MARY DOE BLOG - Journal of the Dead

Mr Tom Savini helping us out. He gives a cool and fun performance. Can’t wait to show everyone. We really want to make this happen and help push the Mary Doe project forward.

Look at those “guns” on the man!

Please stick with us… Coming Soon.

Everything is coming together, slowly… but that’s only because we are putting a lot of work into the campaign and the Promo Videos. We are treating them like mini movie presentations and trying to get as much cool stuff in them as we can.

I was at AudioLoc today, John and Tony have offered to help me out with the sound mix. Great setup, very excited. Thanks guys.

We just finished building the miniature model for the 2nd Promo Video and will be filming that next weekend. Nervous about the filming and you’ll see why once you see the video (hopefully… fingers crossed… pray to baby Jesus).

Stay excited, stay in touch. WE WILL BE LIVE SOON.

 

No Pixel Left Behind and Creative Nerve Entertainment is pleased to announce the public release of the first playable Beta of the UNDEAD ZONE starring Tom Savini. Based loosely on our feature film project MARY DOE, it’s a first-person, Zombie shoot ‘em up game that is lots of fun.

We had a soft launch of the game over the weekend on both moddb and l4dmaps.com and it is red hot, as we have exceeded 5000 downloads in under 48 hours.

So what comes in the Beta? It’s a complete campaign that includes 5 maps. The campaign spans over 5 unique environments including an underground mine, a town, desert, military bunker and hanger. It also has dialogue from horror legend Tom Savini and an original music score from composer Steven Summers.

Being a Beta, the campaign is only 85% complete and this beta test will serve us by having you guys search out and find bugs.

If you do find a bug or have a suggestion please send them too a.young@nopixelleft.com

In a few weeks we hope to launch the full version on Steam’s upcoming L4D2 workshop so keep a look out for that.

So you can download the campaign from:

l4dmaps.com – http://www.l4dmaps.com/details.php?file=20992

moddb.com – http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-undead-zone/downloads/undead-zone-public-beta

We hope you have a blast playing the game.

Enter the Undead Zone if you dare.

In the coming weeks look out for our KICKSTARTER crowd funding campaign. It will be used to help us produce a promo/trailer for Mary Doe. There will be lot’s of great incentives for people coming onboard, as we wish to make an amazing show piece to help get the feature film made.

Thanks from all of us at Creative Nerve Entertainment and No Pixel Left Behind.

www.marydoemovie.com

www.nopixelleftbehind.com

It’s been a long time since we last posted on Moddb, but we have been working hard at improving the levels and the details within the Undead Zone campaign. We have also been working on the feature film I, Frankenstein, creating all the creature effects and putting a lot of effort into getting Mary Doe the movie up and running. Another exciting side project we have been developing is an upcoming game that will be announced sometime in the future.

A lot of work has gone into the Undead Zone over the past year to make it perfect. We have made changes to the gameplay elements of each level, improved textures, designed 3D models and finally implemented the Tom Savini dialogue. We are now working on fine tuning the sound design for each of the levels to create an atmosphere that is unique to each of them.

We are in the process of finalising the campaign and releasing a beta version for you guys to play, hopefully over the next few weeks. If you are interested in testing a beta version of the Undead Zone, “follow us” on Moddb so you can be notified when we release it.

Below you can see our latest screenshots showing some of the improvements we made to the maps.

 

Screamfest L.A 2010 – Make-up Effects Group – “Best Make-up” award for Needle.

The award is on its way – thanks John & Dee.

I was with Daniel all day yesterday going through the Undead Zone game. I got an in depth presentation on all the levels and all the aspects of the game play.

We worked on a few environment “detail” tweaks – adding more carnage and depth to the look of the game. Suggested a few more obstacles and refining of the story game play.

I am extremely proud of what Alex and Daniel have achieved. The level of detail and game play is amazing. These guys came onboard because they liked the Mary Doe project and brought to the table an aspect of the world that I would never have had the knowledge or experience to achieve. I’ve been inspired by the game, the technical achievement, the fun and coolness of playing it and the richness it adds to the Mary Doe world.

I spoke with Tom Savini today and he is finalizing his dialogue for the game, based on some story changes we made.

