We are super excited to announce that DVS has been named an official selection of San Francisco’s 10th Annual Another Hole in the Head Film Festival.
We’ll know our exact screening date and time soon. We hope our friends and fans in the Bay City area will check out our premiere screening outside The Grand Canyon State.
Thanks for all the support of our cast, crew and fans. We absolutely could not do this without you and may we just say, “Viva los Zombies!”
We’re proud to announce that “Dead Votes Society” is an official selection of the 3rd Annual Tucson Terrorfest. DVS will screen at 8pm on Friday, Oct 18th at
The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress Street, Tucson.
We’ll be on the same program as “Dead Meat Walking: A Zombie Walk Documentary”, which explores the explosion of Zombie Walk events – from 6 people to over 15,000 at one even event. Looks like a great match for us and we’d love to see you and all fans of the Shambling Undead at this one time screening.
There’ll be Q and A with the filmmakers. We’re bringing a few rare and collectible DVS posters ($10) and t-shirts ($15 – only 7 left – 4 large and 3 XL!)
Tickets available online or at the door.
See you in Tucson – Viva Los Zombies!
photo by the ever wonderful Deborah Hebert Gallegos/makingasceneproductions.com
Hey, you wonderful 150 people who came out to see “Dead Votes Society” in a “four wall screening” at the historic Elks Opera House last Saturday. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
That makes around 750 fantastic people who’ve seen this shortie zombie/comedy so far.
photo by the ever wonderful Deborah Hebert Gallegos/makingasceneproductions.com
And, bonus extra thanks to the audience members who took advantage of the limited run of DVS posters and t-shirts, as well as the cast members who came out and signed posters for fans in the lobby. You all made it a glorious night out for the zombies!
Now, we plough the money raised back into submissions to film festivals; taking the banner of Yavapai County filmmaking out onto the national scene. Viva Los Zombies!
“Dead Votes Society” cast and crew members will be at the historic Elks Opera House on Saturday, Oct 5th.
Rare and collectible t-shirts and posters will be for sale in the lobby of the theater with a chance to get items autographed and talk to the cast.
We want to show off our little “zom com” and the great pool of talent we have here in Prescott. All funds raised with t-shirt and poster sales will go to film festival submission fees.
See you there!
This Wednesday, July 24, 2013 will mark the World Premiere of Dead Votes Society at Yavapai College Performing Arts Center during “Prescott on the Big Screen,” the 4th Annual Prescott Film Festival showcase of locally made cinema.
Since we started pre-production in September 2012, we’ve worked towards this date. Spent thousands of dollars. Worked very, very late. Got up early the next day to squeeze in some more before day job began. Sunday night, we showed it to our cast and crew in the lounge at Taj Mahal Restaurant. They broke up laughing and that wasn’t too surprising. What was surprising were the waitstaff from the dining room crowding in the door way to watch the film and laughing, laughing. Also surprising, when we showed the film a second time for cast who had to show up late, it actually got bigger laughs from the people who’d already seen it once.
As a comedy writer, that’s wonderful. You can see Dead Votes Society Wednesday night at 6pm in the YCPAC or Sunday, July 28th at 4pm in Yavapai College’s Building #19.
But, if you could do me favor, go to the World Premiere. Not only will you get to see it before most anyone else in the world has seen it and enjoy some great laughs, but they’ll be handing out ballots as you come in the door for the Audience Choice Awards.
Please do consider us for your vote. Some laughter might come in handy these days. And we’ve got just the zombies for the job. Viva los Zombies!
Tickets are now on sale for Prescott Film Festival’s “Prescott on the Big Screen” – over 2 hours of short independent films shot here in Everybody’s Hometown – which includes, “Dead Votes Society.”
That’s right! This year’s Prescott Film Festival will feature two screenings of “Dead Votes Society,” the hilarious and chilling new zombie comedy shot in Prescott, AZ.
Years ago, back when Angie, Christian Smith and I were part of Coyote Radio Theater, we scored this Big Gig – playing the Orpheum Theatre in Flagstaff. We knew we needed a great poster for this gig.
And for that, we needed some very good photos. There weren’t that many great photographers in Prescott back then.
We’d heard of Christopher Marchetti, of course.
He was this fantastic photographer who did the big league stuff – swanky shoots for catalogues, bands, etc. His studio is on the top floor of the old Masonic Temple – the ceremonial room, in fact, with thick carpet, richly ornamented ceiling, scads of cutting edge equipment, design forward furnishings, etc. I mean, if there ever was a Bond Villain who was a photographer for Paris Vogue, his lair would look a lot like this.
So, out of our league. But, it never hurts to ask. So, we did. And he said yes. We had a great shoot with the various wonderful oddball voice actors who were going to bring these radio theatre characters to life. Chris really took in that odd energy and found ways to get it in the photo. Our performers really opened up to the camera and we got some of the best photos we ever had of the group.
Here it is, years later, we’re making our first Crest Top movie, “The Dead Votes Society,” a satire about politics in Arizona, adapted by Angie, Christian and I from the original radio sketch.
Angie, as these things usually happen, HAD AN IDEA. “What if on the movie poster we had this grave and the hand of a zombie is coming up out of the grave and its making that “V for Victory” sign with its zombie fingers and we superimpose the title of the movie, “Dead Votes Society” with the V in Votes being the zombie fingers making the V for Victory sign?
Once again, we needed a really excellent photographer – since this poster will be seen at film festivals all over this great land of ours. By great good fortune, Chris Marchetti contacted us about the same time and offered his help on this project. Angie is excitedly telling our good friend, graphic designer Tres Ikner about our luck working with Chris Marchetti again. He says, “I love that image. Who’s doing your poster design to go along with that image?” Angie shrugs. Tres taps his own chest and nods knowingly. Holy cats, we know the coolest people.
So, we leap into action. As producer, Angie recruits one of our zombie actors, the very expressive Cason Murphy, to be our Zombie Hand Model.
Production Designer Penelope Davis develops a two by two shallow box that can have sod laid across the top, a slit made in the grass and a tube run up at an angle for Cason to extend his hand up through the sod. Then, Penelope puts together a zombie distressed fashion shirt and jacket sleeve, which, in combination with her application of the zombie make-up designed by Ridge Gallagher, make for a hand that looks like its coming back from the grave with something to say.
As director, I managed to find damn near the last piece of sod in Arizona. Who knew they stopped making it in winter? The folks at Evergreen Turf in Chandler, AZ were incredibly helpful with this bizarre request.
It all came together on Saturday, in that fantastical loft at the top of the Masonic Temple. Once again, it was a pleasure to watch Chris Marchetti work – his intuition with the shot is only matched by his patience as we figured out how to get an image that was at once easy to read, funny and maybe a little profound in its own silly way.
By the end of the shoot, Angie was standing next to Chris and shouting suggestions to the unseen Cason under the sod box.
“Do a sleepy V . . . do a happy V . . . do an angry V . . . ” And Cason’s zombie hand would change right in front of us as Chris clicked away.
By the time we got to “Do a Sexy V!” we knew we had it. Can’t wait to get the images to Tres for the movie poster.
What a fantastic ride we are on!
¡Viva los Zombies!
