By TREVOR HOGG
By TREVOR HOGG
Images courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Taking the zombie genre by storm was 28 Days Later,, which was followed by 28 Weeks Later and now a trilogy of new installments starting with 28 Years Later. As humanity moves further way from the initial days of the infection and resorts to more primeval ways, nature has gradually been reclaiming the world. Contributing to the gritty realism sought by filmmaker Danny Boyle was Sam Conway, who worked for his father, Richard Conway, as a special effects technician on the original movie and its sequel. “The first one was close to contemporary times, so we did the explosion at the petrol station,” states Special Effects Supervisor Sam Conway. “But because this one is set 28 years later, that sort of thing doesn’t exist anymore. It’s all deteriorated, so this became more back to basics, like bows and arrows.” The buzz word to describe Danny Boyle is ‘visceral.’ “What Danny was getting at was violent, in-your-face, fast-paced, aggressive, gory and dirty. When you see him pacing the scene before anyone turns up, you can get into his mind. He’s always one step away from shouting and swearing out loud. Danny has that kind of energy about him. He’s a lovely bloke.”
“Every time we turned up on set, sure enough, it would be, ‘Ignore that storyboard. We’re going to be doing it this way.’ That’s challenging in itself because with storyboards you normally look at and go, ‘I’ve got a blind spot there. Excellent.’ But when you’ve got 14 iPhones on set 360 degrees, you can’t hide anywhere. No one can hide! The storyboards got the movie going. We didn’t have any previs. There were lots of tests with stand-ins to make sure that we knew what we were doing on the shoot days.”
—Sam Conway, Special Effects Supervisor
What has not changed are the Infected, with the disease being transmitted through the blood. “Any gory moment will end up with someone becoming infected,” Conway remarks. “We still have the telltale signs of the transition, which are the eyes going red and the vomit.” A partnership ensued with [Co-founder/Visual Effects Supervisor] Adam Goscoyne and Union VFX, which was responsible for the visual effects work. “After 28 years, the Infected have lost all of their clothes but are still running around. When they do get taken out by an arrow, you have to hide the device somewhere, and visual effects was perfect for us. There were lots of blood effects. We had remotes for the squibs, and visual effects stepped up for the removal of bits and pieces. It was complex as well. There are almost 360 degrees shots where you can’t hide anything. It has to be there.” Clean-up after each take was not crucial. Conway notes, “The whole place was a mess anyway! We got away with quite a lot of places. You go into an abandoned house and there’s mold and muck everywhere. Then you’ve got the Infected who are covered with feces and all sorts of stuff. When we do a hit, the blood would go everywhere, which was exactly what Danny wanted. You can’t do blood elements because they won’t land on the surfaces they need to hit.”
Blood and gore were the primary contributions of the special effects team. “That’s why the visceral thing comes back into it,” Conway states. “It also centers around the infection being blood-oriented. It has to be gory and violent. You bring out the old tricks that you know will work, like syringes, turkey basters, pipes, pressure vessels or balloons. You have to try to work out what’s the best application. There are some interesting setups. Also, when you’re on a shoot and only have a couple of minutes to rig something up, we spent our time literally coming up with things you place in someone’s hand and go, ‘All you have to do is stab that person and there will be blood everywhere.’ When you’re out in the elements, you can’t have too much that will potentially break or not work, so the simpler the better.” The blood was produced by Maekup, established by David Stoneman. David Stoneman is a wizard. “If you give him this complicated thing that has to be blood, but also has to go into a river and meet all these regulations, he’s the type of bloke who’d turn around and say, ‘I can make something work for you.’ The blood doesn’t stain, you could mix it with water and it still looks nice.” More blood was used during testing than on set. “We would probably go through eight or nine gallons for some of the blood gags, which is expensive, then only use a couple of gallons on set.”
“If you give [David Stoneman] this complicated thing that has to be blood, but also has to go into a river and meet all these regulations, he’s the type of bloke who’d turn around and say, ‘I can make something work for you.’ The blood doesn’t stain, you could mix it with water and it still looks nice. … We would probably go through eight or nine gallons for some of the blood gags, which is expensive, then only use a couple of gallons on set.”
—Sam Conway, Special Effects Supervisor
The color of the blood was determined by the previous films. “It’s still the same type of blood,” Conway notes. “The only time we played with the color of the blood on these particular films was 28 Weeks Later where they shot day-for-night and wanted to take out purple and add purple in afterwards to make it darker. The blood was pink when we started playing around with that one.” Storyboards provided a rough idea for shots. “Every time we turned up on set, sure enough, it would be, ‘Ignore that storyboard. We’re going to be doing it this way.’ That’s challenging in itself because with storyboards you normally look at and go, ‘I’ve got a blind spot there. Excellent.’ But when you’ve got 14 iPhones on set 360 degrees, you can’t hide anywhere. No one can hide! The storyboards got the movie going. We didn’t have any previs. There were lots of tests with stand-ins to make sure that we knew what we were doing on the shoot days.”
