News and Notes from William Hopkins, Indie Filmmaker in NYC: Making DEMON RESURRECTION: The Pit Shoot, October, 2004

Saturday, October 9, 2004

Making DEMON RESURRECTION: The Pit Shoot, October, 2004

Principal photography continues into October of 2004. The same location, producer Frank Cilla's Long Island property, does double duty as both the archeological excavation site and the Toth's cult compound.

The scene of Toth resurrecting the skeletal corpses in the pit, as well as as the final scene of the film, Toth being dragged into the pit by Grace's zombified friends, are shot at night as the production nears completion...

Edward Wheeler and Laurie Miller set up the "blood-knife" effect for actor Will McDonald (Toth).

The "blood knife" has a tube taped to one side of the blade which runs to a syringe loaded with stage blood which is held off camera by Ed Wheeler. When Toth runs the blade (which has had its edge dulled) over his palm, Ed pumps the stage blood through the tube, giving the appearance that Toth is cutting his own hand. At least, this is the way it's supposed to work. It took several takes before we got it right.

As there was a need for a large number of demons on the night of the pit shoot, Laurie was one of several cast and crew members who volunteered to put on the mask and robes, which explains her attire in these shots.

Stephanie Roy models the latest trends in zombiewear.

Makeup artist Ashley Benatar applies some last minute gore to the zombified friends.

The worst thing about playing a zombie, says Joe McClean (Steven), is having your skin and clothes covered in Karo syrup for hours on end. The syrup, with red food dye added, makes convincing stage blood but it's uncomfortably sticky and attracts insects.

By the night of the pit shoot, which was one of the last nights of principal photography, we had pretty much given up on the zombies' feet. We had fashioned skeletal foot coverings for the zombie performers to wear, but they never looked right on camera. So the actors were allowed to wear their regular shoes and we just framed the shots to avoid showing the zombies' feet.

The pit that was the centerpiece of the archaeological dig set, was dug by producer Frank Cilla and co-producer Edward Wheeler. It took several hours to get all that dirt out and several more hours to get it all back in again after the shoot was completed.