8 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘The Walking Dead’
[ads1 id=”alignright”]AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’ has quickly become one of the most successful shows on TV at the moment, and it keeps on expanding its fan base on a daily basis.
The idea of a zombie apocalypse isn’t new by any means, but the execution is nearly perfect. It only takes a couple of minutes of watching the show to get that feeling of hopelessness that you would presumably get if an event such as this were to be real.
From day one, screenwriters, actors, and directors, knew exactly what was the message they were trying to convey, and they did so brilliantly. But in order to bring such an event to life, you have to go through the thorough process of paying attention to every detail, which is exactly what The Walking Dead staff did. Here are some interesting things you probably didn’t know about the popular show:
8. Not all characters are in the comic
As you may or may not know, the entire premise of the show is based on a comic strip. Because sticking to the storyline of the comic to the letter was deemed too complicated, the show’s creators tool the liberty of adding / subtracting a few of the characters themselves.
For instance, out of the 20 characters at the camp, only 10 are featured in the comic. These characters are: Carl, Shane, Sophia, Carol, Jim, Dale, Rick, Lori, Andrea, Glenn, and Amy. Even so, the comic’s creator is actively involved in the development of the show, and has contributed with thoughts and ideas ever since the show started.
7. The show’s director wanted to create a few self-contained episodes
You may remember that Rick gets held up inside a tank at the beginning of season one, a tank in which he finds a dead soldier. Well Frank Darabont, the show’s director, wanted to create a few self-contained episodes that would explain how some of the things we see happening came to be.
One of these episodes would tell the story of the soldier that got held up in the tank by using actor Sam Witwer. This never happened unfortunately, although it would have been cool if it did.
6. There is a haunted house in the making with the same name
The huge popularity of this show was bound to give birth to interesting ideas derived from the show and its characters. Well, as we speak, a haunted house is being built at Universal’s ‘Halloween Horror Nights’ in Florida, as well as a Maze in the same place.
We aren’t aware of any other such projects at this time, although they are bound to be quite a few out there. We aren’t yet sure of how Universal is looking to profit from these establishments, or whether not they will share their profits with AMC or the comic’s creator.
5. They built the prison set in two months
Creating a set for such a huge location isn’t easy, but the show’s staff managed to build it in less than two months. The biggest challenge that they had to face was to give the impression that it was a real prison, which meant that every small detail had to be taken into consideration.
For the most part, they did a very good job at portraying a real prison, to the point when people started to wonder where the prison is situated in real life.
4. Actors receive a ‘last supper’ the day their character dies
What started as a joke developed into a tradition pretty quickly. This means that before filming their ‘death’ scene, all main actors receive a last supper from the film crew, as to make their death official to some extent.
No actors have been bothered by the tradition until now, as most have actually enjoyed the practice. You have to understand that the show’s filming crew does everything in their power to create an atmosphere of despair and disarray, and the only way they can do that is by never breaking character.
3. The show’s zombie cast eats separately than the human cast
In order to boost their performance on screen, the people who are playing zombies eat together during lunch breaks, away from the actors that are playing living characters. This creates a feeling of authenticity when filming, as the zombies and characters have very little chemistry together.
Not only this, but the film crew prefers to keep things as creepy as possible during filming, and this includes messing with the people on set as well.
2. Every actor who plays a zombie had to attend ‘zombie school’
The filming crew of ‘The Walking Bad’ are very serious about their job. So serious in fact, that they cannot allow untrained characters on screen, even if they only appear in just one scene.
It is for this exact reason that they created a ‘zombie school’ that every actor playing a zombie must attend.There, they are taught about the proper ways to behave like a zombie, and what to do in order to maximize the ‘scare’ factor.
1. The word ‘zombie’ is never used during the show
Strangely enough, this zombie adventure doesn’t use the word ‘zombie’ at all. So during the show, zombies are referred to either as Walkers, Geeks, Skanks, Roamers, Lurkers, Biters, but never ‘zombies’.
The exact reason for this is unknown, although we must admit that it has made the show more enjoyable as a result. When thinking about zombies, different people have different perspectives on the matter, but if you are to call them ‘walkers’, then everybody reaches a common ground.
