Drop Dead Famous with Tony Hipwell – 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 Tony Hipwell (Co-creator/Actor/Director/Producer etc) takes on our Drop Dead Famous questions:

1. How did you get involved with Zomblogalypse?
Miles and I had just come off making 6 shorts in 6 months with HumDrum Films which was a great experience so we wanted to work together on something else. We wanted to try a web series (which was still very new at the time) that could work with the lack of resources we had. We both loved apocalypse stories and hit on this idea of practically ignoring it to get around not having any money. Hannah and I had been at film school together but never had the chance to really work together so immediately wanted to get her involved as well. Her flat was in an amazing location so it all fit together really well.

2. What was the best bit of making the movie?
The best bit was probably the simple fact we were actually making it after so many years. It had been unfinished business for so long, getting the film done was a very satisfying book to close.

3. After Zomblogalypse what is your second favourite zombie move?
Very hard answer, there are so many. Dawn and Night of the Living Dead are touchstones. 28 Days Later was a shot in the arm for zombies. Lo-Fi classics like One Cut of the Dead are a gold standard of indie filmmaking. Honestly impossible to pick one.

4. What lessons did you learn during lockdown that would help you survive a zombie apocalypse?
Two words – Bog Roll.

5. If you had your own blog what would it be about?
Probably camera nerdery or just streaming my game play walkthroughs. I!d love to do deep dive video essays on movies but I never have the time!

6. What is next for you?
I have another film in festivals at the moment that is doing quite well. We have a good few still to announce for it as well so looking forward to actually being AT festivals rather than online. We!re working on the release of Zomblog and I!m developing some features. No zombies next time, but definitely something monstrous.

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

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Alex Humphrey

Alex studied film at the University of Kent and went on to work for Universal Pictures in their Post Room gaining an inside look at the movie industry from the very bottom. Constantly writing reviews in everything from local magazines to Hip Hop sites Alex honed his critical skills even spending a brief period as a restaurant critic. Read more

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