by Rachel Hunter
Gouverneur native Gregory French in all of his zombie makeup as the lead zombie in “Thirst of the Dead.” (photo courtesy of Coastal Independent Films)
There is not much to celebrate during a zombie apocalypse – but when five friends stumble across a rare commodity (a six-pack of beer) their celebration leads to some trouble. That was the premise of a short film, “Thirst of the Dead,” written by Gouverneur native Gregory French, and produced by Coastal Independent Films, Myrtle Beach, SC.
In an interview with the Gouverneur Tribune Press, Gregory French told how he got the idea for the film: “There’s a product out there that is a metal beer koozie that holds a beer bottle, but also has a lid that screws on and keeps it from spilling. I use it all the time. It is one of my favorite things, because I burn a lot of beer… and so I was using that and somehow it got knocked off of my end table onto my cement patio. I picked it up and the beer inside was still good. None had spilled. The bottle was not broken, and I was like: “Wait a second. This gives me a really neat idea for a commercial for these guys.”
“So I came up with a zombie apocalypse and there is some survivors that are searching through a convenience store for whatever and they find a six-pack of beer. They are celebrating because beer is like a commodity in the post-apocalyptic zombie world, I’m sure. So when you find it, you have to celebrate the little things. So they are hanging out, celebrating, and the lead guy. He has his in one of these bottle holders – and all of a sudden they are making too much noise celebrating and a zombie comes in and kind of knock over all their beers and they all break except for the one that was in the container. That was the idea I pitched to them for the commercial, but nothing ever came of it.
So maybe for or five years later, we formed Costal Independent Films, my film production company. We were pitching ideas, and it just pops back into my head. Hold on a second, I got an idea for a commercial that I was working on. It might be what we are after. So I went home and developed a script based on the zombies and beer type of thing and turned it from a 30-second commercial into the movie that became Thirst of the Dead. It’s got a lot more parts than the zombie knocking over the beer…”
“Thirst of the Dead” by Coastal Independent Films won the 2020 Homegrown Horror Award at the Crimson Screen Horror Film Fest in Charleston. (photo courtesy of Coastal Independent Films)
Formed in July 2019, the group of passionate filmmakers at Coastal Independent Films, were looking for creative ideas. And by September 2019, a group formed and started pre-production work on “Thirst of the Dead.” Usually a month-long process of meticulous planning, it took the group less than a month. And the filming which can take weeks, took place in one day – October 13.
The filming took place on 30-acres of rural land on the outskirts of Myrtle Beach owned by one of the production team members. “He had a small house on it, and at the time he was building another room, so that’s where we filmed because it looked like we were able to take the unbuilt room and put some set dressing on it to make it look like a broken-down building,” French said. “There was already a lot of boxes from construction and stuff, so we needed to make it look like the scavengers were finding stuff to look through and find cans of food or whatever. So that was good, but his property has some pretty heavily wooded areas but also has this nice open field. There is a dirt road, gravel path, and it also has this beautiful stream with really calm water where it goes into a waterfall. And so staying in that one place, we were able to get a lot of different environments and make it look like they were on this epic journey – traveling miles and miles when really we were just turning the camera around… We were all within the same 30-acre area.”
Gregory French said his experience on the set of “The Walking Dead” allowed him to play a convincing zombie – and to teach others to do the same.
“We had an open call for all the zombie extras,” he said. “I was the only one we knew was going to be a zombie. We had an open casting call for other zombies, and we had a whole bunch of other people come in and I had to teach them, like, how to be a real zombie, Walking Dead- style zombie. We didn’t want it to be hokey. If a zombie film is not done the right way, it can look kind of cheesy and hokey and the makeup can be kind of ehhh… but we wanted it to be as good as The Walking Dead zombies with The Walking Dead makeup. We want the people who watch this to be like totally blown away that a totally non-Walking Dead group could pull off this level of performance and material and everything. I think we nailed it.”
Coastal Independent Films also had some help from Sean Krumholtz of RedHouse FX.
“I met him through The Walking Dead,” French said. “Through Season Three, Season Four, they were sending me to different places for Walking Dead pictures and autographs and whatever. I was at a (charity event called) a Zombie Run.. and I kept seeing this really good zombie makeup coming through. And so I asked five or six people with just this amazing makeup, “Who is doing your makeup?” I don’t remember what he said he was doing, computer engineer or something, and I was like, “No, I am going to put you in touch with some people. You need to be doing this… and now, this is what he does. He is a professional makeup artist… He’s that good. So when we decided to do Thirst of the Dead, I knew he was the guy that I wanted to do my makeup. I knew there was going to be some closeup shots of my face or whatever – and I wanted him to do it. He worked on the makeup he was going to do for me for two months.”
