Original subtitles

You want a light? Mm-hmm.

How are things down the other end?

This is like living in Pittsburgh. If you can call that living.

A couple of people have made that observation,

that it's like working in a foreign country,

working in Pittsburgh. It gives you a lot of freedom.

In addition to freedom, it gives you a different perspective.

You're not so much a victim of trends,

of popular thinking, of, you know...

What's in the State-of-the-Art head right now.

This is a scene from "Night of the Living Dead,"

a low-budget film co-authored, directed,

photographed, and edited by George Romero...

In 1968.

Already the head of a successful commercial production house in Pittsburgh,

this was his first venture into feature Filmmaking.

Its flaws were mainly budgetary,

while its virtues were clearly visionary,

earning it popular success as a horror film,

and a cult following for exploratory uses

of genre and technique.

Style is difficult to define.

Even in this disembodied clip

the technical aspects of Romero's style

are making themselves apparent...

They're in his cutting...

His camera angles...

In his two-dimensional design within the film frame...

Great spatial movements from shot to shot...

And even within shot.

Just making films in Pittsburgh for 10 years

has become a sort of stylistic statement.

In January of '78,

Romero and his Producer Richard Rubinstein

allowed a film crew from the school of visual arts onto the set

of their latest production,

the second part of the "Dead" trilogy,

"Dawn of the Dead."

Using footage shot over one long weekend,

a documentary took shape,

focusing first on the Filmmaking process

and secondly on directorial vision...

What part of it reaches the screen unhampered,

what external forces affect it.

But first, let's introduce our cast.

In pre-production... George Romero, Screenwriter.

Richard Rubinstein, Producer.

In production... George Romero, directing.

Richard Rubinstein, producing.

Michael Gornick, Cinematographer.

Carl Augenstein, Lighting Director.

Tom Savini, Creator of Special Makeup,

Actor and Stuntman.

Ken Foree, Actor.

Scott Reiniger, Actor.

David Emge, Actor.

John Amplas, Actor in "Martin"

and Casting Director of "Dawn,"

and in post-production... Editing the film.

Pre-production involves writing the screenplay,

raising the money and organizing the shoot.

- All aboard. - Good morning.

Hiya. How long to Pittsburgh?

- 10 hours to Pittsburgh. - Is there a bar car?

- On your left. - Thank you.

Madam, traveling alone? All alone.

- Shall I wake you for Pittsburgh? - No, I'm going to New York.

- The Big Apple? - Right?

- Thank you and good night. - Thank you. Good night.

These are the opening moments of "Martin,"

the film Romero made just before "Dawn."

As the story unfolds, you'll see the screenplay qualities...

All inherently cinematic...

Which begin to articulate his style.

First the visual imperative.

With few exceptions, cinema relies

as little as possible on the spoken word.

Characterization and plot

are best revealed through action

and accumulation of detail.

Montage concepts begin in the screenplay.

The story is developing with literally no dialogue,

and suspense is being generated

not only in the horror of the situation

but in the mystery of the plot itself.

We still don't know his identity,

his motives, or his goal.

Romero's use of dual linear movement

fleshes out the two dimensions of film into three.

A use of such devices as the manipulation of time...

Or other devices such as irony...

As you can see from the final page of the "Dawn" screenplay,

Romero's use of the form is unorthodox...

In a medium where one page

generally equals one minute of film.

The script seems long. Did you plan to shoot it all?

I mean, giving yourself leeway in the cutting?

Pretty much. I usually write long scripts.

"Martin" was a long script that was really a long script.

The first cut came out at almost two hours and 45 minutes.

- Wow. - This is a long script that seems long.

It's not really long.

There is so much description.

And if you read those pages,

there is so much action

described in great paragraphs

where I got carried away describing the action itself.

Some of those things take a second and a half.

And it's not cutting that long.

We did... I cut the first half of the film

and it came in at 45 minutes,

so I think the first cut will be about a two-hour cut.

- Great. - Which is not bad for a first cut.

To what extent do other influences creep into a work?

And at what stage?

A lot of people have often compared you to Hitchcock.

But you don't buy that. How come?

They have some nerve.

No, I don't... Filmmaking is funny.

Filmmakers... All artists to some extent

are parasitic of what they've seen,

and what they are basically imitating,

what attracted them in the first place.

Filmmakers, maybe more than any other form,

I mean, it's not like you can sit down with a pencil

and do your thing... Or a canvas or whatever.

It's very expensive and very few people

get enough chance to work with the hardware,

and get enough chance to really

develop a style...

Except on a very intellectual level.

That's why unfortunately the State-of-the-Art

has somewhat gone towards menus and pre-planning

and everything else... Which is a little bit destructive.

I would say that if I'm parasitic of anybody it's more Welles,

and some of the early... Like Howard Hawks and people like that.

Those were films that really affected me.

There are certain Hitchcockian things that...