Daniel has already started putting the seeds of an idea for a new game into my head. Something that we have wanted to plan for when we release the Mary Doe movie. A high end independently produced game using the Valve Source Engine or the CRYEngine3. It will become available via digital download on Steam for the PC, XBLA for the Xbox and the PSN for the Playstation 3.

Alex is excited by the prospect of the new game and I feel the wheels have been solidly set in motion.

The Last Stand – establishing a desert military outpost – FINAL LEVEL environments for the Mary Doe – Undead Zone computer game. It’s taken a while but the guys have put so much work into building an awesome game. All credit goes out to them. From detailed locations to well crafted level interplay – you won’t be disappointed. JUST ADD ZOMBIES!

The new Online Graphic Novel by Daus Von Roe will blow your Zombie Mind – COMING SOON!

Mary Doe is up on TWITTER.

Some of our fans preferred to stay up to date with us on Twitter, so we made it available for everyone to participate on the journey. Spread the word – Tweet… Tweet… Arghhhhh…

Go to www.twitter.com and check us out @MaryDoeMovie.

Direct link at www.twitter.com/#!/MaryDoeMovie

Thanks to Gab and Grant for spending most of the week at the studio helping me mould three of the huge zombie sculptures. When completed, they are going to be major animatronic puppets for some of the key sequences in the film. We estimate it will probably take around eight puppeteers to operate them – all OLD SCHOOL, in-camera effects, that will blow your socks off. The sculptures look amazing – they will impress when you see them in the movie.

Gab and Grant are two friends that have been helping Paul and myself from day one on Mary Doe. Fibreglass mould-making is hard work and it’s great to have them drop by to lend a hand.

Can’t show you the moulds we just completed as it would give too much away – but here are some other works of art!

Also, a big thank you to Bob Donaldson our 1st AD, who on numerous occasions has graciously come in to help me set up a preliminary schedule for the shoot. He’s an absolute pleasure to work with and I know his vast experience (THE PHANTOM, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE II), will make my life easier when we are onset.

Paul’s back for a four week hiatus from THE HOBBIT next week and will get back into finishing two more of the sculptures – and we do it all again…

We finally got a working iPad version of our Mary Doe and Creative Nerve Entertainment websites. Daniel had to go in and make some major code changes to get around the incompatibility of Flash on iPad. If you have an iPad, you can check us out and look even cooler using the latest technology. However, getting the full Mary Doe online experience is best accessed from your normal computer workstations: as all the music, animated menus and interactivity, remain fully functional.

A blog post by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that mentions a “zombie apocalypse” as a lighthearted way to get Americans to read about preparing for hurricanes drove so much traffic that it crashed the website, the agency said.

The Zombie Apocalypse campaign is a social media effort by the CDC’s Public Health and Preparedness center to spread the word about the June 1 start of hurricane season.

The CDC is a U.S. federal government health agency based in Atlanta.

Congratulations…

Two new First Class Forever stamps have just been released by the US Postal Service of the Astronaut Alan Shepard and the Messenger space craft.

Donato was the artist who designed and painted both stamps, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Alan Shepard’s flight as the first American in space back on May 5, 1961. A bit of press has followed this event, with mentions in the NY Times Blogs, and article in the Daily News, and a short interview on the local TV station, NY1.

http://brooklyn.ny1.com/content/top_stories/138560/brooklyn-artist-puts-own-stamp-on-nasa-history

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/stamps-from-space-with-brooklyn-ties/#more-304755

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2011/05/05/2011-05-05_careers_rocketing.html

If you have had a chance to look through our websites, you would have seen some of the elaborate work we have brought together for Mary Doe. Everyone involved is extremely excited about the project, as we delve into consolidating the investment for the film.

As this comes together we have gone full steam ahead to show how passionate we are about what we are doing and the high expectations we have as we evolve the franchise. As a result, we have been developing high end collectable merchandising and toys that we are showing investors, graphic novels and spin off stories, as well as bringing together the free L4D2 Mod online game, THE UNDEAD ZONE, to give something to the fans of this genre.

And here’s the scoop and we may lose our heads over it – we are blown away to have Make-up Maestro and Actor, Tom Savini, as the voice of one of the characters in the game. Jake (no last name), is a mercenary struggling to hold onto his sanity and mind as the Mutant virus runs through his body – he will do his best to guide and inform players through the various levels of the game.

Tom has been great and is currently finalizing recording of his performance – now that’s cool.

