Drop Dead Famous with Hannah Bungard – Questions for the cast and crew of Zomblogalypse

Zomblogalypse is best British Zom-Com we have seen in forever and to celebrate its bloodletting brilliance we bring you a series of exclusive interviews with the cast and crew behind the hilarious horror.

The feature is an expansion of the original web series Zomblogalypse, begun in 2008 when local filmmaking trio Hannah Bungard, Tony Hipwell and Miles Watts teamed up to make something armed only with a laptop, a York flat and a tub of green face paint. The series went on to clock up over a million views across various platforms, collecting legions of international fans along the way, and ran for four seasons before the team used their ‘filmmaking bootcamp’ of the web series to move onto independent features.

The film adaptation of Zomblogalypse was a labour of love for the filmmaking trio, who share producing, writing, directing and acting duties. Development began in 2012 with Hollywood studio involvement before going into hibernation for several years. The idea however, like the zombie menace, refused to stay dead.

Shot in 2018/19 by York-based production company MilesTone Films in association with One&Other Creative, Zomblogalypse built on a long-term relationship with the people and businesses of York, utilising locations, services and the help and goodwill of dozens of Yorkshire based services. Having made several feature films and a web series in the city over the past decade, the filmmakers were able to call upon an army of individuals and organisations to realise their film for a considerably smaller budget than feature films usually allow. The film boldly represents the incredibly strong creative community in York and the surrounding area.

Below Hannah Bungard (Co-creator/Actor/Director/Producer etc) takes on our Drop Dead Famous questions:

1. How did you get involved with Zomblogalypse?
Tony and I were on the same film course and had talked about our shared love of post-apocalyptic media, so I got pulled in that way. And Miles and I were becoming quite good friends around the same time, so it came together quite naturally out of hanging out and being silly. I was actually hesitant to join because of the gore factor, but I was reading ‘Yes Man’ by Danny Wallace and it gave me the push to agree when Tony suggested it!

2. What was the best bit of making the movie?
Getting it done was the best bit, just showing up every day and thinking, “I can’t believe we’re finally making the Zomblog movie.” That and any scene where we had to do the film within-film awkward acting. Also, to my surprise, I really enjoyed every scene that required lots of zombies. I used to be terrified of zombies but as filming went on, it just became more and more fun to see so many of them in all their different outfits, shambling around causing chaos.

3. After Zomblogalypse what is your second favourite zombie move?
Shaun is obviously a classic, and Zombieland is a real favourite as well. One Cut of the Dead blew me away when I watched it – such a great emotional payoff at the end. In non-comedy terms, I loved 28 Days Later

4. What lessons did you learn during lockdown that would help you survive a zombie apocalypse?
Getting in shape! You need to be able to outrun shamblers and runners. That and that it’s ok to just switch off and curl up in your house with a cup of tea and a cat and ignore the world for a world.

5. If you had your own blog what would it be about?
My own blog would probably be interviewing all the incredible people I know and sharing their stories. I love stories and I can’t get enough of podcasts, so it might be something like that. Or maybe just a webcam in my kitchen so that everyone could enjoy my culinary disasters and kitchen dancing.

6. What is next for you?
Film-wise, I’ve been meaning to get a short made for the last few years, so getting Zomblog into festivals and chatting to other filmy types has given me the push to get that made. It’s a comedy, should be fairly straightforward and Tony might be working with me on that. We’ve got a couple of feature ideas we’ve been throwing around, so who knows?

Check out our review HERE and find out more about the movie on their website https://zomblogalypse.com/