Darrell Hervey joins the Walking Apocalypse team as Weapons Master

Darrell Hervey, Weapons Master & Trainer, is joining the “Walking Apocalypse” movie team to help us with props and training.

Darrell is a Detroit native who has worked as an Officer and Crime Scene Investigator in both Detroit and Pontiac Michigan, a Detective in Baltimore City Maryland, a Special Agent with CSX Transportation Police, and as a Forensic Investigator for the State of Maryland. He holds national certifications in Crime Scene Investigations and Forensics, as well as being a certified Hostage Negotiator.

Darrell also served in the US Naval Reserves assigned to Intelligence Area 19 and also to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. His military career includes service in the US Army Reserves at 11th Battalion Psychological Operations Command as a Chaplain's Assistant.

Darrell has worked as weapons master on films such as “You're F@#k'n Dead,” http://www.youredeadthemovie.com/, the TV series “The Wire,” the TV mini-series “Dead Awakening” and for the short film “Guests of a Nation.”

His education includes the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD; a B.A. degree in Theology and Ethics and completing a M.A. in Divinity. As the President and CEO of 313, LLC he serves the independent film industry, offering comprehensive weapons training to actors, as well as access to high quality weapons props that add realism to feature films and shorts.

We are pleased and proud to have Darrell on our team.

Darrell Hervey on Internet Movie Database:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5551286/

Open crew positions for feature-film shoot

Our “crew call” ad is live on the Michigan Film Office website:

''Walking Apocalypse'' Indie Action-Thriller Feature Filming in SW MI Seeks Crew Resumes should be sent to brian@walshbrothersproductions.com. Non-union, Non-paid.

http://www.michiganfilmoffice.org/Jobs-and-Training/Crew-Opportunities/Default.aspx

We are seeking to fill several crew positions and we're also seeking locations to film certain scenes. A “casting call” will follow in the near future.

Slowly but surely...

The bad news is that the trailer is still not ready for release. The good news is that there are now three people working on three different versions of the trailer, so we should have something up pretty soon.

The biggest problem with a micro-budget film is finding qualified people willing to work for credit only in order to build their resume. These talented individuals usually have full-time jobs, sometimes more than one, and as such are unable to devote much time to other projects. They are willing to work with us because they know bigger and better things are coming. We have films in development that will entertain, amuse, and arouse some strong emotions. We won't play it safe. We have stories to tell, and we're going for the throat.

Once our film garners a certain amount of success, this should solve that problem for our future slate of films. The first is the toughest because we start with only talent and ambition. But that will see us through to the fulfillment of our goal: to establish a film production company that churns out really good commercial films every year. And all of them filmed in and around Jackson, Michigan.

Actors Todd Lutz and Paul Broussard outside the Jackson Coffee Company on Mechanic Street in Jackson, Michigan.

Can a small lab destroy the human species?

According to several experts, the answer is a definitive "yes."

This is the moral behind the story of "Walking Apocalypse," a cautionary tale of a magnificent new genetic process designed to eliminate all hereditary birth defects. When this process is sabotaged, the existence of the entire human species is in peril.

Skeet Wilson (Paul Broussard) argues against illegal human experimentation.

"Radical Evolution," a book by Joel Garreau, focuses on the four major technologies expected to significantly impact, for better or worse, the human race and human civilization in the decades to come. These are the GRIN (Genetic, Robotic, Information & Nanotech) technologies.

On page 139, the author writes:

"Nanotechnology holds out the possibility of the “gray goo” end-of-the-world scenario, in which devices too tough, too small, and too rapidly spreading to stop, suck everything vital out of all living things, reducing their husks to ashy mud in a matter of days. “Gray goo would surely be a depressing ending to our human adventure on Earth,” he writes, “far worse than mere fire or ice, and one that could stem from a simple laboratory accident. Oops.”

“Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups,” he wrote. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them.” Nuclear weapons require heavy industrial processes and rare minerals. They take the resources of, at the very least, a rogue state. With a variety of GRIN technologies, by contrast, one bright but embittered loner or one dissident grad student intent on martyrdom could – in a decent biological lab, for example – unleash more death than ever dreamed of in nuclear scenarios. It could even be done by accident. Bill Joy called these “weapons of knowledge-enabled mass destruction.” What really alarmed him about these GRIN weapons was their “power of self-replication.” Unlike nuclear weapons, these horrors could make more and more of themselves. Let loose on the planet, the genetically engineered pathogens, the super-intelligent robots, the tiny nanotech assemblers and of course the computer viruses could create trillions more of themselves, vastly more unstoppable than mosquitoes bearing the worst plagues."