First of all, I don't consciously when I'm setting up a shot

say wow, remember that shot in...

And then try to imitate that.

They are Hitchcock-type influences...

The sequence in the cemetery in "Night of the Living Dead"...

Where you see the figure way in the background and don't know what it is.

And it gradually gets worked into the plot.

It starts to become a threat, and then the threat is a real threat.

That's kind of a Hitchcockian sequence.

Hey, I mean praying's for church, huh?

Come on.

I haven't seen you in church lately.

Well...

Not much sense in my going to church.

Do you remember one time when we were small

we were out here? It was from right over there.

I jumped out at you from behind the tree,

and Grandpa got all excited and he shook his fist at me

and he said, "Boy, you'll be damned to Hell!"

Remember that? Right over there.

You used to really be scared here.

- Johnny! - You're still afraid.

Stop it now, I mean it.

They're coming to get you, Barbara.

Stop it. You're ignorant.

They're coming for you, Barbara.

Stop it! You're acting like a child.

They're coming for you.

Look, there comes one of them now.

- He'll hear you. - Here he comes now.

- I'm getting out of here. - Johnny...

A couple of pieces that I've seen written

about "Night of the Living Dead" say that it takes us back

to silent cinema storytelling.

Johnny! Help me.

I can see now a couple of specific things

in a couple of my films that are Hitchcockian in that way.

Sometimes people say it because of the plot lines...

The very certain ironies in the plots that I use.

I don't think that has anything to do with form,

I think that's more a content association people are making.

"The Thing" was the movie that knocked me down when I was a kid.

That's the one, I think, horror film.

Everyone says "What attracts you to the genre?"

And it was probably "The Thing."

I was the right age at exactly the right time

and it had exactly the right effect on me. I've never forgotten it.

The cineographics of "The Thing,"

and those of "Night" and "Dawn"

are remarkably similar.

Confined spaces within which groups of protagonists

are eternally on guard against a deadly foe.

Tranquility never exists in Romero's world.

You could say his style is derived from D.W. Griffith's because he uses closeups.

The truth of it is, artists imprint distinctive auras on their films.

"Genre" is a term which should have been invented by the distributors.

For the artist, it's just a departure point.

Thank you

Casting occurs in pre-production.

Is it an irony in both "Night and "Dawn"

that Romero's main protagonists are black?

In "Night of the Living Dead"

the character, if you read the script...

If you read my shooting script,

the character is never described

in terms of his color.

And Duane was the best actor that we knew

from among our friends, which was where we cast that film...

Where we cast that film. And so he did the part.

Consciously, I resisted writing new dialogue

because he happened to be black.

And just let it play and we just shot the script.

As we started to shoot and got into it,

we lived at that farmhouse.

So we were always into raps about the implications

and the meanings and stuff like that.

Some of that maybe crept into the film.

I think in both "Night" and "Dawn"

the biggest job that all of us had

during the production of both of those films

was subduing all of those thoughts.

Those can really interfere with what you're doing.

What you're doing on the surface is making a comic book.

Those ironies that you're talking about are that selection process...

Is something again that happened at script stage,

or on a consciousness level

somewhere beneath the craft of making the film.

Our news cameras have just returned

from covering such a search and destroy operation against the ghouls.

Themes, motifs, and metaphors

trace back to the screenplay stage

why does the media play such an important part in his films?

Have been organized to search out and destroy the marauding ghouls.

I worked in television for so long, that maybe it's just an important part of my background.

I also just have a lot of attitudes about what that "reach",

that whole "communications electronic box" has done to everybody. So I guess I tend to take "jabs" at it.

The plan is, kill the brain and you kill the ghoul.

- Want anything from the supply wagon? - No, we're all right.

Hey, cass, put that thing all the way in the fire.

- We don't want it getting up again. - All right, I gotcha.

Chief McClellan, how's everything going?

Oh, things aren't going too bad. Men are taking it pretty good.

You want to get on the other side of the road over there.

Chief, do you think we'll be able to defeat these things?

Well, we killed 19 of them today, right in this area.

Those last three we caught trying to claw their way into an abandoned shed.

They must have thought somebody was in there. There wasn't, though.

People on the television, not really answering the question

but making it more confusing, that's been the conscience part of that.

Because that's generally what it's about.

"Ladies and Gentlemen there was a plane crash that took out a small piece of Manhattan...

more later."

it's never reassuring, it's always alarming.

That's been a kind of conscience through-line.

The Producer is in a key position during pre-production,

securing funds, putting the film

into a viable financial and legal position,

and thereafter protecting the director.

I think that we tend to operate

in more a European style in terms

of the way we produce and the way George directs,

and that we tend to follow

Sarris' auteur theory of direction,

and that I see my function as a Producer

in terms of providing George Romero

with a brush, palette and canvas.

And his creative control is absolute

in terms of the film itself...

That he's the scriptwriter,

that he's the director and he's the editor.

