Deadheads the Movie

Monday, April 11th, 2011 | Filed under Images,Movies | Posted by Gothic.net

DEADHEADS is five years of the most exciting, ridiculous, and challenging ride of our lives. As children, my brother and I watched our father work from our basement on the special effects of the original EVIL DEAD alongside Sam Raimi. Growing up amid the “DEAD’ crew put the bug in us, we knew they’re was only one direction we wanted to go, and that was behind the camera.

While working various film and television jobs in LA, we religiously hammered out the DEADHEADS script while locking the financing. Our script was overly ambitious and epic in scope compared to most first-time director indie films. It featured elaborate action sequences, numerous special effects, over 20 locations, and a large cast. For an indie film it was a suicide mission.

That being the case, we opted to shoot the film in our home state of Michigan where we knew we could break the rules and stretch the limitations that most indie films in LA and other film hubs are stifled by.

What followed was 6 months of pre-production as we searched for a fearless crew who would go to war for us. Everyday was spent locking locations, storyboarding, and pulling every favor in existence we had.

Then in mid-summer, cameras rolled on a scheduled five-week, six workdays a week shoot. It was five weeks of no sleep, too much Monster, getting kicked out of locations, actors being arrested, and best of all, a cast and crew who became a family and grew to love the characters as much as we did.

Good thing…because after five weeks of shooting only half of the script had been shot.

For my brother and I as well as the cast and crew there was no question, we had to finish. This crazy buddy/zombie/comedy/road trip/action-adventure tale had to be told. So began an additional four weeks of insanity. Lost jobs and broken relationships piled up high for the cast and crew as we kept cameras rolling with eyes locked on the finish line.

Finally, in mid-October, principal photography had wrapped on DEADHEADS.

For the next year we buried ourselves in the post-production process. 3 months editing was followed by another week of pick-ups (making that a total of ten weeks of shooting!) then another month of editing. Toss in the composition of a full original score, sound design and mixing, over a hundred digital effects shots and you got movie magic right there in a nutshell.

What did my brother and I learn from all of this? We like suicide missions. We adore our cast and crew. And we love our movie. We hope you do too.

Brett Pierce

Co-Writer/Co-Director of DEADHEADS