Portrait Of A Zombie

Our interview with David ‘Bing’ Bailey Writer/Director of Portrait of a Zombie

Bing Bailey may have just created the most interesting horror flick to emerge from this country. In Portrait of a Zombie, Bailey imagines the aftermath of a zombie infestation - and what happens when an ordinary Dublin family tries to keep and protect their infected son. We interviewed him for the March issue of our magazine - here's our full conversation.
How did the central premise of the film come about? 
It was another film that I was going to do – more of a ‘man on a mission’ type thing – and I realised that it would be a very traditional film, expensive, and difficult to pull off on a low budget. So I kind of did a parallel step and figured out that I could do something that had more of a documentary feel to it. It would fit within the budget, but still get across some of the story that I wanted. I wanted it to reflect some of the things about Irish life growing up, how Irish mothers are with their children, and how they’d do pretty much anything to take care of and protect them – and how families dealt with crises that arise. In this, it’s a fantasy crisis of a zombie son, but it could be anything: it could be a child that had a bad accident.
Yeah - one of the most chilling scenes from the trailer is the mother comforting her son, who’s now a zombie.
It’s so much more chilling than you even realise, because you’re only seeing a very brief snippet. What actually happens in that scene has never been seen in any zombie movie that I’ve ever known. It’s so much more chilling than you think! You’re seeing a tiny sliver – it gets so much worse! 
When you showed the script to people, what comments did you get?
The reactions I got were ‘this is really funny’, and ‘it’s really quite dark’, which made me very happy. People liked the characters and enjoyed them. They were very positive about the script, and said they’d never read anything as unique before. While it had some of the staples of the zombie genre, it wasn’t the same approach as the other movies. It was very much suspense and story based, with this infused dark humour in it. Dark humour is a guilty pleasure for people – they’re never quite sure if they should laugh at something or not – but they do enjoy satire and they do enjoy black humour. The reactions to it were really good from a lot of people. 
You’re credited with virtually everything on the film, from writing to directing, and now you’re heavily involved in the editing at the moment, right?
I would like to say it’s all me, but that’s not the reality of making a film. Movies are made by teams of people. While I’m the ultimate filter for everything, it’s a collaborative experience. I have a co-writer – Laura Bailey, my wife. She’s fantastic, much better than I am. And I had a lot of great people working on the film like 
for special effects makeup, Terri Pinell, Jaclyn Cooper, who did the make-up, and then really great actors: Diane Jennings , Patrick Murphy , Gerry Shanahan. Geraldine McAlinden, Todd Fletcher and Rory Mullen were all really fantastic. I’d love to be able to say it’s all me, but that’s not the truth of any movie. I am the final filter for everything, and I’m the one who says ‘this fits my story’ and ‘this doesn’t’, but it’s a collaborative experience.
And was keeping the amount of control you had in the film about staying on budget or was there an element of not wanting to compromise your vision of what the film should be?
I think it’s always a balance. No matter what the budget is, you’re always fighting it: it doesn’t matter if your budget is 15 grand or 15 million. You’re always fighting against what you can have and what you can’t have. I actually enjoyed that battle, because I think that’s where the creativity comes out. It’s like ‘if I can’t do this, what can I do to get across the same message while staying within these parametres?’ It is a constant battle, like ‘I can’t get this location, I can’t get this amount of make-up to do so many zombies – what can I do to make that happen?’ For me, it’s all about making that happen at the highest possible quality level. I never allow budget to dictate the work itself. I go for high quality no matter what the budget, and I find a way of making that happen. I’m not willing to do shoddy or bad storytelling just because I couldn’t afford something. 
We heard that the film came in at just below $100,000 to make, is that right?
No, it was even less than that! The final budget, when you take in deferred salaries, is probably going to be around $60,000. It was shot on the red digital 4k camera, which is a very high end camera: it used 35mm lenses, just the same as a film camera. So it looks really incredible. The teaser you see online is the worst that film will ever look. It looks so much better in the files I’m working with, so it’s definitely going to stand up on the big screen. 
We read that you were looking, in fact, to ‘dirty’ it up a little.
Yeah. One of the great things about the red camera is that the images feel organic – they don’t feel overly sharp, which is what you can get when you shoot with a lot of HD cameras. A lot of the beauty that’s in film is in the flaws, some of the things that you can’t do. When you have such a sharp camera that shows everything, it feels sterile. What I love about the red is that it does feel natural, and anything I do on top of that is just muddying it up slightly: adding some film grain in there and giving it that organic feel. I don’t want something that looks sterile. 
While we’re talking practicalities, are there many difficulties to making a film in Ireland?
There are difficulties making a film anywhere! What I was surprised by was the enthusiasm of people that I got involved, from the actors and the crew down to the make-up people and the assistant directors. The crews were amazing. The difficulty in Ireland is probably the difficulty in a lot of places: it’s quite expensive, and simple things tend to cost a lot more. You can buy a light in the United States for about $150 while, in Ireland, that’s about €700. It makes some things difficult, and you can do deals with people, but it is an expensive place to shoot. The thing with this story is that it had to be done in Ireland, and it was of Ireland. I shot it on the street where I grew up: it had never been captured before, and I wanted to get a specific feel, so there wasn’t an alternative. It had to be done in Ireland.