Gregory French got in the makeup chair at 5 a.m. on October 13 and four-hours later had transformed into the lead zombie for the Thirst of the Dead film.
“It seems like a long time, but being on The Walking Dead – that’s a typical day. You show up at 5 a.m. You sit in a chair, and you let them work on you, and then three hours later, you look in a mirror and you don’t recognize who you are.
“And that’s one of the things, strange enough, that a lot of people can’t handle… there’s different levels of makeup on The Walking Dead. If you are going to be featured and you are going to be all up in the camera, you are in the makeup chair for a long time – and it is very claustrophobic. It’s hard to breathe. We film all summer long it Atlanta, so it is super hot, sweaty. A lot of time they put dental implants in, so you can’t close your mouth all day… and a typical day is 12-16 hours in the makeup. And if you are going to be a super-feature, they put contact lenses in, and these lenses they are cataract lenses… so you cant see anything. It’s very claustrophobic. A lot of the guys are like, this is pretty cool, but then at the end of a couple hours are like, “Okay, this sucks. Get me out of here...” They start freaking out. There is a core of us that they use over and over and over because for some reason, it doesn’t bother us at all… and we can still give a really convincing performance acting in this hot, sweaty makeup without needing to take too many breaks and crying because it hurts or whatever.”
“Thirst of the Dead,” a 13-minute film won the 2020 Homegrown Horror Award at the Crimson Screen Horror Film Fest in Charleston. A few days later, Mr. French, the film’s writer and lead zombie, heard from Shorts TV, an international television channel. They wanted to buy the rights to the film and air it in over 60 countries.
“I got an email from them,” Gregory French said. “I was out camping in the woods when I got it, so I had like spotty cell coverage anyway. So I got an email… One of the directors of Thirst of the Dead, his daytime job is a lawyer, so I told him about it. So I told him to look it over. He said, “Dude, this is legit. This is real.” So then we finally got our contract signed and their contract signed and everything sent to them...
“We had to do a whole behind-the-scenes bumper for this that they will air before the film. On their channel, they will have like the filmmakers spotlight, and it will talk about like making the film, and so we had to do a whole sit-down interview with like the crew. So I did one as the writer, the two directors were there, the cameraman, the sound-guy – and we all did our own thing. It was like its own production all in its own, coming up with what we were going to do for that. So they said it was going to air around the October timeframe, around Halloween, which makes sense because it is horror. It is not really horror. It is a lighthearted zombedy… The way it is written and filmed, you don’t know it is a comedy until the funny stuff happens. It looks very scary at first, and then you’re like, “Wait a second, did that really just happen?” And then it goes back to being serious again… It sets the hook by that first funny thing that happens, and then it just takes you along for the rest of the ride...”
“Thirst of the Dead” is set to air on Shorts TV in October, just in time for Halloween. You can find it in a variety of places, including DirecTV(Channel 573), AT&T U-Verse (Channel 1789), AT&T TV NOW, Google Fiber (Channel 603), Frontier Communications (Channel 789) and Hotwire (Channel 560). For more information, visit: shorts.tv/en/
Gregory French also informed the Gouverneur Tribune Press that he got his directorial debut on The Vegetarian, which will come out on Labor Day. It was filmed it mid-March, and it is still in post-production.
“I had never directed before,” he said, explaining that Coastal Independent Films provides the opportunity to learn from the best in the film production industry. “I had no idea what I was doing. There’s a lot that goes into it. You don’t just show up and say action. You have to have the vision. You have to control people, and tell the actors like, “Okay, I like what you are doing here but do it this way instead, and bring that out of them, but also leading up to it… all the pre-production things, you have to know which cameras you have to use, which lenses the cameras need to use, and where you need the camera focused, and everything the camera is going to see has to be planned out before we get on set… and I had no idea that is what a director did. I just thought they showed up and said, “Okay, you go over here, action.” And there is a lot more to it, and I learned from Paul (Inman) one of the guys who directed the Thirst of the Dead, he taught me the whole process, helped me to get my whole shot lists and everything. I’m learning a lot. I’ve never edited before, so I am starting to get into that, but there’s a lot that goes into that than I can possibly learn in a year.”
Gregory French’s acting talents are no stranger to the Gouverneur community. He got his start on the Gouverneur High School stage when he was a fifth grader, when he took on the role as Louis in the “King and I.”
“I had no idea what I was doing, but I guess Mary Lou Scott, the musical director at the time, knew they needed a kid and asked my mom – and said, “Yeah, I’ll ask him.” Of course, I could sing and do all that stuff when I was a kid and so I auditioned and the next thing I know I am up there on stage. And then I was in every musical since fifth grade until I graduated. I always loved performing. I love being in front of people. I love the applause. I don’t know why. It is just who I am. So that really got me started.”
After graduation, Gregory French joined the US Air Force, and served during Operation Desert Storm. “While in the military, I was in different acting groups and such at different stations. If there wasn’t one, I’d start one at whatever base I was on.” He then moved to Myrtle Beach, SC to attend Coastal Carolina University for Marine Science and got a job at the Dixie Stampede. One of the emcees was leaving, so I told the head of production there, “Hey, I would like to audition… I had been there for a couple years already and I had the show memorized, because you hear it every night. The only thing I couldn’t do was ride a horse, and the whole show was on horseback. So I went and took some horseriding lessons… the one who trained all the riders. He lived right down the street from me… and so, I spent a couple weeks learning how to ride a horse so I could look like I knew what I was doing. So when I auditioned, “They were like, “Holy crap, man! Yeah. Hired!” So I was the Master of Ceremonies. There’s two roles that person does… one night I would be the master of ceremonies out there leading the show and singing on the horseback and doing all that stuff, and on nights that I wasn’t that, I’d be the comedian… It was a lot of fun. I’ve always tried to find something new where I could be in front of people.
“And then I was playing in a rock band here in town and a guitar player from my band he makes local commercials. He’s in advertising. So every once-in-a-while he’ll have me do voice-overs for a radio spot or whatever, because I do a lot of voices and impressions also. One day, he was like, “I need someone to be on camera. Are you interested?” And I was like, “Yeah man, whatever, I’ll do it.” That commercial still plays every year around football time because it is the football team’s commercial – and it’s been 10 years and it is still playing, because it is that good of a commercial. Once he saw what I could do on camera, anytime he needed something for a commercial, “Hey man, you’re my go-to.” So I started doing a lot of commercials with him – and it started out as no pay or only like $6 because it was just as a favor to him. But then we were on a really big commercial for one of the resorts here, and so he brought in actors from all over the southeast… and that’s what the professional job was, acting. And he kept using me for all these shots. And all these other actors were like, “You’re good, man. Where do you get training? Who is your agent?” And I was like, “I am just helping him out. He is a friend of mine.” And they were like, “Wow, you should look at doing this more professionally than what you are doing… because your talents are being wasted doing what you are doing.” And I was like, “Oh man, I appreciate that.” So I made some contacts and realized that the Southeast is one of the hotspots for TV and movies...”
Gregory French has been featured on TV programs including "The Walking Dead" and "Under the Dome" and has had small parts in several movies such as "Spiderman: Homecoming", "Iron Man 3", "Parental Guidance", and "We're the Millers." He also enjoys the Indie Film world, where he has earned starring roles in movies such as the horror film, "The Legend of 7 Toe Maggie," and the military comedy, "Weekend Warriors." Greg has now added "Stunt Performer" to his resume after completing several stunt training classes, and is looking forward to his career as a Stunt Actor. Gregory is represented by Reel Sisters Talent out of Wilmington, NC.
Gregory French is looking forward to upcoming project with Costal Independent Films.
On Wednesday, August 5 he announced that Coastal Independent is producing a Stephen King film.
“They give us a Stephen King story – one of his short stories to develop a script out of and then film it, and we got approval for everything so far, so now we are in pre-production on a Stephen King film… We are really stoked about that. But not only that, we are starting on our next projects… so we have about two years worth of films already lined up. We’re just pumping it out. We’re trying to do one film every two months with shorter films in between. Most places will do like one film every six to eight, maybe 10 months, some only one film every year… so we are kicking them out here.”
Coastal Independent Film premieres "SHOTS! A Guy Walks Into A Bar" this week and "The Vegetarian" on Labor day. Follow them on Facebook and Youtube.