Collaboration

Despite me saying that I did everything, it is not strictly true. I needed to rely on collaborations to get this done. I don’t, for starters, play the violin and so I needed to find a violinist I could ask to record their morning practice scales. Luckily Iriny Markevych stepped in and helped, and Ruthie came alive through her music.

PRINT OF THE DEAD – 3D design and printer

The team at Print of the Dead made such a difference. The quality of their 3D printing work meant that I could get multiple heads for the characters and paint them differently. Eli had 5 heads with varying degrees of stubble, and blood and even a zombie Eli that didn’t get used. Shame, as his bloody gouged eye was great.

But it did mean that external scenes such as the crosstown bus crash, and the shtetl scenes, and the zombie military roadblock looked incredible. For anyone wanting zombie related 3D printing, I highly recommend these guys.

BRADDERS – character artist

Similarly Bradders (Horns and Horror) gave me Pearl, a 1:6 scale female zombie. It just looked great, and so I create a whole scene for Pearl looking through the Spyhole when the original script just had her zombie growls. Bradders’ incredible work meant I had yet another character on screen.

JARED DITMAN and THE MIRROR OF MALEVOLENCE – puppeteer and animator

The Mirror of Malevolence is an indie dark fantasy short film and upcoming middle-grade novel created by filmmaker and artist Jared Ditman. The algorithm again plopped Jared and his movie into my feed and so I reached out. My thinking being that if I can include TMOM in DOTD then hopefully it would raise awareness of Jared’s puppet masterpiece.

LEE DONALDSON and DEAD ZERO – writer/producer/actor

The Undead Symphony Podcast is closely linked to Dead Zero and friend of the pod Lee Donaldson, the co-writer, co-producer and main villain. And so similarly I was able to add Dead Zero into Dreidel of the Dead as posters and clips on the TV being watched by Eli, again hoping to raise awareness of Dead Zero and Lee.

MORLEY NELSON and UNCONTAINED – actor/director/producer

We are also big fans of Morley and his self helmed indie zombie movie Uncontained that came out early this year. We loved the samurai style poster so much I asked Morley if I could add it to the building billboard and he said yes, asking if he could have the set when I’m finished with it.

MAX OSTERHOLZ – stop motion animator

Max is a stop motion animator from Europe. A wild talent who’s Instagram feed shows his workings as he makes short after short. Along with Dead Zero and Mirror of Malevolence I wanted a Max movie on the TV being watched by Eli and so reached and out, and Max said yes. I feel when we have the chance to showcase the talent of those in your sphere, you should take that chance.

JOSH BEAMISH – Poster artist

Rather than trying myself and coming up with some awful stickman nonsense, or a still from the movie passed through several arty filters, as the movie poster I went to Josh, an artist who would hand draw the poster for Dreidel of the Dead, and create something that works with the ethos of doing it all by hand.

Michelle Schenker – Ruthie model and New Yorker

I can’t thank Michelle enough. We have been friends for getting on for a quarter of a century and she was the first to come to help, sending headshots so we could make Ruthie, helping with some of the language, and voicing the original Barbara Streiner.

GreenMann

A late addition to the movie, way after I had finished filming was the fire escape scene which has a spectacular graffiti image created by Green Man, who sent it to me when asked and looks awesome with Eli, Mrs G, Ruthie and Babka in front of it.