And it's totally the product of one man's vision on a creative level.

This is the largest budget that George has had to work with in terms of production.

I think that he's got enough money here to do what he wants to do.

It's not an excessive amount of money by traditional Hollywood standards. This is a low-budget picture.

Of course anything under $2½ million dollars is considered low-budget in terms of major studios.

The biggest difference really in "Dawn"

is working with a little bit of money

and still being satisfied with the product.

In fact, it was easier. I was paranoid about it upfront,

because just having that extra weight is a trip.

But I'm comfortable with what "Dawn of the Dead" is.

And the extra money it took to make it what it is

was really not a hindrance at all. It was a big, big help.

A lot of people say "I can't work with money,

I can't work with a lot of people around."

This film was financed in somewhat of a traditional way

in that it's co-financed internationally,

that a group headed by Dario Argento

in Italy co-financed the film with us.

And our end of the co-financing

comes from private individuals.

I think it was unique in that this project

started off with two creative people getting together...

Dario Argento and George Romero.

And then the business side came after that point.

Now the physical productions begins.

In this second stage the Director

and Cinematographer stand to share equally in importance

for what is captured on film.

It's the eighth week of the "Dawn" shoot,

we're in an $80 million mall in Pittsburgh,

which Romero is allowed to use each night

from 11:00 till 7:00 in the morning.

- Everyone ready? - Camera?

- It's rolling. - Sound.

Cut.

He does not get uptight,

he asks me if it's possible

and asks me how much time it's gonna take.

And then he'll give me a straight "yes" or "no" on whether to do it.

There's no bullshit, there's no yelling,

it's been a very...

For shooting this long under these conditions

I'd say it's been absolutely wonderful.

George Romero

directs pretty much the way he is...

Pleasant, relaxed,

great sense of humor.

And intelligent, so the combinations work well.

There's no hurry, there's no pressure,

we discuss it.

And usually a very few words are exchanged.

There are ideas, a few words and we've got it.

The man's like water and you're a ship, so you just float along and do the job.

Okay.

Ready?

Quiet.

Action.

The best thing about him is that he gets across

what he wants without telling you.

I don't know how he does it, but it's incredible.

'Cause he's so clear about what he wants all the time.

I think when he's working he's editing at the same time.

When he says it looks good,

we've learned that indeed it will look good,

because he has a very good eye.

The atmosphere which pervaded the "Dawn" shoot

was unusual for a film production in this country.

And while good films have been created

by directors who were universally despised,

there's no doubt that chemistry counts.

I think George likes confidence in his crew,

but I think he likes to work with people he feels at ease with.

They have to be confident, but beyond that

he likes people he can work with till 7:00 in the morning

like we did today... And feel at ease with them.

There's a lot of rapping that goes on constantly on the shoots.

A lot of fun and a lot of hard work.

It's a joy working with George, because he accepts a lot of input

in terms of what I see or... It's amazing that even suggestions

that come oftentimes from crew members through me...

And he's very willing to accept those observations.

A lot of his film is input from the crew.

A lot of freedom... It's a real democracy with George.

The "Dawn" production took a month off in December

rather than remove and restore the holiday decorations every night,

losing hours of shooting time.

Romero used that month to cut what he had already shot.

By the time the school crew arrived,

four weeks into the second round of shooting,

he had covered the screenplay well enough

to stop at any point and edit the footage into release form.

It was now in an improvisational stage

where new ideas were being developed.

This picture's really designed for right now.

It's much more of a comic book... It's much lighter.

It didn't seem so in the script.

In fact, the scene we saw being shot yesterday,

the pie fight...

And I'd heard rumors

that the ending has been also changed.

Yeah, in fact, we shot both,

because I wasn't willing to give up the tragic ending.

But this film, "Dawn of the Dead"

has... it's a very romanticized film.

MI vida! Miguelito.

The major change that's happened

that I can see from my conceptions

upon first reading it and now

is that it's lightening up.

You know?

When I first read it, I thought it was awfully shocking

to think just in terms of numbers of bodies being maimed

and gallons of blood being spilled,

but there is a quality coming out

that is counter-weighting that.

It's definitely becoming more of a fantasy to me...

More of an adventure to me than I first

conceived of it upon first reading it.

I think the number of the special effects

are a substantial portion of the budget,

where prior to this

they were less so in George's other films.

It's the number of explosions, the number of cosmetic effects that Tom Savinl does.

Ya!

Those things take a certain amount of time

and a certain amount of budgetary support in order to...

Get them to work. They don't always work the first time.

A squib is simply a detonator.

But we placed the detonator in a tube

that was filled with gunpowder.

And that was placed inside a prophylactic which was filled with blood.

So when the blast went off, the concussion blew

the prophylactic and the blood from beneath the clothing.

We're in this mall when the mall closes,

the mall closes 9:30 or so.

We start coming in around 8:00 to get set up and everything.