For the occasion, here’s a tribute piece of original art created by airbrush artist extraordinaire Daus Von Roe. The art may be a competition prize we’ll offer down the track – stay tuned.

Check out more on the MODDB gaming website in the coming days.

Matte Painter, traditional fine artist and photographer – Wayne is a consummate artist, with a great design sensibility and style, that has always attracted me visually and cinematically. He created some stunning matte paintings for me for one of my short films and now we are working together on Mary Doe.

He has worked as a Matte Painter on The Fifth Element and Red Corner whilst at Digital Domain in L.A and created some memorable vistas that still remain some of my favourite. Recently he worked as senior Matte Painter at WETA FX on The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

With Wayne onboard – Mary Doe is looking good.

Check out some of his work www.ankaris.com

Costume Designer Liz Keogh Palmer is currently working on some wonderful designs for our BIO SUITS. A featured costume in the Mary Doe film that has undertaken a lot of discussion and development. Once we have the designs locked down we will also be sculpting an 18 inch Maquette of the final look (part of our Toy and high end Collectible Merchandise that is in development). Lizzie’s credits include Dark City and I, Robot, starring Wil Smith. Lizzie’s a great friend and she helped me out on my first ever short film, creating the luscious costumes for all the characters. She’s an amazing designer and it’s exciting to have her onboard.

Some of the photos from that ambitious short film ‘A Nice Place To Visit’ haven’t seen the light in over ten years – thought it was a nice occasion to bring them out. Yes, that’s me in the photo with the ventriloquist puppet – cool ponytail and the huge rimmed 90’s glasses. No that’s not me standing next to Bridget Moynahan – that’s Wil Smith…

It’s a pleasure working with Tom on a horror film. He’s great to have around and always brings an air of excitement when he is on set and we are about to kill someone (in the movie). Covered in blood and looking up to see him smiling at the grizzly proceedings is truly a buzz.

He loves what we are doing on Mary Doe and is definitely going to be a part of the project. What else could you ask for!

One of my favourite artists is creating a painting for our film Mary Doe!

His paintings evoke all the feelings of the great Pre-Raphaelite and Classic artists. Expressions of beauty, myth, and spectacle: his art captures wonderful story moments with the most awe-inspiring compositions and enchanting interpretations.

I have the absolute pleasure and honour of having Donato Giancola painting a major artwork that will appear in the film. It is an important piece and thematically linked to Mary’s story. Now I have you thinking! Why is Donato going to paint one of his classic paintings for our Zombie/Mutant film? Well I told you Mary’s story is key to this film – her journey will bring a different spin on the entire Zombie/Mutant genre. The thriller is deeply ingrained within our story and Donato’s painting is an important set piece that will compliment a vital story thread.

I’ll keep you updated…

Since beginning his professional career in 1993, Donato’s list of clients has grown to include major book publishers and collectors in New York to concept design firms on the West Coast: notables include The United Nations, LucasFilm, National Geographic, CNN, DC Comics, Microsoft, The Village Voice, Playboy Magazine, US Postal Service, Wizards of the Coast , Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, Tor Books, Random House, Time/Warner, The Scifi Channel, Milton-Bradley, and Hasbro. Merits range from the prestigious Hamilton King Award from the Society of Illustrators in 2008 to eighteen Chesley Awards from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists, three Artist Hugo Awards for outstanding professional work from the World Science Fiction Society, notable awards from the Art Renewal Center, and multiple silver and gold medals from the juried annual Spectrum: The Best of Contemporary Fantastic Art.

I have the joy of owning one of his magnificent paintings and it’s inspiring to see it every day. Donato Giancola is extremely well known in the art world but if you haven’t heard of him, I urge you to take the time to check out this amazing artist.

www.donatoart.com

The release of our online ZOMBIE game THE UNDEAD ZONE is getting close.

Alex Young and Daniel Gallahar have put in an amazing amount of work to create a high quality, kick-ass, gaming experience – my hat (and head) goes off to them. Two young and talented guys with a huge future in the industry.

Mary Doe film composer Steven Summers has contributed some wonderful themes and musical stings to help complete player engagement.

What we’ve wanted to do from day 1 with the MARY DOE film and all its ancillary developed merchandise, is give fans a top quality product – something that we would get a buzz from and be proud of and something the fans could enjoy. It’s not always about how much money you have to produce these things but how much the talented, artistic and passionate people you have around you, give of themselves, to want to develop something of excellence.

