H2ZZ Productions
For more information:
To contact:
Luke Thompson (Writer/Director)
Michael Mazur (Producer)
Burton DeWilde (Director of Photography/Editor)
Clara Nellist (Assistant Director)
Cast and Crew
Email: press@decayfilm.com
Twitter: @DecayFilm
Facebook: www.facebook.com/decayfilm
Website: www.decayfilm.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CERN physicists’ zombie film released online
As of Saturday 8th December, the film Decay will be available for free download and streaming online via the website www.decayfilm.com under a Creative Commons licence (CC-BY-NC). This allows free distribution, remixing and use in other projects in a non-commercial capacity. The feature-length zombie film enjoyed a very successful premiere in Manchester, where it sold out the University’s biggest theatre, and received a very positive response. Made by physicists, it is set at the Large Hadron Collider, and centres around zombies created by exposure to the newly-discovered Higgs boson. Writer and director Luke Thompson, a University of Manchester Ph.D. student, originally conceived the idea in February 2010, after joking that the tunnels under CERN would be ideal for a zombie film. With a budget of approximately £2000 and a regular cast and crew of only 20, the team built a camera shoulder-mount from copper pipes, made fake blood from golden syrup, and scavenged props from dumpsters. It was shot on borrowed digital SLRs including the Canon 5D Mark 2: consumer cameras which have recently been used to shoot parts of movies such as Iron Man 2, Black Swan and the season 6 finale of TV series House. Editing and digital effects were done on a home computer with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.
The film follows a small group of students (played by physicists) after a disastrous malfunction in the world’s biggest particle accelerator. As they try desperately to escape from the underground maintenance tunnels, they are hunted by the remains of a maintenance team, who have become less than human. With the recent coverage of the discovery of the Higgs boson at the LHC at CERN, the film appeals to a wide-ranging, science-savvy audience, as well as to zombie enthusiasts as a new approach to the genre. Creative Commons is a growing and innovative culture, and this adds to the film’s appeal. CERN is the European Organisation for Nuclear Research and is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, employing around 4000 international scientists and hosting many more visiting lecturers and guests. The Higgs boson is a sub-atomic particle thought to be responsible for giving other particles mass. There is absolutely no evidence that it is harmful in any way. CERN and the LHC have been enjoying much media attention in the last few years, and physics is very much in vogue thanks to popular figures such as Brian Cox.
There has been a publicity campaign via Twitter, Facebook and the film’s website, and there has been much coverage on various online science and news sites such as wired.com. There has been cross-promotion with the Antarctic horror film South of Sanity, featured in BBC news broadcasts, and the trailer has received over 138K views on Youtube to date.
Any queries should go to Luke Thompson, as per the details above.
This film has not been authorized or endorsed by CERN