EXCLUSIVE: Sean Mathiesen on 'Visceral' Zombie FX in '28 Weeks Later'

By Mark London Williams May 18, 2007, 19:06 GMT

04/10/2007 - Danny Boyle - © Insidefoto / Photorazzi

Visual Effects supervisor Sean Mathiesen speaks of creating "visceral moments" in the none-dare-call-them-zombies thriller "28 Weeks Later," a sequel to the riveting, guerrilla-shot original, "28 Days Later," from director Danny Boyle.

In both, the zombies should instead be called the "infected," but despite the medical allusion, when Mathiesen says "visceral," he doesn't mean it in the sense of "viscera" – spilled or extruding guts or body parts – which "Weeks" has in abundance, particularly in a helicopter-blade-meets-Infected sequence he helped devise.

Nor does he mean it in reference to playing "catch with heads and legs and body parts" – prosthetic, one is relieved to note—"in front of a blue screen," a technique used to amplify the rapid coming-apart of "Infected" hordes coming against the aforementioned, well, chopper.

No, instead Mathiesen means "visceral" in the sense that horror film producers –and the studios that release their movies – love best: gut clenching and edge of your seat suspenseful.

His instincts for "visceral"-ness first came to Boyle's attention with Mathiesen was doing previs -- Hollywood shorthand for "previsual" -- work on the upcoming sf thriller, "Sunshine."  The director was producing the sequel to his own "Days," with Spanish director (and sequel co-writer) Juan Carlos Fresnadillo at the helm.

One of the most effective mood-establishers in the original was the sense of London being almost completely deserted.  This was done in a series of well-placed shots – often done on Sunday morning – that showed roadways and public squares devoid of foot traffic and cars.

What little signs of life were actually there were digitally removed later.  This time, a more ambitious way of establishing mood was followed: "the recipe for deserted London," Mathiesen says,"the backbone – is aerial shots; big heroic establishing shots of London."

Which required a lot more digital post-work to keep the harrowing sense of a derelict city intact.

Mathiesen found himself "on the film from the get-go," consulting, conversing and collaborating with key heads including production designer Mark Tildesley, special effects supervisor Richard Conway, and Director of Photography Enrique Chediak.

"In visual effects, it's vital to figure out the DP's visual style," Mathiesen says, as well as "how to tell your story incorporating what (other departments) do."

Though sometimes, his work came down to dollars and cents. Or pounds and farthings.  Much of the film was shot in the Isle of Dogs area of London – a peninsula jutting out around the Docklands/Canary Wharf area, surrounded on three sides by the Thames.

The crew was there one Sunday morning – the "28" franchise is fond of early Sundays – and saw in the background a row of fisherman on the other side of the "isle," each with a line in the river.

They were asked if they could please move or leave, since the crew would only be able to shoot the sequence in question that morning.

Well, the wily fisherman said, they could move – for a hundred pounds each.  For they were engaged in a fishing contest, the winner of which was to get the hundred-pound prize. Since they'd all be deprived of a shot at the prize money, they all asked for it.

Mathiesen quickly realized that "for less than the 2000 pounds (they were asking for) I could erase them later on" from the shot.

So the fisherman stayed, and Mathiesen got a touch busier in post-production.

But he got a lot busier when it came for the helicopter-versus-Infected sequence, which was a "late addition to the story" hatched by the director. "In one night," he recounts, "I came up with a 20-shot sequence," which, in spite of the exigencies of on-set changes, etc., wound up "almost identical" to the one-night previs he dreamed up.

All which may have been more "cerebral" than "visceral," initially, though in the end, the gut-wrenching – and gut-displaying – results are the same.

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Mark London Williams finds himself among the still-living, in Los Angeles, where he writes for the trade publication Below the Line, where a longer version of this article appears.  He's also the author of the "Danger Boy" time travel series from Candlewick Press.

www.btlnews.com
http://markwilliams.livejournal.com/
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