We only have until 7:00 in the morning before we have to stop shooting,

because we got to get all our stuff out when the mall opens.

They'll be times in a particular night

where we're shooting all over the script.

It has to be done fast, because that all has to be done in seven hours.

George is a wonderful guy. You can say to George...

He'll be very cool... No expression on his face...

You can say to him, "George I've got this fabulous idea,

why don't we take a screwdriver...

Say the maintenance man has a screwdriver on his belt,

and have the maintenance man zombie attack scott.

Scott pulls a screwdriver out of his bag

and sticks it in the zombie's ear, shoves it in the brain.

George will go "okay."

You could say "George, how about if we get dragons

coming out of the fountains in the mall?"

I'm sure he'd go, "yeah, okay, yeah." You can't shake him.

The first half of the shooting was very organized

and there wasn't a great deal of improvisation

because most of the big effects were done in the first part.

The things George wrote in the script, we planned ahead.

We knew exactly... We would stand in the office

and he would walk the whole thing through and be a zombie,

be the victim, be the helicopter. Very organized.

This shoot's a little different.

We've created characters on our own.

I've created a character and a friend, a stunt-man's created a character.

He's been developing those characters

as we shoot... Day by day.

So it's like really loose, this half of the shoot.

And just as much fun.

How many zombies are you making up a night?

It depends on what we're doing in the script.

Some nights we'll have 200, sometimes we'll have five.

The nights we have five, they're the concentrated scenes

between one lead,

and we put five around him so it looks like

a continuation of the 200 the day before.

It depends, like I say,

it depends on what's in the script for that night.

Can you explain what you're doing right now?

Okay, these are foam latex appliances I'm sticking on his face.

These are zombies... Or people that have died in interesting ways...

Or not interesting ways, just people who have died and come back to life.

A lot of them look like car accident victims,

cancer patients.

One guy came in here in a three-piece suit, beautiful three-piece suit,

so I made him up like a mortician would

at a funeral parlor. And he was like "beautiful."

Overly made-up with lipstick and all that.

So he was walking around like a fresh one.

Okay, you have to lean forward just a bit so I can powder all this.

It'll probably get all over your shirt here.

Others are people who have been bitten by other zombies

and who have died and become zombies.

And they're the ones that are the grossest.

I don't know what happened to you... A car accident,

zombie bit your face off or something like that.

The fun of this thing is inventing all this stuff.

Can you close your eyes?

And I'm covering them with this stuff

called rubber mask greasepaint.

It's a greasepaint that has more castor oil in it.

It keeps the rubber piece from drying out and changing color

after the makeup has been on it for a while.

You sculpt them in clay. You make a mold of them,

and you pour foam latex in the mold... You bake it in an oven.

I took a big photo tray and sculpted a zillion wounds,

cast them... And I had those and I did another one...

Cast them and I had those wounds.

When I'm making a piece and I have foam latex left over,

I'll pour it in one of these slabs, and I'll have extra wounds laying around.

Are there any schools that teach that?

No, not that I know of. I had to teach myself.

The director must be a psychologist.

He must also be a story-boarder,

an editor...

Linking the disparate sensibilities

of cast and crew with his own vision.

Okay, if it's straight up, we can do it with hands.

Tom Savini, now on the other side of the camera,

is about to assay a difficult stunt

which will portray his demise onscreen.

One can see under these specialized circumstances,

Romero effortlessly fulfilling his ongoing roles

as prime mover of the production.

- Keep going, keep going. - Ready, Tom?

Keep going... Okay, okay, good.

- Hold on, Tom. - All set?

- Any time. - Are you rolling?

Stand by. You gonna go right there, Tom?

Yeah, from here.

- Ready, Mike? - Hold on.

Do you have Shelby's hand in the light?

Holding the bench on the left?

- I can't see any bench. - Quiet, please.

- Okay, Mike? - Beautiful.

Out of sight, beautiful.

What about the approach you're taking in directing it?

I thought "Night of the Living Dead"

was pretty tightly story-boarded. Is that true?

It was and it wasn't. A lot of the sequences were,

as a lot of the sequences in this film are.

Oh, 'cause while we've been here, it seems very loose.

It's been loose, but you've been here only for a few scenes too.

Some of the scenes...

As you watch the interlock I think, you'll find to be

very, very close to the way that script is written.

Story-boarding refers most commonly

to a series of artists' renderings prepared in pre-production.

In production, each shot will correspond to one of these sketches.

George is a genius in that respect.

He can memorize his own storyboards.

He prepares them himself.

And Chris, his A.D., has helped in that respect too.

But he doesn't literally storyboard his shots.

He's a very complex director.

He likes to keep it to himself

in terms of the actual story-boarding of blocking scenes.

And he brings it with him to the set. That's his style.

There are certain things that I want to happen

that build on each other.

In this film, the people starting to get

tempted and attracted by the mall.

And starting to get...

Adopting the military approach to taking it over.

