Photos by Bruce M. Walker

In a previous blog, "I've Been Miffed",  I  talked about the Canadian film festival MIFF, some of the films we saw there, and some of the actual film-makers.

After MIFF had concluded and just as I was ready to post the article, I learned that one of the shorts we saw,  Post Lifers, a funny mocumentary about Zombies, had won in its category at MIFF.

I decided that it would be appropriate to do an article devoted specifically to the crew of Post Lifers, and what better place to find them than at a movie shoot for their next horror project, "Tasha and Friends".

So, we bundled up a bunch of photographic equipment and video gear and drove out to Brantford, Ontario, to join them on location. The location ended up being the home of the Director/Producer, Greg Kovacs.  He had turned over his unfinished basement to the film crew.

When we arrived they were outside taping paper over the front door and windows to cut the light down for the shoot. They ushered us inside and told us to make ourselves comfortable. Inside was an incredible bustle of activity with crew and actor zooming around the set. Once we established where we could be so as to stay out of their way, we got ready to start interviewing the various people involved.

We began with Stephanie Christiaens - the one and only human in the new production, she was in "civies" and not yet prepped for her role as Tasha, but soon to be covered in gore. Steph had played a key role in Post-Lifers - horrifically masked and made up by Mitchell the makeup genius. Petite and very attractive, she is a natural in front of the camera and can be counted out to ham it up at the drop of a hat. Speaking of hats, Steph wears many. She is an actor, comedienne, a voice actor.

Photos by Bruce M. Walker

We moved on to Director/Executive Producer/Idea Guy - Greg Kovacs.  Greg began his filmmaking when he graduated in 1997.  He was involved with a variety of film projects including stuff for Televison. His "day gig" is animation, but on weekends - he's the Indy Filmmaker.

Greg and Executive Producer Darren Hutchings go WAAAAY back - they knew one another in 5th Grade in Manitoba. Greg's family moved back to Ontario, and some years later, when Darren moved to Ontario, they got back together. Reprising their interests in horror movies and filmmaking, they decided that they could "do stuff like that". They went forth and purchased a HandiCam and began to make short films, using their friends as actors and crew.

Those were fun times, they said, but you can only go so far with that type of equipment and friends for cast and crew. They wanted to move on to something more professional, but, as Darren says, life sort of got in the way - jobs, personal lives, etc ….so the filmmaking got put on hold for a while.

Then, in the past year or so, they found themselves in a more financially agreeable environment, and felt that they could move ahead with a "serious" project.  They began shooting The Post-Lifers.

Photo courtesy the Post-Lifers

Now they had a small budget, and were able to involve others - including Nathan Hawkins (Executive Producer) Brad McMillan (Executive Producer), Makeup Artist, Mitchell Stacey, just to mention a few.

They applied for and received a grant from the Waterloo Arts Foundation which got them past the post production costs.

They were able to complete the shooting of The Post-lifers in record time and shuffled it off to a number of different  2012 film festivals, many of which accepted the short. One of these was MIFF (Mississauga Independent Film Festival) at which The Post-Lifers won in the Short Film category.

They had just finished shooting the Post-Lifers, and even before the editing process had begun,  they were already thinking about what their next project was to be. Greg and Darren remembered that they had a script ready to go for Tasha and friends, and set the wheels in motion to get that started as soon as the Post-Lifers was complete…

Late Breaking news!!

I just heard from Greg Kovacs that Darren and he just returned from Orlando , where they were at the Freakshow Horror Festival for a screening of The Post-Lifers. The Post-Lifers won for best short film!

More about the new project in Interviews with the Bodies - Part two