Stunts, led by Julian Spencer, and special effects enjoyed a good relationship. “I’ve worked with Julian Spencer for many years,” Conway states. “We’ve cut our teeth on the same jobs. It’s always good to work with somebody you know. We’re old friends.” Stuntvis was important. “A number of the weapons were made from whatever they could find. Anytime a new weapon would appear, we would try to work out how to make that into a blood gag or rig. There are lots of ways to kill the Infected or anybody for that matter. When watching the stunt rehearsals, you get a feel for, ‘There’s going to be a lot of blood coming out of that.’ The makeshift weapons created by the props department had to be modified. Conway explains, “We had to lose some of the parts of those weapons, which visual effects would then add back in post simply because to get a blood effect, sometimes those bits got in the way. They’re so skinny and difficult to do anything with, you’re better off losing them and concentrate on the larger parts of the weapons.”
Footage was shot with the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which is great at capturing details, especially the particulates in the air. “Anthony Dod Mantle [Cinematographer] loves all of that and picking out all these interesting textures in the air,” Conway observes. “We did quite a lot of atmospherics and water in the air for 28 Years Later, but not so much for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which was digital as well, but not iPhones. They were concentrating on the shot while we were adding smoke. I rushed out to get an iPhone 15 Pro Max to make sure I had the same apps that Anthony was using, but I could never work it out because it’s too much for one person to figure out. I have enough on my plate besides worrying about how the phone works and setting the shutter rate. It was definitely hard. The iPhones still have a big lens coming off it and the dolly, but when they started to put 14 or 15 out on set it was tricky because you didn’t know where it was safe.”
Weather was not a major issue, but the tide did impact principal photography. “We were on an island that had a causeway, which is something you could drive across, but it’s tidal,” Conway reveals. “When the tide comes in, you can’t drive across it, so you’re trapped on the island. You had to have a lot of forward thinking and timing with the tide.” The low-key production did not spend much time on big gimbals. “What we did have was a collapsing building moment. It begins in the attic. To try to sell the fact that the building was going to collapse, I made the whole chimney stack vibrate and had breakaway bricks coming off that and a few tip tanks. It looked like the chimney was going to collapse, and I fired a load of air mortars, dust and bricks to chase them out of the house. 28 Years Later wasn’t a massive gimbal film but needed some stuff to sell it.”
“It also centers around the infection being blood-oriented. It has to be gory and violent. You bring out the old tricks that you know will work, like syringes, turkey basters, pipes, pressure vessels or balloons. You have to try to work out what’s the best application. … When you’re on a shoot and only have a couple of minutes to rig something up, we spent our time literally coming up with things you place in someone’s hand and go, ‘All you have to do is stab that person and there will be blood everywhere.’ When you’re out in the elements, you can’t have too much that will potentially break or not work, so the simpler the better.”
—Sam Conway, Special Effects Supervisor
The causeway is pivotal to the story. “The art department and construction created a 200-foot-long, 40- to 50-foot-wide tank, which was probably nine inches deep,” Conway explains. “They’re getting chased across the causeway as the tide is coming in. We had to make that look like a natural sea with the turbulence and waves in a small tank. It was hard to do. That was done at a big warehouse, which was used as an emergency hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. It had a lovely flat floor, so they could build a perfectly controlled tank. They wanted to do this shot where they run from one end to the other and a 60-foot camera crane is swinging the full length. That was challenging for everybody and difficult to create atmosphere all the way along the 200 feet.” A great takeaway were the arrow hits. “The arrow hits were good because we came up with an interesting and safe way of doing things that did not involve tanks and pipes, and literally a balloon and small squib.”
Nothing had to be significantly altered when it came to the workflow and methodology. “Most of the stuff either came to us in a mold or came to us so we mold it ourselves and make rigs to fit inside,” Conway states. “There was no 3D printing or scanning involved from our side of things. We didn’t have the time for that setup. As soon as the reference was okayed, we molded it and did what needed to be done. Or props would give us the software, and we’d bastardize that. In special effects, we’re forever reinventing things because there’s always a better way of doing it. You have to explore ways. We spent a lot of time getting squibs on the heads working safely and came up with a nice way of doing it. It involves a couple of plates, a few magnets and a couple of party balloons. That’s as far as I’m going to go with that one!”
Watch a fascinating behind-the-scenes featurette on the making of 28 Years Later with director Danny Boyle and Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle. Click here:
