INT: The Spierig Brothers

Last Updated on July 28, 2021

The Arrow
interviews The Spierig Bros

After
shooting a slew of commercials and award-winning short films, Michael
and Peter Spierig took the big plunge in the year 2000 and tackled their
first feature film. The wild, gory, unique and fanboy acclaimed
“Undead” was born. 
With the zombie-fest
having recently been acquired by Lions Gate Films for North American
distribution, everybody will hopefully get to see this fun flick very
soon! The Arrow recently had a chance to duke it out with the Aussie brothers
and here’s how the bout turned out.

ARROW: What are
your favorite horror movies?

PETER:
The Exorcist, Evil Dead 2.

MICHAEL:
Night of the Living Dead, The Shining.

ARROW: How did
the narrative for “Undead” originate? What was the spark?

PETER:
We had made a trilogy of short zombie
films called Attack of the Undead, Rampage of the Undead,and
Massacre of the Undead.  We loosely based the feature around them.

ARROW:
How was
the film financed?

MICHAEL:
Peter and I spent our life savings on
the project, we had directed TV commercials for three years and saved
all our money.

ARROW: Was
getting the money via pre-sales with a distributor ever an option?

PETER: Not really. We wanted
complete control over our first film and it was probably the only time
we will ever have that.

ARROW: How
long did the overall shoot take?

MICHAEL:
41 days main unit and 19 days second
unit. Second unit was really just a smaller main unit.

ARROW: Did the
script change a lot during the shoot to accommodate the budget?

MICHAEL:
We knew what the budget was going to
be from the very beginning. In pre-production, we would alter the
script slightly to accommodate some of the budget limitations, but
they would only be minor changes.

ARROW:
How did you separate the directing duties between
yourselves?

PETER:
It’s a 50/50 split. Michael has a
graphic design background, so he would spend more time on the design
aspects of the film and I’ll spend more time operating the camera. But
the writing, directing, editing, producing is all very much a
collaboration.

ARROW: What
was the hardest scenes you had to shoot?

PETER:
The end scene involving a plane flight
through clouds, that was tough. We spend a lot of time planning that
15 minute sequence. I created an animatic to show to the cast and
crew exactly what we wanted so everyone had a clear understanding of
what the scene was about. The sequence took over a year to animate
and render.

ARROW:
I
heard you did the CGI effects on a laptop. Did you guys have any idea
as to what you were doing when you started?

MICHAEL:
We knew it was going to be a
nightmare, we knew we didn’t have the resources to do it properly so
we tried to prepare ourselves as much as possible for what lay ahead. 
We didn’t expect the computers to crash as much as they did.  We were
averaging about 15-20 crashes a day on all three computers.

ARROW: Lions Gate Films has just acquired the flick for North American distribution. Did
they do a lot of their own editing? What changed when they took your baby home?

PETER:
So far Lions Gate hasn’t touched a
frame. We received an ‘R’ rating from the MPAA without having to cut
anything. Hopefully the version we released in Australia will be the
same version the North American audiences get to see.

ARROW: When
can we expect to see Undead in video stores?

MICHAEL:
I’m not sure when the DVD will be
released in the US, a theatrical release is scheduled for next
year. Australia will get the DVD early January, there’s lots of
extras on the disc.

ARROW: What’s
next on your plate? Is Undead Part 2 feasible?

PETER:
We’ve been developing a project for
some time now. It’s a horror film, different in tone to ‘Undead’, this
one is more dramatic. Undead 2 might happen, it depends on if North
American audiences respond well.

ARROW: When
the flick was finally fully finished, what did you guys do to
celebrate?

PETER:
We are still working on the worldwide
distribution every day.  It’s not fully finished yet.

I’d like to thank the Spierig Brothers for their time
and for the fun ride that was “Undead”. These dudes have got what it
takes: talent, balls and a love for the genre and I can’t
wait to see what they do next. Bring it guys!