SAMPLE QUOTES/PARAGRAPHS FROM THE BOOK BY HOWARD FORD

'A Zombie road-movie set in French speaking West Africa by British film makers, with an American lead played by a vegan Canadian. It sounds a little problematic on paper I'll admit, but it wouldn't be that bad would it? Surely, with a bit of luck on our side we'd have ourselves an adventure to tell our kids about and a unique film to boot.

It came about as I was sat with my Brother Jon in a hotel having just finished a soul destroying commercial shoot for a well known brand of nappies. We'd 'sold out'. Jon had been DOP (Director of Photography) and I had directed commercial after commercial for the last few years. We'd done ad's for almost every kind of product you could think of; banks, beer, soaps, condoms, mobile phones and finally were making a good living from what we loved: Film-making. But were we happy? Of course not. Commercials were meant to be a 'quick fix' to keep us going between films and however lucky we were to be doing it, in that moment it was particularly apparent that it wasn't hitting the spot anymore. We felt like cheap whores. That's when it happened.

Jon said 'What about that Zombie movie we never did?'.

We'd started making short films on Super 8mm when I was just 13 with the intention of making a Zombie movie but Twenty years later we had never scratched that itch. Somehow in the process of our short films, followed by two feature films, 100 odd TV commercials coupled with growing up and becoming responsible film-makers our Zombies had been left shuffling in the nether world of a distant memory.

So how about this we proposed: Lets pass on the next soap commercial or whatever it would be, instead we were going to temporarily shut the production company doors and bring 'The Dead' back to life!

Not only that, but we would shoot it in rural Africa including the Sahara desert and make a beautiful and artistic horror film. We'd shot a lot of commercials in Africa and were therefore 'experienced in the field'. Surely everyone else's zombie movies would be set in LA, New York, London etc and as always, barricaded in some building somewhere, whereas we wanted to give audiences something different and make the ultimate zombie move that we'd always wanted to see.

The initial idea was simple: I would invest my life savings into the project and we would ship a big truck out to Africa full film equipment, plus a generator and anything else we needed then fly out with a crew and our lead actor and have a merry time convoying around Africa shooting this movie.

At first I couldn't believe how positive everyone was towards our crazy endeavour. Even my accountant Amir whom you might think would advise against shutting shop on a successful commercials business to make a zombie movie in Africa was quite the opposite. In fact, he was so excited about the idea he declared he would match my finance pound for pound and pull in some of his clients as investors. Right there and then we had our Executive Producer.

Even my father whom had just gone through a major operation for bowel cancer, invested in the film. It was clear that a zombie movie called 'The Dead' would not appeal to his sensibilities at that point in time but he spotted our enthusiasm and supported us anyway.

The first major blow to the production was a tough one to overcome – the shipping company didn't tell us they hadn't even bothered to load our vehicles, generator and other equipment on the ship so instead of them winging their way to Africa to meet us, they were still sat in the port of Tilbury

It was truly devastating. We would now have no equipment, props, electricity or supplies for the first month of what should have been a 6 week shoot. Little did I know things would get much worse.

Not long after our arrival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso I was mugged at knifepoint and could do nothing but watch my wallet, both my UK and my new local phone, with all my contacts, my drivers licence my credit and debit cards, my Euro's, Dollars and local currency disappear in rapid succession.

As if this wasn't enough, I was later stopped by armed police on the way to a location and my translator informed me I would be put in jail for my crime of driving without the licence that had been stolen from me and we had to pay off the police to keep me out of what might have been quite an unpleasant prison experience.

In fact, our encounters with armed police became almost a daily occurrence, often they would appear out of nowhere and impound our cars and equipment until sufficient money had been handed over. Sometimes we would set out in the morning and never make it to the set. I would be driven around to cash points if I didn't have enough cash and I literally developed a bad shoulder from the movement of handing over money. I really didn't want to come back with the view of Africa I had been warned about but sadly that's exactly what happened.

