Michael Vollero is part of a team halfway through shooting a feature film -- festering with zombies and disease -- in 30 locations and with 60 actors.
He has set up shop in this part of the state before, but this is the biggest moviemaking endeavor State College or Bellefonte has seen in a while.
"It's a pretty large-scale production for an area like Central Pennsylvania, where you really don't have a film community to pull from," said Vollero, assistant director and stunt coordinator on GULA.
Shooting commenced in late February on GULA, "a post-apocalyptic survival drama" shooting in and around State College and Bellefonte. The film, which follows a group of college kids in a small town who survive a pandemic and ward off zombies, should conclude filming in late May.
In the coming weeks, GULA's film shoot moves from tame, expositional sequences into grittier, more visceral territory. Local resident Seth Robinson, making his directorial debut at age 26, and Director of Photography Coalin Smith, 22, are leading the project.
The filmmakers have about 12 hours of footage under their belts, which equates to about 30 minutes of the film's projected two-hour running time. They shoot scenes mostly on weekends to accommodate a cast and crew consisting of mainly college students.
A nondescript anxiety thickens the air this month because of the dwindling of this semester's remaining weekends -- and the inevitable departure of the project's core workforce.
"I just hope we get everything shot before students leave," Smith said. "We've got to get it done."
Robinson and Smith organized the shooting schedules as such to complete scenes with student actors who are leaving in early May. After that, the crew will shoot with the remaining cast and finish up scenes with little character interaction.
The first five weeks of shooting focused on the tension-building drama "focusing on the characters as people," Smith said. To date, the crew has shot scenes downtown at The Brewery, the Pugh Street parking deck and The Graduate apartments, as well as High Street and Dunlop Street in Bellefonte.
One of the most challenging days was when the crew erected a 40-foot wall in Bellefonte to recreate a quarantined zone, Smith said.
It was a personal preference for Robinson to shoot the film on digital HD video rather than on traditional film. The glossiness of film didn't suit GULA, and the alternative was easy and cost efficient.
"I like the look of HD better than film," Robinson said. "It's just harder to get emotionally involved with the film look. This is a stylistic choice."
Fear and Loathing in Happy Valley
The project takes a new direction this weekend, as the crew plans to film the majority of the film's violent, adrenaline-high action scenes.
Upcoming shoots include a chase sequence in Penns Valley woods, a zombie getting hit by a car and the big final showdown scene, which requires at least 30 zombies. Robinson and Smith cautioned that any further detail would spoil the plot.
"We've got some really cool deaths planned," Smith said.
Having grown up practicing martial arts and working as a stunt double for fight scenes in Los Angeles, Vollero has a firm understanding of the art of fighting. For GULA, he taught the zombie actors how to walk 'unnaturally' and the civilian actors how to fight.
"All the characters are very raw," Vollero said. "They don't know anything about guns or fighting."
Robinson avoids a barrage of close-up shots of the undead in his film. Smith said Robinson doesn't favor a set-up in which the zombies are waiting outside the entire time because it wounds the element of surprise.
"Seth uses them sparingly," Smith said. "When he does, it's raw and in-your-face. You never know when it's going to hit. You're just in this big world and you don't know what's going to pop out at you."
Zombies or Students?
Matthew Klein (junior-film and video), who plays the main character, Scott, went into the audition expecting a job in the crew but was instead handed the lead male role.
Balancing school with his feature film debut has not posed a time constraint.
"Lines aren't as much a problem because they send call sheets really early," Klein said. "I can memorize a couple pages out of a script at a time. It does take time, but it is completely worth it."
The character of Scott -- a tow truck driver and mechanic -- is an unmotivated oaf who isn't living up to his full potential.
"The zombie apocalypse is just what his life needed," Klein said. "It's the spark that rejuvenates him to be the person he can be."
Klein said Robinson and Smith are very professional and business-like on the set but are also open to suggestions from actors.
"These guys are really good at coming up with creative ways to work around things," he said. "No one lollygags anyway."
Smith said the students working on the project have impressed him with their work ethic.
He hired most of them from auditions held at the HUB-Robeson Center in January.
"You hire them based on assumptions, and I'm really happy," Smith said. "It's great when you realize you cast the right person in a role."
On the day of The Brewery shoot, Wendy Shi (senior-finance and film and video), who plays Abby, came onto the set on her day off.
"Everyone on the set is friends now, so I come here to hang out," Shi said. "I prefer being in front of the camera."
Some of the cast and crew lack reliable transportation to the shoots outside of State College, so Robinson arranges for a carpool. The duties of students in the crew range from setting up lighting equipment to running out to put quarters in the parking meter for an actor's car.
Vollero said the cast and crew is a significant contrast to the narcissistic staffers he encountered while in L.A.
The students hang around on set from 9 a.m. to midnight, and their parents often visit on the weekend.
"People are excited to be here," Vollero said. "They're not looking at it as another job. The heart and interest is there. It's not just a concern of paychecks and 'What will I get?' "
The goal is to wrap up editing and post-production before the onslaught of nationwide horror film festivals in the fall, Vollero said.
Otherwise, distribution is presently unknown.
Regardless of the channel through which he views the final product, Klein -- enjoying his first time acting in a non-student film -- said he hopes it will be scary and entertaining. His worries lay with whether he is doing a good acting job.
"It's weird to see it all come together right in front of you," Klein said. "It's all movie magic."
Location, Location, Relocation
Several of GULA's resource-heavy action scenes, including one in which a zombie is hit by a car, were relocated to the Bellefonte area.
Cynthia Hanscom, an administrative assistant in the State College Borough Council office, said Robinson submitted a permit that requested use of downtown parking garages for the purpose of shooting scenes in which gun blanks are shot. His request was met with denial, as it qualified as a safety hazard.
"Discharge of any type of firearm would be prohibited in the borough," Hanscom said. "We denied his permit based on that fact."
State College Chief of Police Tom King was opposed to the request because the sound of gunfire and the possession of replica weapons at a garage open to the public would have incited panic.
"The chance of patrons hearing gun shots was too great a concern because obviously the noise was going to carry off into the distance," King said.
The absence of film laws, Vollero said, is what makes the process of scouting locations here different from Los Angeles. Recently, the crew filmed the bloody exterior of a car on the street, and passersby asked if someone was hurt, he said.
"It's pretty different dealing with crashing cars and guns because there's no way to warn the community this is happening," Vollero said.
Robinson said the secluded terrain of Bellefonte is more conducive to their film's needs. The town's hilly atmosphere is being used to replicate a Pittsburgh-esque landscape.
"Considering the demographic of the town, there are less rules for what you can do," Robinson said.