STAY TUNED, the world is about to fall apart around you – The Undead Zone is just around the corner.

With the thousand other things going on in developing our project, we do get a chance to leave the studio from time to time. But we’ve been finding ourselves trekking over hot and bleak desert landscapes and then burrowing through cold and barren tunnel systems. It’s fun taking your crew around to some of the sites and really evaluating the possibilities a location has for your story. It’s always a challenge working on location; the elements and public interaction are always a variable. We haven’t found all the locations yet, but we do plan to supplement the location shoot by building sets in a studio for most of our main bunker facility. If you know of any cool, ‘usable’ WW2-like tunnel systems around the Sydney area – drop us a line.

PERIPHERAL VISIONS: The making of a Mary Doe graphic novel.

It was with great excitement that I commenced work on (and completed) this comic last year. I had done some comic related work before, but nothing quite of this scale and coherence. It was quite thrilling to be doing something as part of a larger project, and the input I received from the guys at MEG helped keep me going and keep the project together. Of course not to mention the feedback and support of my wife… who always plays a major part in anything I do!

The brief was for around 7 pages and it to be an original story, not specifically part of the Mary Doe narrative, but in the horror/zombie genre. After throwing a few ideas around and talking with Nick at MEG (the first of many feedback sessions through the life of the project), I started working on some thumbnails and fleshing out the story. I wanted something a bit different, so I conceived of a medical student from Columbia who is living in Australia to go to university. He works part time as a night cleaner at a Pharmaceutical company, when one day he has an accident, knocking over some chemicals. Unlike a super hero comic, this doesn’t imbue him with any amazing super powers, instead it begins to give him bizarre and horrible nightmares, then hallucinations that slowly creep into his waking life, eventually tipping him over the edge and he loses all sense of what is real and what is imagined.

I tried to make it so that each page was a snapshot of a week within the characters decent into madness. This meant each page had to be fairly self contained, and tell its little piece of the puzzle; almost like a highlight reel on the road to madness. It isn’t until the last few pages that the action of a particular moment is spread over more that one page, and that is in the climax when the shit really has hit the fan and the protagonist is totally unstable.

Visually I tried to show the break between reality and hallucination with a few different visual devices. Some panels had a broken glass shape/arrangement, with little shards around the main panels, to imply a shattering of his hold on reality. I also tried to make any panel with zombies in it a little more angular than normal. I decided to present the comic in a landscape format as opposed to the regular portrait orientation that most other comics are in. I did this because it was going to be a primarily digital comic, and thus viewed on a screen, it made sense to me to have the orientation fit the screen. Comics continue to evolve as different mediums present themselves. From the newspaper strip format to thick book-like graphic novels, and now to digital and motion comics on tablet computers, there is lots of room to grow and experiment with the format of contemporary comics.

The two tone colour scheme was inspired by “Heavy Liquid”, a comic by Paul Pope, which I greatly admire.

As to the line work itself, I did roughs in pencils, then used a light-box to ink, and finally scanned to colour digitally. The style was a strange combination of different artists I admire, amongst them R.Crumb and Hayao Miyazaki. I chose a heavy crosshatching style, as it was something I had used a lot before and I liked the contrast of the sometimes cartoony look and the horror themes. It took forever though! And I was often left with a sore elbow from drawing thousands of little lines… but it was totally worth it.

Check out my Graphic Novel on the Fan Kit/Graphic Novels page of the website –

www.marydoemovie.com

Edward

For all those hardcore ZOMBIE FANS out there, we are inviting you to 
post some of your ZOMBIE FAN ART to our Mary Doe Facebook page.

We aim to set up a gallery of art that is just a lot of fun to view.

Show us your artistic side and be a part of the carnage – “We don’t do cute!”…

You can 
send your art to marydoefan@marydoemovie.com

Thanks for all the support.

VOLUNTEER 16: The making of a Mary Doe graphic novel.

When Nick asked if I could do a short graphic novel to coincide with the Mary Doe project, how could I say no! I saw the amazing development of the project while I was at the MEG studio, and I thought, this film is going to be cool and I get to be a part of the fun.

I presented him with my story, which at first had no dialogue at all, a silent story; he suggested we have some conversation between the characters but to keep it minimal, which did help the flow of the story.

