Ruben Appeltans on the challenges shooting Trizombie
Originally conceived and adapted into a six-part miniseries for VTM Go, Trizombie takes a unique and refreshing approach to the zombie genre. As a zombie virus threatens the future of mankind, an unlikely group embark on a dangerous journey to rescue their missing friend. Beautifully shot by DP Ruben Appeltans, Trizombie has been re-edited in a short feature film.
Trizombie was first broadcast on VTM Go as six 15 minutes episodes. “A Team Productions had been talking to Lectrr and Lars Damoiseaux who wrote the script and came up with the idea of people with down syndrome and putting them in a zombie setting,” begins Appeltans. “A Team loved the idea, but of course it’s challenging to find funding for a project this niche and unique. Many web series are typically budgetarily limited to feature everyday situations about everyday people. Stunts and visual effects are often out of reach. So, A Team’s proposal for this unique project was a welcome departure from the norm for VTM Go.”
Appeltans continues, “During the Covid pandemic the VAF (Flemish audiovisual fund) introduced a scheme providing several productions with a small budget to help makers get through that rough period. We received some funding from this initiative, along with additional support from VTM Go and tax shelter which allowed us to realize this challenging project.”
A Team had the idea of adapting the series into a short feature film in order to distribute it across festivals. “They were investing a lot of energy into the project and wanted to be able to give it some more life after it’s run on VTM Go” says Appeltans. “The film is a bit longer than the series, so everything we shot is in the film while the series left out a few small scenes, which they felt didn’t work that well for that format. We shot one more day a couple of months later, just zombies roaming through city streets and some night shots to fill up the edit. You write six episodes, but then when you make it into one film, the timing, cliffhangers and plot points are different. They needed a few more shots to get that right.”
Appeltans had worked with A Team Productions for a long time, as well as director Bob Colaers. “He’s been working for A Team Productions for years, as a production assistant, but he had been expressing his want to direct for them as well” says Appeltans.“Trizombie was the ideal project for him to show them what he can do. I’ve done many projects with A Team as first assistant camera, so they knew I was ready for this next challenge and it was great they gave me and Bob this opportunity.”
Production consisted of a very small crew, with only 15 personnel. “Almost every department consisted of one person trying to do the best they could with the time at hand. Originally this project was budgeted at 15 days, but A Team knew that because we were working with actors with disabilities we would need more,” explains Appeltans.“People with Down Syndrome often also have physical limitations and thus you have to be careful what you ask of them and respect their mental and physical limits. Luckily, we had the amazing people from Theater stap to help keep everyone of our talents happy and healthy. A Team pushed the project to 25 days. Originally, I thought this would be a lot but, in the end, it wasn’t at all. For example, one of our actors would have lunch with someone who would later be a zombie, they would talk, laugh, get to know each other. But as soon as the Zombie puts on his make-up some of our actors wouldn’t be able to link that zombie to that actor anymore and be scared to even get close to him. Then getting them to do a fighting scene with that zombie wouldn’t be easy. During or after a take they might freak out and get scared and we would need some time to comfort them again and get them back on their feet for another take.”
Appeltans had previous experience of working with Theater Strap vzw and had already collaborated with a few of the actors cast in Trizombie. “It’s a theatre collective for people with disabilities and mainly people with down syndrome. They do mainly theatre and travel all over the world,” details Appeltans. “They have played basically everywhere you can imagine. I already did two short films with them, so I already knew a couple of our actors and I already knew what it was like working on a project with people with down syndrome. These other two short films took place in regular settings so to speak and now we are doing stunts and fight scenes with them. Physically, they are limited and if you have them run back and forth several times they are quickly exhausted. So, you have to think about how to do it and rehearse it properly before wasting a good take. At the same time, it is so much fun with them as they are incredibly grateful, loving and kind. They show you so much love and the first thing they would do when they come to set in the morning was hug everyone. They are full of love.”
