31 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS WITH DAWN OF THE DEAD: DAY 29

Today’s post is another modern day shot re-creation and comparison to a scene that you can find in the DOCUMENT OF THE DEAD documentary on George Romero and his major films up to DAWN OF THE DEAD.

In this shot you can see several behind the scenes people. Largest in the original picture is DAWN OF THE DEAD’s Director of Photography: Michael Gornick. Mike controled everything that affects what the camera is able to capture through the use of certain cameras, lenses, and filters. He also chose the composition of shots, exposure, lighting, camera movements, and he even operated the camera. He was the most important person on the crew besides the director George Romero. Needless to say, we should all be grateful for Mike’s work on the movie. There is no doubt that he was a major part of this film and why it’s a great film. 

Closest to Mike, over his shoulder is John Rice. John was in charge of continuity. His job was to make sure that details in the movie were consistent from shot to shot and scene to scene. John also played the SWAT officer that killed himself at the beginning of the movie.

In the far back in this photo behind Mike Gornick and John Rice are John Harrison and Pat Buba sitting down. John Harrison is wearing the light tan sport coat and Pat Buba is wearing a colorful serape. John played the Screw Driver zombie, which was created to fix a continuity problem, when Roger was seen in one scene wearing a jacket tied around his waist and not wearing that jacket around his waist in a following scene. So John was made up as a zombie with the purpose to grab Roger and the jacket around his waist, removing this jacket to solve this issue. In the movie, Roger runs through JC Penney’s and John’s zombie grabs him, they wrestle on the ground, and Roger kills it by driving a screw driver into it’s ear. In the struggle this zombie dies holding on to the jacket, Roger loosens the jacket around his waist, and leaves it there, problem solved. Pat Buba, who is next to John Harrison, appeared as the serape wearing raider near the end of the movie. Pat notably participates in the pie fight and he eventually gets surrounded by zombies and devoured as the bikers and raiders start leaving the mall. Both John Harrison and Pat Buba had worked with George Romero previously on THE WINNERS series of sports documentaries, with Pat also having worked with Romero on MARTIN.

In these shots seen here, there is not much to match except one of those marble columns. Look above the camera eyepiece in the shot with Mike Gornick. You can see a pattern on the marble and match it to the one in the modern day shot. Much has changed in these shots because the ice skating rink in the mall was removed, you can see the windows looking into it, in the background of the original shot. In present day, that area is open and it leads into the food court which replaced the old ice skating rink in 1984.

Each day this month I will be showing you something cool, rare, or even noteworthy concerning DAWN OF THE DEAD as a Christmas Present to the fans from me. I hope that you enjoy this holiday look at DAWN OF THE DEAD.