The principal problem is control and regulation. It's impossible to oversee every small genetics lab across the entire world, to make sure that someone in America, Russia, China, North Korea or Iran has stumbled across a process that, in the wrong hands, could be perverted into a weapon of mass human destruction.

The threat is real, and it's growing. We all know there's no future without progress, but certain technologies, especially the so-called GRIN, must be subject to standards and oversight. Otherwise, by accident or design, we could see another extinction event on planet Earth: our own.

Call for digital video effects artist

With delays postponing the release of the first trailer, this is a good time to put out a call for a digital video effects artist for "Walking Apocalypse."

If you or anyone you know has experience or training with digital video effects and would like to work on our film, please contact me with a link to your reel. This position is unpaid, for-credit only, but work on a feature film is an excellent way to build your reel and resume.

The position will be demanding and requires someone who is able and willing to put in the time necessary to edit a feature film over 100 minutes long.

Please email the Director at: brian at walshbrothersproductions dot com. Please replace "at" with the @ sign and "dot" with a . for the email address.

Meet Justin Henry of Silver Moon Films

I had a long meeting with local film producer Justin Henry this morning at the Jackson Coffee Company. We spoke about our various projects and got to know each other a little after Amanda Trudell suggested that we meet.

I was very impressed by what a wonderful, creative mind Justin has. He has enough projects to fill up a production company's slate. Justin has several shorts, webisodes, web series and feature film ideas in various genres that are compelling and thought-provoking. Justin spoke with obvious passion about his film projects, and his enthusiasm was infectious as he described several in different stages of development.

Justin and his associates at Silver Moon Films, Mike Gifford and Ben Curtis, are one of Jackson's precious natural resources that we cannot afford to lose. Meeting him just reinforced my belief that there is plenty of creative talent in Jackson, and that we have the makings of an independent filmmaking Mecca right here. It is my firm hope that Justin and people like him don't leave due to the lack of local filmmaking opportunities.

http://www.silvermoonfilms.com/who/

Justin and I talked about the possibility of working on some projects together in the future, including a web series. Collaboration is the key. Without the built-in framework that Hollywood and other major film production hubs have, the only way a city like Jackson can evolve into a filmmaking center is by mutual cooperation from the various talented artists residing here.

An executive producer with some money who wants to get involved with a local feature film would do well to consider backing a project by Justin and his team, or by backing a collaborative film effort by both our teams.

We are at ground zero of an exciting turning point for filmmaking in Jackson, Michigan. We even have a mayor who is a talented filmmaker in his own right, Jason C. Smith. The stars are definitely aligned.

Local filmmaker Justin Henry on the 2nd floor of the Jackson Coffee Company on Mechanic Street in Jackson, Michigan.

The Waiting Game

We finished shooting on Sunday, September 29, 2013, and have been slowly moving towards the release of our first trailer. We expect to release at least three trailers for “Walking Apocalypse,” revealing a little more each time up to beginning principal photography on the feature film, which is tentatively scheduled to begin on Monday, May 5, 2013, and to last through the end of the month at least.

The script for the movie trailer which was just filmed was comprised of excerpts from the first draft of the feature screenplay. The filming of the trailer itself triggered ideas and possibilities with regard to writing the second draft.

It has been said that “writing is re-writing,” and never is this truer than with regard to screenwriting.

Inevitably after finishing the first draft of a feature-length screenplay, there is the feeling of accomplishment, of satisfaction. But after a little time has passed, you begin to conceive improvements. And when a trailer has been filmed, it changes some of your ideas and spawns new one's. There is always room for some improvement, but that must be balanced by the realities of budget.

With a large budget, the sky's the limit regarding special effects, locations, equipment, cast and crew. With no budget, you must work within tight constraints. Fortunately, we've been blessed with good people who helped make the trailer shoot a success.

The reality of writing a screenplay that you will film yourself is that there are certain things you cannot do. While doing this rewrite, I have to work with the locations available. The original outline and treatment for this script took place in Greenland, with Nick Candelaria becoming infected there before fleeing to the United States in search of the one person who could help him.

As we continue to make new movies, we should be able to do more. We are taking the production of “Walking Apocalypse” slowly for many reasons, including the lack of budget and staff as well being very careful with doing the very best we can within our restrictions.

The first trailer will be released soon, with expanded versions to follow. We are excited to have filmed in Jackson, Napoleon and Parma and are anxious to expand our local operation for this film and several more to follow. We hope you will agree that the trailer was worth the wait.