Film Name: The Camping Dead
Director: Sébastien Blondel, Julie Pintos
Writers: Sébastien Blondel, James Chouquet
Starring: Sébastien Blondel, Olivier Bordin, James Chouquet, Mathieu Naert, Xavier Pottier
The world devastated by a virus, very few survived, is now populated by zombies. On the roof of a food hypermarket, are three men who survived the epidemic and zombies, three valiant heroes with one goal – to get food from the store to survive. A simple objective, unless you take into account their very limited intelligence. In another unsuccessful attempt, one finds a mysterious unconscious man with a phone and chocolate.
In a new Exclusive Interview on Blazing Minds ahead of Horror-on-Sea I got a chance to ask Co-Writer/Director Sébastien Blondel a few questions about the film ‘The Camping Dead‘
The Camping Dead will play at Horror-on-Sea on Saturday 18th January at 12.30pm
Q. Your film has been selected to play at the Horror-on-Sea Film Festival. Can you tell us what we can expect?
A. First of all, thank you very much for your interest and your interview, it is a pleasure to answer your questions. With this absurd comedy, I would like to bring lightness and laughter to the viewer. I want people to feel like they’re accomplices with the heroes of my story and I hope that this crazy adventure will make them feel good and, why not, happy. But I also want to bring a reflexion about real life an the world we live in. In the movie, the characters are literally sitting on a huge quantity of food but their current situation makes it impossible to reach… There is a clear parallel with what a lot of people are experiencing nowadays : food is within reach and yet, due to social an financial reality, impossible to get.
Q. You co-directed the film with Julie Pintos. what is the process of you working together?
A. Being a scriptwriter and a director, I always have a very clear vision of what I want to shoot, I have every shot and every camera motion in mind. With Julie, my co-director, we’re very complementary. Once I’m done writing the script and moving on to the film making, I pay a great attention to storyboarding : everything is thoroughly thought and extremely detailed. Then we take several days to check the effectiveness of what has been done. We really want everything to serve the statement of the movie, this is why we leave nothing to chance. Once we’ve reached an agreement, we have several meetings with the cinematographer, the script and the assistants director. Finally, I start to work with the actors to ensure that all the characters and their arc stories are fully understood and that the acting is perfect. As I act myself in my movies, it’s after all this work that I start to work on my own role. On set, we take a moment every morning to focus on what needs to be done and every evening we do a debrief. Julie takes care of the whole set while I simply keep an eye on it from afar. Once filming is done, we work hand in hand with Julie and the editors.
Q. Sébastien you co-wrote the script with James Chouquet. What were some of your influences when writing the script and what was your process for writing together?
A. We have always been fond of the Anglo-Saxon humor : Monty Python, The Farrelly Brothers, the Cornetto Trilogy… It is a prevailing influence on almost everything we write together and also on almost everything I create on my own. The writing methods are never the same, but regarding The Camping Dead, we spent a lot of time sitting around a table together. We wrote the structure, and sometimes we got up and improvised the dialogue before writing it, we had lots of fun work sessions interspersed with fits of laughter.
Q. What were some of your influences for the look and style of the film?
A. I wanted this film to be a kind of western : sometimes calm, sometimes action packed. The choice of the 2/35 image format (CinémaScope) was there to emphasize the western aesthetic. We chose a very yellow calibration to fit in with the style codes of « The Walking Dead ». It also reminds us of the desert, the heat, the shortage…
Q. Did you make any changes from the original script during filming?
A. Yes, during filming we changed a lot of things. I think filming is always a rewriting of the script. I write a story, I create characters, but I think that the actor who understands his character and who plays him knows him better than me. For me, it is important to let the truth live. On set, when we’re shooting the scenes, there is a lot of improvisation and even more when it is a comedy.
Q. What were some of your favourite moments during filming?
A. It’s difficult to answer this question, the whole shoot was a wonderful time. But if I really have to choose, then I’d talk about these moments of improvisation with my friends and colleagues on set, those were moments of intense laughter.
Q. Did you experience any issues during filming?
A. Oh my god, yes! You should know that on the first day of filming, the stage manager lost the key to the rental truck just after we emptied it, then in the first shot, the camera assistant dropped a filter which was obviously broken instantly… On the second day, the runner who used my personal car was the victim of a non fault accident, fortunately he suffered absolutely nothing, but my car was scrapped. Otherwise everything is fine! Haha
Q. What makes stand out as something different in the horror genre?
A. This film is a mix of genres which uses the codes of many zombie films with an offbeat humour.
Q. What do you hope people take away after watching the film?
A. I hope to give them joy of living, I want them to smile and laugh and maybe to give them the will to write their own stories to make us laugh.
Q. Do you have any other projects which you are currently working on?
A. I have a lot of projects in progress, several short films written so if a producer ever reads me and wants to make short films, I’m all ears! The Camping Dead gave birth to a feature film project on which I am currently working with the Production company Bagan. I am also starting to work on the budget for another feature film which was also created following a short film. I also wrote two theatre plays with my partner that we are currently performing in France.
I think you understood from what I said before that I am quite a fan of English cinema and humour, I hope that one day I’ll be able to work in co-productions with English companies.
Q. If someone was looking to write and direct their own film what advice would you give them?
A. There is a lot of advice I could give, and the first advice is not to ask yourself too many questions that prevent you from doing things : if you want to do something, just do it. Don’t listen to anyone, there will always be people telling you that it’s not possible, that it’s difficult, that it’s not enough…
Don’t worry about that. Give yourself the right to fail, write, even if it’s bad, who cares? Make mistakes, because you will learn from them. Be free but always be demanding of yourself. When someone tells you that it’s not possible, that’s only true for the person who says it! Do, do again, and never get tired of doing. And in the end, you will create things that will make us laugh, that will make us cry, and that will make us come alive.
The Camping Dead will play at Horror-on-Sea on Saturday 18th January at 12.30pm
You can find out more about the festival and purchase tickets here
Published in various websites, Philip is a reviewer who is best known for his interviews and media coverage of independent projects including; films, books, theatre and live events. Always on the lookout for something different to cover!