And those are the things that I've tried to keep

as close as possible to the script...

The sequence when they go and get the trucks

and block off the outside of the mall.

Because there is a certain build

that was written into the script,

which I really think adds to...

The overall flow of the suspense of the film.

Martin.

Here in a later scene from "Martin,"

Romero's modern vampire story,

one can feel a tight pre-structured quality

indicative of story-boarding.

I had a copy of the script

about a month and a half or two before we started shooting.

And he already had it story-boarded to an extent.

Martin.

There's a lot of quick cuts of you creeping down hallways,

and how would you hit your mark emotionally?

I generally didn't worry about it emotionally.

I was more interestedin hitting the mark... In being in the right place.

Martin.

Martin.

Martin!

Martin?

- Who are you? - Oh my God.

Look, let's not get excited about this now.

There's no reason to get upset.

I don't know him!

Were the scenes very tightly blocked off?

They weren't tightly blocked, but they were blocked.

Because of being such an action scene,

we had written blocking

just as if we would work in a theater.

Of course, "Martin" was a small shoot...

Generally not more than eight people on the set in total.

"Dawn" had, I think, 35 in staff and hundreds in actors.

- Yeah, many nights, hundreds. - And his attention

was being pulled away all too often.

So he kept himself pretty much by himself during that.

But his overall attitude with actors was pretty much the same.

Your role in "Dawn" was on the other side of the camera.

I was Casting Director.

Mostly my job was recruiting zombies.

Creative compromise is the name of the game in Filmmaking.

Logistics of production force one to make decisions

counter to the original concept, but ultimately beneficial.

We were talking before about the fact

that when he got to the mall, it had a different atmosphere

than he already thought

about "Dawn" having.

The mall also brought a futuristic look to the film.

It was so vast.

The idea of the mall itself,

the moment we see it, the moment we come in and see what it is,

I think it's gonna become obvious

in terms of what we're saying about

the false security of consumer society.

It's a great metaphor.

It's a great set, too.

- Great location, really. - Great location.

We couldn't do it without a mall like this.

We were really lucky to get it.

How's it been working with it? Have there been problems?

There have been a few problems...

- Mainly technical? - Mainly technical.

No real people problems at all.

When I read it, I could easily picture the editing.

I mean your style, between the angles.

But I didn't picture the color designs

- or what the mall would look like. - All of those influences...

Everyone's attitude toward the thing, as well as my own desire,

I think, to brighten things up... go more action adventure.

First of all you're dealing, as I said,

with 3-400 extras in some scenes,

you're dealing with a shopping mall

as our primary set, where their primary business

is in fact selling consumer goods.

And integrating what we want to do with the life of the mall

has been an arduous and complicated task.

There is no way to pay...

Or let's say that there is, but it's way beyond our capacity to pay

in dollar values what the use of the mall is worth.

The people that own the shopping mall

have been aesthetically attached to Filmmaking

and they are getting enough money so it doesn't cost them anything

to have us in here,

which is an expensive proposition in itself.

But in terms of looking at it,

are they making a profit on our being involved with them?

No, that's not the case.

- What about insurance? - Insurance is a very costly item...

Particularly where you're dealing in public places.

If a little old lady tends to see a zombie,

or happens to see a zombie wandering around with makeup

and has a heart attack, that's a potential problem.

I don't want to limit that to little old ladies, but anyone.

So, yes the insurance...

Tab on this particular picture is a substantial number.

You all right? You okay?

- - Yeah, I'm all right. - All right, Savini.

All right, Savini.

Obviously you can't light a place this size

without spending a week to light it.

We discussed doing the whole thing in one shot...

Rehearsing 30 days and shoot it one day.

So we have to keep it pretty low

otherwise there would be really dead areas.

The situation is not enough time,

not enough lights

and incredibly large spaces to deal with.

And I think the large spaces and the fact that we're shooting

a large number of angles on any given shot

are the biggest problem.

We'll do a setup, an initial setup and shoot one angle.

And the director will immediately call for a reversal on it.

Normally, that's not too big a problem,

but in this case, one reversal might

encompass 200 or 300 feet

of mall area

where you have background just to fill in,

just to create touches to avoid black holes.

Hotspots... There's glass everywhere creating reflections.

My first reaction was total panic.

I aggravated myself to death,

because I really... I wanted it to be better.

The initial shots were so big

that I had to use every light

to its absolute fullest amount.

I couldn't skip a couple of sections

and say, "I'll fill them in with another light."

I had to know that between every 10 feet there had to be something,

or every certain area there had to be

a highlight or a spot. I had to know that.

And I had to know exactly what it was.

And I went back to my books

and I read performance figures

on every lamp that I have, and measured things

and went through it over and over again.

And finally it came out.

We got the initial setup done and it worked.

And I felt likeabout five million pounds was taken off of my head.

While we're swinging with it on the very, very big shots

right here, right now we're using a lot of tungsten.

