The Making of Turn In Your Grave: A Microbudget Feature

Part one

Part two

Part three

In late 2008 Rob Ager started planning a return to fiction film making after a gap of several years. The initial idea was to shoot a ten-minute horror film in the traditional zombie style ... something that would satisfy zombie fans' desire for old school cartoonish flesh-eating gore with a minimal plotline that served no other purpose than to justify the action. Basically to pay homage to the classic, low budget, pre-CGI zombie flicks of George A. Romero / Tom Savini.

Early drafts of the script did just that, but as new drafts were continually updated unusual themes began to emerge that veered away from the standard concepts of the genre. Some of the new themes were basically a compensation for the then much more limited budget, others were a response to boredom with the usual limitations of the zombie genre (eg, the scientific impossibility of dead flesh coming to life), and some were unrelated themes plucked from our other film project ideas.

It's difficult to know which came first, the intention of turning the project into a feature film or the intention of exploding the traditional zombie story devices into a whole new realm.

Technically, the big challenges were always going to be locations and special effects. For our location we were lucky enough (after much asking around) to stumble across an ideal warehouse location that was empty and due to be refurbished. The owner also happened to be a rabid fan of old school zombie flicks.

The special effects and make-up development was the longest and most difficult part of pre-production, basically adding at least six months to the development process.

As the project became more ambitious (technically and conceptually), the script was repeatedly updated with new ideas. The usual dialogue = exposition method of communicating a story became less relevant, replaced by non-verbal symbolism and subtext communicated through set design, costumes, lighting, camera angles and just about every other aspect of production. The result will be a film that satisfies the original intentions of creating a homage to old school zombie classics, yet can be experienced in many different ways upon repeated viewing.

The main warehouse shoot took place in March 2010 and lasted a week. The building was freezing, but the determined cast and crew (working on a deferred payment basis) gritted their teeth and bore the discomfort. We not only stayed on schedule, but shot a ton of additional, adlibbed scenes. All together we shot an hour's worth of the film in one week.

New scenes have since been scripted and shot that take the film into new conceptual territory, bringing the film up to the 90 minute mark (feature length).

The editing task has been a monumental one. After 13 months the DVD screener edit is complete with only minor tweaks required for completion of the finalized commercial cut. The film is now in the promotional phase to generate distributor interest. A behind the scenes documentary is currently in the making.