Getting our equipment out of customs when it did arrive turned out to be near impossible and every day for a two week period we could do nothing but hang around the Port of Tema, Ghana handing out cash to be told they would definitely release our stuff following just one more payment. This went on for over 2 weeks.

Not only that, but we were stunned to find out the customs declared the value of just one of the vehicles we shipped at $60,000 US Dollars (at the time about 40,000 pounds) on which they would calculate import duty. This was a 1982 Landrover with a zillion miles on the clock, it was shabby and we had paid 500 pounds on Ebay for it. We were being fleeced and there was not a thing we could do about it.

We should have been several weeks into production but we had not been able to roll a frame of film and we had created huge hotel bills and food expenses for a crew that could do nothing but sit around waiting. I had never been over budget or over schedule before and it felt like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from.

Once we did manage to finally get shooting, our Canadian lead actor Rob, (Rob Freeman – Ryan's son in 'Saving Private Ryan') who was an incredibly fit and upbeat guy suddenly went delirious in the middle of a scene, then started shaking and sweating – that's when I heard the local village onlookers utter the word 'Malaria'.

What happened next was utterly horrible. It wasn't the usual back-to-your-trailer for a foot massage that most actors hope for following a scene. Instead Rob would spend the next 10 hours lying on a doctors table covered in his own s**t. There were so many cases of Malaria at that time there were no beds in the local hospital. The Doctor told us he would have been dead within three days had not been treated. He remained on a drip for almost 2 weeks so we were again stuck in Africa, ground to a halt.

It wasn't long before the rest of the crew started dropping like flies and I too spent the first of what would be countless nights during the trip as a human food blender. It seemed to start with a subtle rumbling of the stomach, then a wave of sickness would soon ensue. Rapidly followed by projectile vomiting and diorreah so severe I was convinced my diorreah had gotten diorreah. Mercifully, this wasn't malaria; it was good old fashioned food poisoning.

The whole crew soon learnt that every meal was like playing Russian roulette. Every mouthful was filled with trepidation that this might be the one that would knock you down. The next day, we would then find out who was well enough to actually come to the shoot and that often determined what we would film that day – I've not heard of any other schedule that worked that way.

The most bizarre things would happen every day – villagers would celebrate our arrival in a village by strange ritualistic dances or even sacrificing an animal. You couldn't shoot until these events had concluded. We even met a real cannibal who was very excited by our flesh eating African zombies and told us through our translator how he loves to eat human flesh himself whenever he gets the chance. He joked that if we were dead he would love to try some of our white meat which didn't do much to help our feelings of paranoia.

We became convinced that the shoot was cursed in some way and on one occasion we were just about to roll the camera for the first shot of the day when a tornado formed right in front of us, it ripped through the set tearing branches off trees and then it rained for 2 days solid.

I had never been on set where a camera had been smashed but this shoot had everything – a fully loaded Arriflex 35mm camera with all its gadgets was ready for action, the next minute it was on the floor bent and smashed and clearly would never roll a frame of film again.

To add to our growing concerns, mysteriously, roll number 13, a full roll of 35mm film with a complex scene on it had not come out at all and to re shoot it we had to re plant an entire cornfield by hand.

We returned from Africa looking like famine victims and we are still suffering from frequent nightmares about being stuck out there enduring the horrors.

I can't possibly do justice to how it truly felt to go through what we did on this film over the three months we ended up in rural Africa. I cannot get across with words the heat, the smells, the feeling of the dust in your lungs day after day, the stickiness, the unrelenting flies in your face. Trying to remain creative and actually get it made under the harshest conditions imaginable whilst being weak from having endured prolonged illnesses and severe stress.

Regardless of all of our frustrations in Africa, ultimately a foreign land allowed us in to its borders to come and make our film. Some of the villagers we encountered had never even seen a camera before, we couldn't even speak the same language yet they were happy to play flesh eating zombies and at the end of it, we would part, often with a smile and a wave. I will always remain grateful for that.'

See www.thedead-movie.com for teaser trailer and other images + all are invited to join our mailing list to be kept informed of release date and to be part of a random selection for some to be invited as a VIP guest at the official premiere.