We're pushing one stop...

And we're working with ease under that situation.

For the very, very big shots we're pushing one again

and using some zeiss...

- Distagon. - Distagon lenses,

with the 1.4 which gives us plenty of light to shoot under.

So then the basis of this film for me

is to go in and set up areas,

set a main source of light.

And that's not particularly a key light, it's a source of light,

whether it be a lamp or ceiling light

or a window light... Whatever it is.

Then I sit back and I look at what's there

and build upon that.

A lot of the situations are available light,

because it's the only possible way to shoot it.

The shots are either too large

or the movement is too fast to light.

That's really the biggest problem is this time situation.

We've managed by doing basically area lighting

by bouncing a lot of light around

creating natural effects.

Not lighting to the shot, but lighting areas.

- Let's go. - Okay, arrives at the column.

Ricochets ready?

Let's go for one more... Let's go for just one more shot.

You have it in, and you come off with the big cocking action.

Fire 'em off the launch towards you. And then just hold.

'Cause you can always hold in aiming mode when you realize that there's too many...

Like you see more of them coming around the corner.

Ready, Mike?

Quiet.

- Sound? - Rolling.

659, take 7. Sound 1343.

I had never worked with any other director in terms of a feature.

I know the reaction to George's style

as to how he'd get so many setups in one hour,

while other directors might spend 3-4 hours on eight shots.

Whereas George, I don't think, could ever do that.

Yeah, we have discussed angles and style

on a previous film we did called "Martin."

We pretty much maintain that mood when we shoot horror stuff...

Which is a lot of wide angle,

low positions

that accentuate the monster aspects

of the zombies or whatever.

That's pretty much it in terms of any adapted style

which we have intensified in this film

or any previous horror films which we've done.

This film allows us to be a little more graceful, a little more beautiful

with our photography because it's not simply a horror film.

One of our worries was we were getting a little too far away from the horror genre.

But I can help it along... I understand where he's going.

I've worked with him enough that I understand his direction.

George tends to set up scenes and then let them happen,

rather than being extremely precise

about every movement of every actor,

and the delivery of every line.

If he's not happy with the way it comes out the first time,

he will do another take obviously. Mm-hmm.

But, I think overall style-wise,

I think that it's consistent.

I think that it's a little more traditional

in that he is using... how can I say... a more standard approach

in terms of reverses and two-shots on dialogue and the like...

Not a lot but somewhat.

We shoot anywhere from 15-20 to one.

Senores, please to let me pass.

I cover conversations with the master.

No, no, no, please.

Just let me pass.

I go up to seventh floor find my sister.

Then with single head shots on everybody involved.

People of 107 will do what you wish now.

These are simple people. They have little,

but they do not give it up easily.

And their dead they give up to no one.

Not so much cutaways,

in other words, I'll cut to all of the people

or I'll use people as their own cutaways.

Many have died last week, on these streets.

In the basement of this building, you will find them.

I have given them the last rites.

Now, you do what you will.

You are stronger than us,

but soon I think...

They be stronger than you.

And sometimes if I see a shot I like

I'll just go do it... Almost on whim.

When the dead walk, Senores,

we must stop the killing

or lose the war.

Out here, shooting, I don't really think too much about cutting,

I'd rather let that happen too.

Except in tightly choreographed sequences, like the truck scene

where I know what's cutting to what.

In this action scene

notice how he has isolated the three leads

to better manipulate the visuals...

Close-ups, medium shots,

long shots

come on. Look, man.

Visceral, disorienting angles,

rhythm and tension potentials to be inherited

by himself on the editing table.

The most celebrated shot in "Night" is this one.

A close-up of one zombie gives way

to an extreme long shot of several of them.

And the film transforms into a vision of doom.

A revelation in space, multiplies the horror

far beyond our expectations.

As a spatial stylist, Romero is consistent.

He is a master of spatial design.

I never really put it down to the use of space,

except that's what it is.

It has to do with, uh...

Again, it's just breaking from tradition.

There are ways that you're supposed to shoot that...

Involving screen direction and involving

a formal patternized kind of cutting,

which I just don't like.

I think as part... if the scene is a tension-filled scene,

or if it's a suspenseful scene or a very active scene

which is meant to grate...

Everything should grate.

Get its head up!

Get its head up!

Roger, get its head up, man!

No matter how much you work with film,

it never ceases to amaze me how different it is

once it's up there, and you're watching all your footage.

It's very hard to translate when you're on the set.

You can't imagine what it's going to look like in two dimensions,

up there that big with electronic amplification.

But I don't think it's insecurity

to say, "I'm not sure how this going to work out,

so we're going to shoot it another way. " That's just exploration.

A lot of film is like watercolor... It's a lot of accidents

and it's learning how to control the accidents.

That's where you need to just keep doing a lot of work.

Goodbye, creep.

The key creative force

in post-production is the editor.

Who, in this case, also happens to be the director.