A Team have their own camera and lenses in-house which the team relied on. “Normally on a project like this it wouldn’t be possible to shoot with an Arri Alexa mini camera andanamorphic lenses, but they had their own in house which we could use,” says Appeltans. “For the rest of the look, usually when you are shooting horror you want to shoot as much as you can during night when it’s dark and you can make it really spooky. The difficulty with that was that would have meant these actors would had to have worked during the night, which doesn’t work for them. They need their schedule and their rhythm and it was already difficult for them to get up really early, so we tried to shoot between 8am-6pm as much as we could. That’s when they perform the best and you don’t want to shoot when they are tired as their concentration would be affected. We also didn’t want to make it too scary for them and put them in these dark situations. We had to once or twice, but the rest of the time we shot during day and daylight situations. So those were a couple of things that pushed us in a certain direction and that limits your possibilities, but that’s also a good thing because if you have too many possibilities then it’s not always the same. If you have a few limitations, then it’s about working with it.”
Appeltans looked at Grindhouse as a visual reference, as well as Dawn of the Dead. “The look of that film really inspired me. I don’t think it’s that good a movie, but I really love the look. We wanted a kind of grungy Grindhouse look, which helps to make daylight scenes also look like they have some power. We knew we’d be shooting during the day a lot, so I heavily pushed the blacks during colour grading for a high level of contrast. At the same time, we were shooting comedy so you don’t want it to look too grey and so we put in a lot of colour. In the make-up, set design and costume we tried to push for as much colour as we could. You are shooting horror, but it’s also a comedy, so I wanted a classic horror look with a lot of contrast but with the many colours to cheer things up. That’s how we ended up with the look.”
Director Bob Colaers helped to maintain a positive atmosphere on set when the shoot became stressful. “It was a difficult summer to shoot in because almost every day of the shoot we had 50% clouds and 50% sun,” notes Appeltans. “We had these fluffy clouds, which are really beautiful to look at, but really difficult to shoot because you have one take in the shade and then another in the sun. Normally with a bit more time and budget you have people to block off the sunlight so that you can make everything look as if it’s in the shade or the other way around. With just one person doing the lighting it’s impossible to do, so it just meant that you had to wait until the sun comes out again. It’s then stressful on set as the 1st AD notices we are short on time and our actors feel stressed which isn’t good for them. Bob spoke to them and made them feel at ease tell a few jokes and get them back on the fun side. We had the creative director of the theatre collective with us almost every day on set, or one of his colleagues. They know these guys very well, so they know when we can push a little bit further, or when it’s time to stop and give them some time.
The film and series were shot on location in Turnhout. “A lot of these actors live relatively close to there,” adds Appeltans. “We chose the locations specifically close to where these guys live. That also meant having to find all the locations in that specific city, which isn’t easy. Normally you would have a much larger area to find the locations you need, now we had to limit it to the vicinity of the city. At the same time, we need to fake the fact that there is a zombie apocalypse, so you don’t want to see any “normal” people in the background. You have to look for streets that aren’t too busy during the day and streets that we clock block off. It would have been impossible for the crew that we had to block off a busy shopping street, so you have to look for backstreets and locations where there aren’t many people. The first 2 episodes take please in the building where the characters live which was shot in a school. It was the perfect opportunity for us as it is deserted over the summer. A lot of opportunities to look for creative solutions to get it all done.”
One of the most challenging sequences to capture was the fight scene in episode 5. “The main characters have a fight with one of the zombies, played by Stefan Perceval who was one of their caretakers,” Appeltans details. “They have a fight on the front lawn of a house. The scene where eventually his head will be crushed by a door by our character “The Butcher”. This scene was again a challenge as we needed every one of our main actors to partake in that fighting scene. Every single one of them had to get close to the actor looking scary, with lots of blood on his face and Stefan plays it with a lot of intensity. He really takes up the space which is amazing, but that didn’t always make things easier. That whole scene is exterior and we had lots of sunlight and shade. We shot that over a period of two days and that was very challenging in every possible way. You obviously want the sun to be in the same position, but obviously the light is constantly changing. Keeping consistency and continuity in that was very challenging.”
“I had lots of fun working on this project and I laughed a lot. With a very limited crew, you are shooting every day with the same people. On a project like this, you know that everyone will be there from the beginning until the end. You become very close to each other. There were 15 people in total, which is not a lot for shooting fiction, but you know all 15. That gives you a really strong group feeling, as if you are boy scouts going on camp,” concludes Appeltans.
Next month Appeltans begins shooting a documentary centered around the origins of the hardcore Belgian scene in the late 80s.
By Oliver Webb