Here’s a few photos of some work I did some years back for The Walking Dead. I spent about 3 months living out of a hotel and commuting to Senoia GA to work for Matt “Smalls” Kutcher and SpectrumFX way back in 2022. According to IMDB, my work appeared of four episodes during the final season. A large part of the job involved welding a large steel tank that would be used during the basement flood scene… basically there was a big rainstorm, a basement flooded, and zombies lurched out of the murky water to grab children. They’re already dead, right? So they can’t drown… anyway, We basically built a very large, steel, rectangular above-ground swimming pool, complete with a (very expensive) custom vinyl liner. The thinking was that it’s a permanent feature at Stalwart Productions, available for rent.
Once that was built, I was brought back up to the main shop to work on a number of smaller gags. The biggest deal was the “hwatcha,” which was a DaVinci-esque rocket launcher that was built onto a repro civil war cannon carriage. I built the base, the other guys built the box and tube assembly that went on top. Of course, production took one look and wanted it doubled in size, so we delivered. But the finished gag was dangerously overweight… I had to put warning notes all over the carriage saying “Do Not Lift Above 12 Inches” or the whole thing would unbalance and fall over. I was in charge of rigging the lull to lift it on to the roof of the set. Fortunately there were no problems with the lift, but I remember being very nervous.
All things considered, it was a great gig and I really enjoyed my time at SpectrumFX, though the three months living in a hotel was rather miserable since I was really missing my wife and doggie. But it was a good experience, I learned a lot, and wouldn’t hesitate to work for them again.
The water tank nearly done, with the liner in place. A lot of the parts had been fabricated at the SpectrumFX shop in New Orleans.The SPFX shop on the walking dead set was a large metal building with two roll-up doors at either end.These are “party packs” that I helped make up. They are made from coils of det chord, with peat moss and movie dust encased in boxes of homosote and wrapped in stretch film. They fit onto specific launchers. When you light them off, they make an impressive explosion.This is the “hwatcha” that we built. I made the yoke-like structure that holds the box. You can see where it’s twice as large as originally designed, and as a result, very overweight.The “hwatcha” under construction. I pretty much designed it as I went along.The finished “hwatcha” after it came back from the paint shop. All things considered, it turned out pretty good.This was a fun little side project. I’m holding a detonator in my hand, which was buried inside a window frame. The idea was that the small charge would dramatically shatter the window glass during the take as a tree branch blew through it during the storm scene. I wasn’t present for the shooting, but the word was it worked as designed.This was a big job… wiring the “hwatcha.” Each one of the 200 tubes had a “5×10” wired in it, meaning it would throw a five-foot trail of sparks for ten feet (or something like that… I can’t remember the correct numbers). The rockets that were supposed to come out of the tubes were CGI. Wiring these things took two full days, if I remember correctly.This was a HUGE job… plumbing the giant pool with equally giant water tanks and pumps. Since the water would get quickly cloudy, they wanted to be able to flush the tank with fresh, clear water quickly, as well as adjust the level of the water depending on the demands of the scene. This required huge pumps and hoses that were rented for the job. Incredibly- and to me, unbelievably- the system pretty much worked. I didn’t have anything to do with setting this up, but I was part of the team that operated it during shooting.Lifting the “hwatcha” on to the roof for shooting. I was in charge of rigging this thing. For most SPFX techs this is no big deal, but I was nervous as a new dad until this thing was safely set up in its shooting position.One of the only shots that I have of the water tank in operation. I wasn’t really supposed to be there while they were shooting.This was a nightmare of a job… tearing down the whole assembly after the shoot so all the bits and pieces could be returned. Since I wasn’t around for the setup, this involved a lot of guesswork, and almost everyone ran for home after the final shot- leaving only myself and one or two people to clean up the mess. Fortunately Scotty was still there, who really took charge and told me what to do, and we got the job done in the end.
BGilbertSound 
You must be logged in to post a comment.