House of Horrors.com caught up with George at the offices of the Weinstein Company in New York City last week.  He was in town to promote his latest film, DIARY OF THE DEAD (not to be confused with the 1976 film of the same name with Hector Elizondo), a terrific return to his roots which is scheduled to open in limited release on February 15, 2008.  Look for a review of DIARY this week here on House of Horrors.com. 

George is a congenial and approachable man who seems surprised at being regarded as the creator of the modern zombie film.  The self-described Michael Moore of Horror, George discussed his new film, his career and the newer methods by which filmmakers are making films today. 

Jonathan Stryker:  Do you see the emergence of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT-style of filmmaking becoming more prevalent now with the advent of better and more economically-priced high definition 24p cameras? 

George Romero: Well, BLAIR WITCH was a while ago, and I'm surprised that a lot of people are still referring to that.  Yeah, it seems to me a bit of a new world, this CLOVERFIELD-style.  Maybe it is part of this whole new wave of filmmaking. 

Jonathan Stryker:  It seems that a previously cost-prohibitive world of opportunity has opened up to filmmakers now.  With the release of films like Adam Rifkin's LOOK which is told through surveillance cameras, and Matt Reeves' CLOVERFIELD, which is similar to BLAIR WITCH in its use of P.O.V. by eschewing conventional narrative techniques to tell the “story” as it's actually happening, it seems that there's a big thrust to get the “here-and-now” of information on video, especially in the context of your latest film. 

George Romero:  With DIARY, as far as the hand-held stuff is concerned, that was the only way to go.  It is essentially about everyone becoming reporters.  With movies like (Brian De Palma's) REDACTED and others like CLOVERFIELD and a few others that are out there, everyone seems to be aware of the camera upon us.  “I am a camera,” you know?  It's really just a lot of unmanaged viewpoint all over the place.  It's aware of the blogsophere, it's an awareness that people are out there throwing information at us.  Or least opinion.  You know, that's the real danger. 

Jonathan Stryker:  How do you like shooting on high-definition?  Do you prefer to shoot on film?

George Romero:  I like it very much.  It's much easier to do.  And particularly in the case of DIARY, we had 20 days to shoot it.  And the whole object in shooting any movie is to get off the set as quickly as possible.  Anything that expedites and helps you do that is great.  Just getting in and getting out and getting off the set because being on the set is what is costing you money, man.  It's much easier to light also.  You can light it flat and then fix it later on in postproduction, it's really amazing.  There's almost no limit to what you can do with it.  I love the look of film, really.  But, in order to light for film, you really do have to cram the set a certain way and when time is of the essence you simply don't have that luxury.  You really have to get a shot because all you can really do later is affect it in an overall way.  When we shot LAND OF THE DEAD we shot on 35mm but we transferred all of the material onto high-definition and we did post-production on high-definition.  So, we were able to do a lot more with it in post than we would have on film.  But actually shooting the raw material in high-definition is incredible, because basically what you have is raw.  You can do anything you like with it!  You can add shadows to where there weren't any or you can lighten another character's face; you can make that corner of the room darker. 

Jonathan Stryker:  The sort of versatility must be wonderful. 

George Romero:  Oh, it's terrific!  Because you can just get in there and just shoot the scene flat. 

Jonathan Stryker:  (agreeing) No elaborate lighting needed. 

George Romero:  Yeah, just give me an exposure, and then fix it later on!  And also, computer graphics (CG), you know, you point a gun at the zombie and then add in the blood splatter later on.  Now, I'm a purist among global mechanical stuff such as squibs and all the materials that we use for creepy scenes.  However, that style of filmmaking takes time on a film set.  The squib explodes and splatters against an area where it wasn't intended, so now you have to clean the actor up, redress the set, and pretty soon 45 minutes have gone by and it's costing you money.  So it's so much easier shooting on high-definition and adding in effects later – it's a real time-saver.  That's one of the main advantages to shooting in high-definition.  I really do love the look of film.  But, high-definition, you can get it to look real close to film these days.  And I've never been a purist in that way.  You know, people always say you have to see a movie “big”.  We don't make movies “big”, we make movies watching them on the set on a small monitor.  (laughs)  How come they have to see it “big”?  (laughs) 

Jonathan Stryker:  Did you do any of the actual shooting of this film yourself?

George Romero:  No, not at all.  I did this pretty much the same way I did all of my other films.  I watch the action on a video monitor.  In some instances, the actual actors and actresses did their own shooting, but for the most part it was me off in the corner and I'm watching a video monitor.

Jonathan Stryker:  How did you cast the film?

George Romero: We looked at a lot of people whom we just cast the way we normally would.  We had them audition for us.  Shawn Roberts was in LAND OF THE DEAD, so I had worked with him before, and another actor in the military scenes I had know from before.  The rest of the cast were people who came to casting sessions.  And the reason why we cast young people is because the script really called for college students. Which brings up another point: I basically did DIARY because I wanted a vacation.  Despite the fact that Universal let me make the film I wanted to with LAND OF THE DEAD, it was a very grueling shoot.  So, I originally was going to make DIARY as part of a film school project.  I was going to make it at Full Sail, which is a film school in Orlando, FL that I have lectured at from time to time and I also taught a film class there.  I was going to go down there, man, and hit up a couple of dentists for about a quarter of a million dollars and make this film completely under the radar.  It was going to be a DVD release, if it got released at all.  I wanted to go down there literally into it as a student project and see what would happen.  I was going to roll the dice on that.  And it's really only because I wanted to reclaim whatever that energy was, you know, when I was first starting to work in doing it with friends and doing it for the love of it because of what we wanted to do at the time.  I just wanted to reclaim that.  So, we did DIARY for $2.5M.

Jonathan Stryker:  Will your next film be a continuation of the zombie theme?  Do you plan to follow up this film with something similar?

George Romero:  I don't know.  If there's a sequel to this film it will be a direct sequel for the first time.  Other films that I have made are not direct – you know, the characters aren't the same, but the phenomenon sort of goes on where the zombies are sort of evolving in the first one.  I could see doing a parallel development here if there is another one.  There is talk right now of doing a sequel. 

Jonathan Stryker:  Where do you see the progression of the zombie theme from this point? 

George Romero:  I don't know.  I don't care.  (laughs)  To me, the zombies are – I love playing with the idea of developing some…not intelligence, but developing some more motor skills.  Basically working with memory and being able to function. 

Jonathan Stryker: Reasoning, perhaps?

George Romero:  Well, I don't know about reasoning, but at least being able to function.   But other than that, the zombies are just The Disaster, they don't particularly represent anything – they could be a hurricane, they could be an avalanche, or whatever.  They are just TheDdisaster that is out there, you know?  My films are about how the people cope with it, or how they fail to cope with it.  And that to me is the most interesting aspect of it.  The zombies are just always out there.  (mock fright and ghoulish laugh)  There's this storm outside!   

Jonathan Stryker:  George, thank you for your time!

George Romero:  Hey, no problem, man!