Taking “detours” in season 2
AMC’s blog for The Walking Dead posted a fresh interview with Frank Darabont who is on the set directing second unit while dealing with the day-to-day madness of the show. Here’s an excerpt.
Q: You’ve said before that you like to treat Robert Kirkman’s comic as a road map, even as you veer off the road from time to time. What detours are you planning this season?
A: We’re fleshing out the story in so many different directions. Once you’re into this with real actors playing these characters, the dynamics develop over time from episode to episode. There’s so much rich story and character to plunder. I don’t know if we’re giving anything away, but… [SPOILER ALERT!] something as simple in the comic books as “Lori gets pregnant” winds up being sort of a fantastic complication on screen. In the story we’re telling, it’s just not that simple as it was in the comic book because you have those opportunities to really spin the story out in many different layers. So, that kind of stuff is tremendously exciting to me.
Q: You were slated to do some second-unit directing for Episode 201. What did you shoot?
A: The schedule for Episode 1 was brutally tight given the ambitious nature of that episode, so we’ve had to do more second-unit on this one than usual. I jumped in and directed a sequence involving T-Dog trying to elude a zombie in a big snarl of abandoned cars on a deserted highway. It’s a bit of cat-and-mouse in all the dead traffic, and it was terrific fun to shoot. [Special Make-Up FX Artist and Consulting Producer] Greg Nicotero has also greatly contributed as second-unit director. The teaser for Episode 1 is entirely his sequence, and it’s our version of the opening of Day of the Dead. Atlanta as it is now, a lot of walkers, a lot of quiet and solitude in the dead city. It’s a very cool visual sequence, he did a great job. Greg and I are dyed-in-the-wool horror/zombie geeks, so I know he had a blast doing it.
Q: Are you hoping to direct a full episode later this season?
A: I’m hoping to. You know, being the boss is kinda like being the kid who has to stay in and do homework. Everyone gets to play outside. Yeah, it’s hot and miserable, but my God it’s fantastic. And I’m just going, “Aww, I’ve got to go home to L.A. I’m cramming for finals, I guess. While you guys get to play zombies, I’m doing homework.”
For more, follow this link!
Source: AMC
