website. They bring completely new ideas to the table, not only for adding depth and development to their characters, but also by asking new questions about the world and stimulating us to delve deeper into the Night Zero reality.

Between the people we approach, the people who hear through their friends, and the people who approach us, we have formed a diverse and wonderful family over the past year, and it’s ready to grow. As we move into the holiday season with pre-production of Episode Three, we’re looking for a whole batch of new faces and fresh ideas, so allow me to give a shameless plug here and say that if you’re interested in being a part of Night Zero, any capacity, hop on over to the contact page and drop us a line!

Episode One wraps up next week, I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to the other parts of the post-apocalypse we’ll be showing throughout December, before we get back to “City Planning” with Episode Two later in January. Until next time, remember: the only thing worse than a horde of zombies on your tail is a horde of zombies on fire on your tail. Only use flame when you know your escape route, and only as a last resort.

Well, they made it through. We’ve finished up the meat of the Episode One story, and the next week and a half will cover the ‘epilogue’ that sets the stage for the rest of the series. So in a way, we’re really just now getting to the good stuff. As I’ve mentioned previously on this blog, Episode Two is nearly complete with production, and we’re underway with the pre-production work on Episode Three. But just to mix things up a bit, we’re pursuing a few side projects in the winter lull, exploring new areas of our creativity and expression.

One of the ways we’ll be keeping the website fresh and interesting during the off-season (about a month between the end of Episode One and the beginning of Episode Two) is with other stories from the Night Zero world. We’ve already got some stories and photos from the book that we’ll be sharing with you, and our camera-man Forest Gibson is set to helm the production of a new vignette. Directed and shot in the “white space” between our regularly scheduled productions, this will be a short, independent story that’ll go online right around Christmas.

It’s important to all of us at Night Zero to focus on the world beyond the primary comic serial, not just to mantain our sanity but primarily to show that the world of the post-apocalypse is as diverse as it is different. There is drama, comedy, love, and tragedy, and so much more than we could ever fit into our plot-driven primary story. Through short stories, vignettes, solo photos, journals, and other works, we’re creating a broad cross-section of the survivors’ society, and I look forward to sharing it with you over the next few weeks.

To flex our muscles in a different arena, our fabulous writer Alexander JL Theoharis drafted a short script to produce as a guest comic for our friends at Geist Panik. It’s a cute little comic about a ghost-hunting gal and her consortium of characters, pretty new but with a strong following. It’ll be off the air for a while next month, so we jumped at the opportunity to produce a Night Zero-style comic as a guest strip. With a new actor (the lovely Holly Nichols), different settings, and fun ghosty special effects, in a single evening we produced a full comic page of delightfully quirky, zombie-free fun. I’ll let you know when that’s published at the Geist Panik website. And yes, that is Mr. Gibson as the ghost.

Hard to believe we’ve been running the comic for three months already, and we’re just getting started. If you’ve had half as much fun reading the comic as we’ve had producing it, well, then we’ve had twice as much fun as you. And remember, we love to hear what you think of the comic, so head on over to the Night Zero contact page and give us a shout!

Stay safe and watch for signs of infection. See you next week.

...and the lovely Katrina Hamilton.

The happy couple.

Asst. Director Kelly Ota brings smiles to the set.

...while Forest takes a new myspace photo.