We worked together over the next few months going through drafts and acting out panels, trying to get them to be as effective as we could.

I’m a big fan of Ashley Wood, Frank Miller and Mike Mignola and tried to draw on their art as an influence.

VOLUNTEER 16 is my first graphic novel to see the light of day and I really enjoyed seeing it all come together. I hope you enjoy it too.

Check out my Graphic Novel on the Fan Kit/Graphic Novels page of the website – www.marydoemovie.com

Gavin

Since the release of our online media I have been mainly focused on getting the word out into the world regarding our new Mutant/Zombie film. The make-up effects and the thrill of a new and different Zombie film, fascinates everyone. Horror fans are passionate about the genre and want to know what we are doing and our take on the material. The visuals are strong and they generate immediate interest and dialogue with reporters and fans.

But the heart of Mary Doe lies with our heroine and her story. A strong and powerful character, with an intriguing tale to tell, unfolding within a tightly woven thriller and set against the horror of a desolate and merciless Mutant landscape. Let nothing take the focus away that it is Mary that will be remembered – her journey that will make this story work. The ensemble cast of characters around her will add substance to the story and make this a memorable film.

I have put a lot of effort into building a solid story and characters and I hope fans will enjoy my vision when it hits the big screen. All our effects are wonderful but they are there for a reason and they won’t outshine the strength of the story at the heart of Mary Doe.

Since Christmas it’s been a crazy and busy time on every front. Releasing our website and announcing Mary Doe to the world has been exciting and highly satisfying for everyone involved. In the few short weeks since, we have been speaking to lots of reporters and fans and telling them our story. I feel the energy building on many different levels, as our project takes another huge leap forward. It’s great to hit these marks as you change gears and another injection of momentum kicks in. Everyone’s backing so far has been amazing and the genuine interest and excitement in what we are doing means everything. We have kept the whole project and everything we have been creating under wraps for 2 years and now it’s great to finally let it out.

Business wise we are dealing with investors and fielding interest from sales agents around the world.

At MEG we continue to keep the momentum of the make-up effects and model making build going – always introducing more ideas and building more creatures… I don’t think we can stop ourselves…

Also, we have been developing the pre-visualization for the end sequence of the film and transferring our drawn storyboard edit into a full-blown digital Pre-viz. It’s a detailed and complex sequence, so I want to make sure it is solid story-wise and then extrapolate as much of the technical data that digital Pre-viz can give you to help us plan the shoot. We went on a location scout and took hundreds of photos and detailed plans of the environment, which will be integrated into the digital Pre-viz to give us a clearer picture of what is required to shoot on the day.

We have discussed the project with a few high profile actors and continue to follow up on our dream cast.

The release of The Undead Zone game is getting closer – the gaming community fan base is enormous and our L4D2 Mod has generated a lot of interest and anticipation. Alex and Daniel are doing an amazing job building the game and the campaign. Remember it’s going to be a FREE online game available to all our fans.

I am working with our 1st AD on a preliminary schedule – a line-by-line layout of the shooting requirements for each day of the film shoot.

Thanks to everyone that is following our journey… You’re in for a cool ride!

Nick

Please check out the Mary Doe announcement on Dread Central.

Head into the Undead Zone with Mary Doe

It’s a great website for keeping up to date with horror films, genre projects, and the pop culture world…

Thanks to Uncle Creepy for putting up the news about our movie.

Nick

Hey guys,

Check out the IF Magazine Australia article written about Mary Doe.

http://if.com.au/2011/01/31/article/Sydneys-Make-Up-Effects-Group-to-do-zombie-flick/ZWGODJMSDT.html

Hi Guys,

Just launched a behind the scenes look into the making of the Undead Zone.

Check out the featurette at www.youtube.com/marydoemovie

This is it folks, the moment we have all been waiting for – the launch of our WEBSITE for the film Mary Doe.

www.marydoemovie.com

This site will be the hub for everything Mary Doe related. The videos, production photos, graphic novels, art and much much more, will build in scope and grandeur as we move closer to filming. You’ll start to see onset diaries and a lot of other cool stuff. You might even be able to find an Easter Egg I have hidden on the site.

To stay informed, remember to follow us on Facebook and on this Blog via RSS or Email subscription.

ENJOY!