WARM BODIES Production Notes - Visual Hollywood

WARM BODIES (2013)PRODUCTION NOTESthen we would take it to the studio and do makeup tests."It was just one of numerous challenges the filmmakers had to overcome in the course of the production—notthe least of them being the inclement Canadian weather. With shooting continuing wellinto November, some of the WARM BODIES actors ended up with decidedly cold bodies, particularlyfor scenes that were outdoors or in the unheated airport terminal. Palmer recalls one scenewhere some actors were driving a luggage cart."It was about zero degrees, we all had heat packs and were wearing a thousand layers," the actressrecalls. "Just before we shot, I asked Jonathan Levine, 'What's the temperature actually supposed tobe in the film?' He's like, 'It's a balmy night. It's warm.' How were we going to pretend that? It wasso cold that I couldn't even get some of my words out."Even more extreme was the climactic fountain scene with Hoult and Palmer. The water started offhot but had turned freezing cold by the end of the day. "It's such an imperative scene in the movieand there we are absolutely freezing cold," Palmer recalls. "Our teeth were chattering, but it wasreally fun."And then there were the challenges stemming from the sheer physicality of the film's fight scenes,which Palmer says she was not prepared for."When I first read the script, I was focused on the emotional depth of the film and the heavy dialoguescenes," the actress says. "The second day that I was running around, because I hadn'tstretched, I was like someone with arthritis. I realized that I was just super unfit—it was quite embarrassing."Fortunately, it was Palmer's second action film so she wasn't a complete rookie, and had a goodstunt crew to work with. "We didn't really get a ton of time to rehearse specific moves," Palmersays. "I would arrive on set and then have 20 minutes with the stunt team so they could quicklyshow me what to do. Thank God I had a little bit of martial arts training on my last film."Gun training was also part of the job for several of the actors. "The first day I got to set, they hadme and Dave Franco go to the gun range," Tipton recalls. "We learned how to shoot every type ofgun under the sun. It was terrifying, because I'm terrified of loud sounds, but it was also very freeing."Franco says his favorite scene is the one in the pharmacy where his character, Perry, meets his demise.He, however, is not in it. "My double was standing in for me and he gets pulled off the table,"says Franco. "He takes this brutal hit. So my favorite moment is someone else playing me in themovie!"A major challenge for the makeup department was creating the right look for the zombies, whichare referred to as corpses in the film. This was especially true for the character of R, who needed tobe a somewhat sexy, good-looking zombie. Levine was keen to achieve these effects without prosthetics,using only makeup, and turned to head of makeup special effects Adrian Morot for the task.Morot says R had to be somewhat attractive in order for it to be feasible that Julie would fall in lovewith him. "You can't have teeth showing or a piece of flesh or ribcage; that's really gross and a differentkind of movie. The way I thought of him is that he needs to look a little like an undead JamesDean."© 2013 Summit Entertainment10