Zombie Room

A.D. is Zombie Room’s new favorite project out there – an animated zombie feature, that looks just plain amazing! Let’s start out with the trailer, since it’s just going to blast your brains all over the walls.

We conducted a short interview with the makers of the film – here you go!

ZR: Zombie animation. Sounds first like there must’ve been tens of them… but actually, no. This is the first. And it strikes me as being a brilliant concept – gives me an idea that one can extend the borders of this otherwise pretty well-explored genre quite much by doing it in animation. What were your main motivations to approach it from this angle, and what possibilities you find it offering?

Haylar Garcia, creator/writer: There were a few motivations, one was to take the genre and make it an original reinvention, bigger, stronger, faster, more insane than ever. The other was to have the stylistic power given to us by the medium of animation itself. There is so much more we can do, so much more we can push. The set pieces and situations in “AD” are unlike anything ever done in a zombie film, and so in many ways animation and Ben’s [Hibon, the director] vision and expertise are what make this thing possible.

Tarik Heitmann, producer: As Haylar said, the main motivation for all of us, including the director Ben Hibon and my producing partners on this, Bernie Goldmann (who produced one of my favorite movies – 300) and Renee Tab was to make a cg-animated zombie film and use the medium of animation to its fullest potential. Most zombie films tend to be very self-contained, but we rarely venture out into the open road. Zombieland, which had more of a comedic approach, felt more like a road movie. A.D. is a lot bigger, though, and feels a lot more like a big action horror-adventure with characters that are fully developed.

ZR: Can you briefly tell me the background of the project – when did the idea appear and how far are you now? What’s the budget and when is it coming out?

Haylar: Many years ago I set out to write the mother of all zombie films (as I am a walking dead fanboy myself) I found Ben through his amazing work on Codehunters and knew in 3 seconds, even though he was in another continent, that this was the person I could trust to take my ideas and put them on steroids. Once the producing team came into play, the planets just aligned. Rewrites were done based on their notes, and we came up with something truly cool.

Tarik: Pretty much everything aligned. I had previously read another script of Haylar’s which had just blown me away. That one was a drama, so when I first received A.D. which was called something else at that time and with his explanation that it needed to be done as a full-scale animated movie, I was completely hooked. Ben Hibon’s work was introduced to me a few years back and his short Codehunters was completely original and cinematically outstanding. Partnering with Bernie just felt natural and he completely got what we had in mind, having produced 300 and having been tangentially involved in The Matrix as President of Production at Village Roadshow. When is the movie coming out? We literally just put the teaser out to the public to see, if there was an interest in a movie like this and we’re amazed how many people have responded favorably. Hopefully in a few years!

ZR: Where and with who are you going to do the animation with?

Tarik: We haven’t decided yet. There are so many incredible animation houses out there, but ultimately they have to be able to recreate what Ben’s vision is.

ZR: What’s your take on Zombie films in general – there was a bit of a lift for them going on for a while, but now it seems it’s turned to vampires or even werewolves – do you think zombies will hit the big screens again in near future? Maybe in the form of animated zombie films?

Haylar: Ok I’ll be the fool to say it: zombie films will never “die”, they revolve like many other genres but never seem to truly fade, sometime they go camp like Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland” but the public f ascination never really stops. I think the genre will continue to evolve and morph, our idea of making the first animated film of this kind is only a milestone in that evolution.

ZR: How about “adult animations” (sounds dirty, but you know what I mean . They’ve been shunned for quite some time, since the general atmosphere has been that animation is for kids… But now we’re starting to see more of these. Do you think there’s future in animations for adult audience?

Haylar: In a few years there will be no major demographic left that did not grow up playing video games. The Hollywood engine is always
reluctant to take huge steps, but this one is coming no matter what. Mark my words; as video game generations are becoming the world majority, stylistic adult geared animation (especially in genres where animation can be used for extreme filmic effect) is an undeniable future. The first studio to do it will reap the benefits. By The Way – AD is poised and ready to go, just the push of a button… hint hint.

Tarik: Gotta go with Haylar on that one. It wasn’t long ago that Pixar made a mark with >Toy Story, one of the first CG animated features and now everyone is doing it. Before that, it was all about traditional 2D or cell animation. Adult animation is starting to make a mark – look at 9 which was only the beginning.

ZR: Did you see Dead Snow? Did you like it? What’s your personal favourite of zombie films?

Haylar: I have not seen Dead Snow, but as of now it’s on my list. Favorite Z-film? That’s hard. Because the genre evolves it’s like comparing heads to limbs if that makes sense. I think I’d have to go with Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead mainly because it was both scary and fun.

Tarik: I loved Dead Snow. Freakin’ Nazi Zombies – what could be more scary!!! My favorite zombie films – there are tons. >Dawn of the Dead was the first zombie flick I saw and it scared the living hell out of me. The Return of the Living Dead was great, even newer movies like 28 Days Later….

Well, as you can see, these guys are our kind of people – and needless to say, they’re in to Iron Sky as well – for some strange reason, Nazis and Zombies walk hand in hand. Both are cool, evil and you can kill as many of them as you like, and the audience just keeps on cheering! We’ll be watching closely the progress of the world’s first animated zombie feature film A.D.!

(Thanks, Pete Riski, for tipping us on this one!)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 14:21 and is filed under Interviews, Zombies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.