There are a few scenes... Like a housing project scene

where we raid this housing project in the beginning,

and there's this...

There are a couple of families in the apartments there

who come in and we're throwing them out of the housing project

and various people are killed.

The way some of them are killed just make you go...

Like that.

And I saw some of the stuff being shot, the scenes,

but when he put it together it was, uh...

I was riveted to the seat. I couldn't believe it.

It was pretty powerful.

Definitely not boring.

On the couch... Throw her on the couch.

- Come on. - Okay.

It has been said that Romero

doesn't allow us to look at his shots,

rather his cutting forces us to experience them.

This is as true of "Night"...

No. No!

No!

As it is of "Martin"...

As it is of "Dawn."

Considering that quick cutting will wear an audience down emotionally,

it is remarkable that he can maintain

such a level of tension in his films.

They contain almost twice as many cuts as any other directors'.

He conceptualizes, by doing takes,

exactly what he needs, and he's very efficient with his shots.

Some call it choppy, or some call it heavy-handed

in terms of the editorial style.

Hey, Dick!

Hello.

George's commercial background, if you will,

has set the tone for his cutting,

that he has a commercial reel that I think is slick

as anybody out of New York or Los Angeles.

Mellon bank and U.S. Steel and Rockwell and Heinz...

And he used to make very, very slick 30-second commercials.

And he learned the discipline

whereby you have to say something quickly, concisely

and get the message across.

What happens when a Calgon research team

and their submarine are reduced to micro-size

and sent on a dangerous mission deep inside a washing machine?

Engines reversed full, captain. We're stuck.

We've got to find out what's on those fibers.

Trapped in the fibers of a giant t-shirt

the Calgonauts discover secrets of gray dull-looking laundry.

- Why, it feels like... - Leftover detergent film.

The fibers are covered with this stuff.

This box has never been opened.

Add the Calgon. You'll thrill as Calgon

dissolves the dirty leftover detergent film.

It's working. The gray is gone.

The fibers are clean.

- Let's get out of here. - I think I'm in love with you.

If you're tired of dull detergent films

and grade-b washes, thrill to the Calgon story.

At your nearby family washing machine.

This has been transposed into his feature editing,

so that there is very rarely a let up in the action.

I don't think there are very many shots

that last four or five seconds on screen.

There are not thoselong, long camera moves... That's true.

Revolving around. All George would do

would cut them up if Mike did them.

I shoot a lot,

because I know that I can make the decisions later

on the cutting table.

So I wind up shooting a lot of material that I fall in love with,

and I really like. And there's economically no room for it

in the final piece. So it's harder.

And it's very hard... When I sit down and I say

"okay, here are 10 scenes that I like,

which two are the least needed?"

It's really... That's a very difficult process for me.

And I think that's where all of your bias comes in...

And all of your emotions.

It's very difficult. It's a lot easier to edit

when you're upfront... When you're writing it.

There's a lot of people that work with a formula

in terms of when to use the master, when to go in and all that.

And people will say that's very shattering

if you don't follow some kind of a pattern

or if there isn't some kind of an expected cutting pace

that people can relax and get comfortable with.

I don't think that's true at all.

I don't think people notice cuts... If they're well done.

If they're not shattering or jarring, you don't notice them at all.

There's a sequence in "Martin," for example,

which could have been just the murder sequence,

but it's elongated as far as I thought it could be elongated.

- Emergency, now call 911. - I can't call 911, that's the police...

It's not, it's a general emergency number!

Some actions are mundane... Dealing with the telephones.

Call the hospital. Tell them what happened. We'll be there in five minutes.

All those actions, no matter how mundane,

become interesting when you look at them in a certain way.

- I don't know the number. - Call information. Get the number... call them.

They're all part of the overall action that's going on.

And they help to build a certain amount of suspense,

because they are things that we deal with every day.

Shit! It's fucked up. Wait a minute.

I gotta do it again.

I can't get through. I forgot the number.

Wait...

I don't like sloughing sequences off.

I don't like car chases that don't do anything.

Because within a fight in this room

that encompasses three punches being thrown.

Lewis!

Move aside, you bastard...

I'm not talking about a big brawl.

You could do a three-punch fight

and make it last five minutes.

'Cause everything is valid and everything is information.

And I like to deal with detail.

And I'd like to just go with a visual,

almost a cubist look at that.

And that's another place where I'll shoot a lot of film.

Get away from me! Stop!

What did you do to me?

I use a lot of sound elements.

And I cut, rather thanon a flatbed, on a table with a synchronizer.

And there's a certain kind of tactile thing

that I get into in terms of the tracks.

It's a visual almost checker-boarding of the tracks.

I don't use film as leader. I always use white,

because I like to see

that white-brown juxtaposition of the tracks.

I like to lay the tracks across on a table.

You can almost visualize how the track is working.

And I use a lot of track.

And when I do my first cut, I don't just cut picture-voice.

