ZombiePAGES.com

Source: http://www.lsj.com/

With the seemingly endless supply of zombie movies on the market, Oceola Township’s Jason “J.” Scott is hoping to take the genre in a new direction.

Scott is the filmmaker behind “Heaven’s Gate,” an Internet miniseries that has been shooting around Livingston County and will likely debut near the start of the new year.

“I like to look at it as the sequel to every zombie movie ever made,” Scott, 33, said. “Most (zombie) movies take place in the city; they show all the destruction - this is the country’s point of view.”

The premise is that survivors have taken refuge at a former cult compound, which was taken over by the government and turned into a storage facility for disaster relief.

Scott said it’s focused on the people who didn’t have to deal with the initial blast.

“They knew it was coming and they prepared for it while everything is slowly creeping their way,” Scott said.

Actors have been busy at work at several Livingston County sites, including the Fowlerville Fairgrounds, Hell Survivors paintball range, underneath Mr. B’s Rustic Tavern in Howell and downtown Howell itself.

Some shooting days have gone as long as 12 hours, and during one recent shoot, 35 people from the community came out to show off their zombie skills.

“It’s a pretty rough set,” said co-producer Russ Fox. “We’re the toughest set in Michigan to work, but, when it’s all done, everybody seems to be pretty happy.”

Scott says the biggest challenge has been trying to find local talent and shooting locations for no cost, but that it has all worked out. It helps that Fox is with Effenar Productions, which arranges entertainment for the Fowlerville Family Fair.

The idea for the miniseries was actually first pitched about a year ago, when Scott competed in a contest for amateur filmmakers.

The winner’s pitch would be turned into a TV show. Scott finished second out of 80 competitors.

“But, unfortunately, second place didn’t win anything; only first place did,” Scott said.

Scott has a brief background in shooting film - he has taped matches for friends who are involved with mixed martial arts; however, his day job is as a commercial carpenter.

He has his own production company, Biorhythm North Production Group, and he plans on shooting a movie next year called “The Brawler,” which he described as a cross between Johnny Cash’s classic track “A Boy Named Sue” and the Clint Eastwood flick “Every Which Way But Loose.”

But the current focus is on wrapping up the miniseries. If the first few episodes do well, Scott said he might scrap the fifth episode, which is meant to provide closure to the series, and keep cranking out more installments.

“It goes beyond being a zombie flick,” Scott said. “There’s actually a lot of conflict between characters. It’s almost how two groups survive side-by-side.”