What I love is that they used the pilot episode and first season because that
really is the iconic imagery that established the tone and the look for the entire series.
For me to be able to help recreate those moments and give fans a unique
taste and perspective on The Walking Dead, it's just something
that doesn't happen all the time so I'm really excited about.
One of the things we love to do at Halloween Horror Nights is work with the movie makers that make
these great movies or television shows. So it's fabulous for us to work with
Greg Nicotero and KNB Effects, so right from the beginning we worked really
closely with Greg and in many cases he's producing the actual walkers that you're
going to see in the attraction they're coming right off of the original molds
from the show. So that's the kind of authenticity that we strive for and
there's nothing better than working directly with the people involved in the show.
Actually the place where we shot in Georgia was a real was a real Hospital.
But I always loved like the charred wire the wires and stuff it was it was just
such a cool visual with the lights flashing. Yeah you want that feeling
of the of walking to hospital walking through the wires with all the exposed ductwork.
Yeah, cool. You know it's funny when we shot this when we put all the fingers
out because there's photos of all the fingers put in the show. You only
see one pair of fingers coming out. We found an extra you had really really
cool fingers all double-jointed it they're all double jointed so she
brought her fingers that way you got to use this girl so we literally
ran her around to the back of the set and it was just her kind of creepy
fingers coming out.
[chains rattling]
[laugh] To actually step into it, I mean it's definitely a dream come true for people
who who watch the show week after week. So for them to be able to walk down the
hallway in the hospital and see the cafeteria doors with the fingers inside.
It's a it's fun for me because I was there when we shot it. And to walk on set
and go wow it's going to give people an opportunity to experience it as if they
were really there as well. You can't beat that kind of authenticity.
Another one of my favorite scenes in The Walking Dead in season one, is when Rick comes into
Atlanta and he runs into that horde of walkers and he has to take refuge in Abrams tank.
And so my Art Director Production Designer Chris Williams and I started
talking about it, and oh you know there's no way there's no way we're
going to be able to do a tank. And then Chris I saw that look in his eye and he
was like no I,I,I, think we can do it.
John and I wanted to really emulate Atlanta in a big way.
And what we have got is a little alleyway coming to an open street scene
where we've got a tank laid out. Now that tank it's a full-size Abrams tank.
Because of how tall it is, the tank is only four feet wide. It's kind of a sight
line trick that we're playing. You know, when Walking Dead first debuted I
watched every episode. I watched the Pilot and then that same night I watched
episode 2, 3, 4, and from there I watched the whole thing in one fell swoop and by
the time we started talking to AMC about working together. We were extremely
well-versed in the show. We knew all the great scenes all the great characters we
wanted to feature and now we get to bring it all to life.