I cut with some kind of music

and with effects...

You use pre-recorded music to get the rhythms?

Yeah, to get some kind of rhythm going...

Until I find a rhythm going.

And I wind up with a lot of tracks

for a small independent.

I've seen studio productions where they get into 30-40 tracks,

but that's just because they're too lazy to lay them in sometimes.

I use 12-15 tracks.

And I like a lot of sound. I hate dead air.

I'll always use some kind of an ambiance

and a lot of music,

which is just all form stuff.

Some people say that my tracks are too driving

or too full,

but that's just personal preference.

In summary, this sequence from "Dawn"

clearly demonstrates Romero's style,

conceptualized in the screenplay stage...

Given substance during shooting...

And given shape in the editing.

We don't make distributions arrangements

till after we finish a picture.

Not wanting to have too many fingers in the pie too soon,

not wanting to compromise from ground zero.

Eventually we may have to make some compromises on a business level,

but at least they start later.

And we've finished the picture so it's a matterof maybe taking something out.

This statement was made during production

and carried with it an ominous note which reverberated for over a year

as Romero fought for a strong vision.

It stood as a thorn in the side of negotiations with distributors

even after "Dawn" opened to tremendous business in Europe.

Finally a breakthrough was achieved.

We made a couple of errors in signing the distribution deal

with "Night of the Living Dead"

in that we sold, or we'd signed a distribution deal worldwide.

We didn't hold out any rights... television, Canada, Europe... nothing.

16mm... nothing. We gave the distributor the world.

Basically, I didn't know anything then...

About the business side of things and about how to draw a contract.

Now, knowing what I know now,

you want to ask for as many of those controls

as you can possibly get your hands on.

When you have a smash-hit film out in theaters,

your 16mm rights are going to be worth a lot.

Television rights will be worth a lot.

So principally I would say that...

Hold for as much as you can hold out for.

There were a number of people that offered us substantial amounts of money

to deliver an R-rated film which meant,

we anticipated, cutting the guts out of the movie...

In order to get that "R."

We looked for a distributor who recognized, as we did,

that the best economic course of action

was to leave the film untampered

even though that created other problems.

It created the potential problem

of a newspaper not taking the ad.

It created the problem

of a TV station not running a commercial,

a certain theater not playing the film.

We believed that ultimately economically those problems would cost less

and we would make more if the film was left as George wanted it.

Several of the distributors that wanted it badly

understanding the problems... For example with the MPAA, here in this country...

That the mpaa would probably "X" the film.

And the only way to get an "R" would be to cut it.

So I wound up holding out during the negotiations

and luckily Richard backed me up all the way on this,

because there were a couple of times when it would have been easier

to take a deal... Would have been financially easier to take a deal.

That's the other thing... I think that Richard and I have had a good relationship.

So I don't have to worry about my own internal team.

And that's big... Number one.

Having Richard's support, I was just able to sit there

and say "look, I'm not gonna cut the picture."

When the distributor took his stance to put the picture out unrated,

it's not that he wasn't accepting the restrictions of an "X"...

Because he's putting a flag on it that says

no one under 17 will be admitted. Forget with a parent,

not at all... And he's accepting those restrictions.

What he's not accepting is the symbol itself, the "X,"

because the "X" does automatically

say to most people in America that this picture is obscene.

For a major company in the industry

to release a film without a rating is a major break.

And that was something that was long and hard in finding.

We basically are in agreement with a system which flags movies

and tells people what they're gonna see.

Our point is, there should not be economic penalties attached to that.

I also had to fight... You always have to fight for things like length.

Usually with an exploitation picture, a distributor will say

"It's terrific and I love it, but cut it to 90 minutes."

Once again, there's no secret.

I can't teach you how to get

the kind of controls that enable you to leave your picture longer...

Or to have that kind of creative cut. It's a matter of holding out for it

and not selling until somebody gives it to you.

And I was able to do that partially because of my reputation,

but partially just because I sat there and said no.

And there were a couple of sticky times

when people would get up from the negotiating table and walk and go home.

You got to sit through them, those are the toughest times.

You gotta sit through that and say "okay, see you tomorrow"... hopefully.

And we did see them tomorrow and they ultimately

said "okay, it can be your cut."

Adam, let me give you something you might want to use.

- Okay, keep it going. - Just roll for a second.

I think that there are very few directors

that have total, final, real last cut on their movies.

I say that when they tell you that these are the rules for the system

and you can't do it another way,

they're not correct. It can be done other ways.

You can maintain control of your product.

I'm not saying it's easy, but it can be done.

You don't have to be in New York or Hollywood

in order to produce films, to get attention.

I think we're the proof of that.

I would be as encouraging as possible

to people to do what everybody else

says you can't do.

So, "Night of the Living Dead" is the beginning

and this is the end?

- This is the middle. - This is the middle?

- Is there room for more? - There's plenty of room for more.

Zombies are still dumb.