What street was that?
Mellowes Avenue.
And have any of your neighbours, or other people who grew up on the street, seen the film?
I think a few people have seen the teaser trailer and been very surprised and happy. I never quite know if people know what I’m going to do, because a lot of the reactions were ‘Oh, This is a real movie! It’s not just someone going nuts with a camcorder’. I think they were surprised by that. But when they see the film, I don’t think it’ll feel like the street they live on, because some of the composition and some of the ways it’s been captured will make it seem like a slightly surreal version of their street.
How did you get the money together to do this?
Blood plasma – I gave away my blood! No, I’ve been an I.T. professional for a very long time. I came to the U.S. in 1999, started working in the World Trade Centre, and worked for Morgan Stanley for a number of years. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve been able to fund my own productions to day.
And lucky to still be with us…
Yeah, I had jet lag the day that happened, which is why I’m alive. I managed to not be in tower 2 sitting at my desk, where I should have. I came back from an Irish wedding, came in on the Monday and gave out presents to colleagues. I was going to do the same for some people I missed on Tuesday and jet lag hit me. I called my boss, said I was going to be late, and he said ‘no problem’. The next thing I knew, I was watching my building fall down. Before that, I’d been more of an observer of film than a practitioner. But after that event, I decided that I wanted to do something that was more creative, more lasting. That set me on a path to where I am now. 
And as an observer of film, were you a fan of old-school zombie films?
Yeah, I love the old school zombie films. I love George Romero films, because they’re not just zombie films: they’re allegories, and social commentary. I’m a big fan of any film trying to do that. If you just want the blood and the guts, that’s fine, but I always love films that are striving to be something else at the same time: to tell a real story or show a real point of view, whether that’s social or political. That’s what I tried to do in Portrait of a Zombie: to show a point of view of modern Ireland, or at least the Ireland that I’ve known. I haven’t lived in Ireland for 12 years now, so there’s been a lot of changes. But I wanted to reflect the modern Ireland that I know from going home and visiting my family. I don’t think that’s really been reflected in a lot of films: a lot go with the twee countryside, and it’s almost like a Disney version from the 50s. 
 So what’s your take on most horror movies? Your film seems to be a bit different in trying to comment on the real world.
Yeah, there’s a real drama inside it. It’s encapsulated in the shell of a zombie infestation, but it could just as easily be a family dealing with someone that’s gotten a deadly disease. A lot of movies – and especially last year, with District 9 – have attempted to entertain people but also give a societal and political point of view at the same time. Not to ram it down people’s throats, but to reflect some of the things happening in the modern world.
Are contemporary horror movies, or zombie movies in particular, doing it any more?
Not really. I did see a movie earlier this year called Colin, and I thought it was interesting because it tried to show a zombie film from a zombie’s point of view. That definitely tried something different. But generally, a lot of zombie movies today are just action films, and they jettisoned the broader points of view, which is kind of sad. There’s nothing wrong with being entertaining. Zombieland is a fun film and a fun ride, and so is the remake of Dawn of the Dead, but there’s no great debate about those films after you’ve finished seeing them. They’re fun, they’re entertaining, but that’s it. I think that’s something that’s sadly missed in a lot of modern horror. The production values have gone up, the acting has improved, the dialogue in those movies has definitely gotten better. But they haven’t quite cottoned on to the fact that those earlier films from the 60s, 70s and 80s had a lot more going on, even though they don’t have the slick sheen, CGI and all the effects. They had something else going on that made them good. If you can combine the entertaining part with what made those films special, you’ll have something really lasting.
You’re in post-production at the moment. How far away are you from completion and release?
I’d suspect that we’re going to finish around the end of April, start of May. We’re already talking to some sales and distribution people in the U.S., so we’re going to screen it for them and go from there. I’m quite sure that it’s going to end up in certain festivals.
What’s the feedback been like?
The feedback so far is great. I’ve gotten some really nice compliments, and we seem to have a lot of fans in Italy and Spain for some reason. The Italian websites start out with ‘Guinness and Zombies – what more could you want?’ It’s been funny and unusual getting that kind of support from non-English-speaking countries. Officially, we’ve over 32,000 hits on our teaser trailer in two months. For a film with a lot of unknown people in it, that’s fantastic. I definitely think that the horror and indie movie fans are behind us, and a lot of them have caught onto the fact that it’s not the usual ‘survivalist’ zombie film: there is something different that you don’t get in a lot of horror films. 
Your next project - can you tell us about that?
It’s a horror in an Eastern European hospital, and it’s called The Donor. That’s going to be my next project, which is another level of ambition. I’ll put it this way: if I’m not terrified going into a project, then something’s wrong, because I’m constantly trying to do something harder, more difficult and more interesting. I’m not interested in a project unless it’s something that’s impossible.