We F.E.W, a local group for filmmakers, is hosting a 10th anniversary celebration at the Garland Theater for a popular TV show filmed in Spokane.
In “Z Nation,” apocalypse survivors attempt to cure the disease that brought on the zombie hordes.
Show creator Karl Schaefer and his son Daniel Schaefer — who worked on the series and helped found We F.E.W. — said Spokane was a perfect place to shoot the series, which takes place all over America.
"You've got desert, mountains, lakes. We've doubled the Spokane River for the Mississippi and the Palouse Falls for the Grand Canyon and Los Angeles and New York and every place else," the elder Schaefer said. "So, it's a fantastic place to shoot. And I'm shocked more people don't film here."
SPR Morning Edition Host Owen Henderson sat down with the Schaefers to talk about the show and anniversary festivities.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
OWEN HENDERSON: Karl, as one of the show creators, what's it like to look back now, 10 years later, on just how far Z Nation came in its five seasons?
KARL SCHAEFER: Oh, well, and how far Spokane has come in the time we've been here. When we started back in 2012, 2013, the recession was going, and there [were] a lot of empty businesses and places like that. And as the show stayed here and got more successful, we sort of grew up along with Spokane, and things got better as we went.
It's a great place to shoot because of the people, also. When you shoot in Los Angeles, or a lot of places that you film, people are very cynical about it. They're tired of having a film crew in their neighborhood. Whereas here, everybody just loved to see us and was all part of the show.
And we used about 2000 zombies a season. So there's almost nobody in town who doesn't have a relative or hasn't actually been one of our zombies. And so it's fun to go around and have people recognize you in a grocery store, but I don't recognize them because they were a zombie when I saw them. So that's a lot of fun.
DANIEL SCHAEFER: Well, then in addition to the zombie of it all, the core of our artists and artisan crew was Spokanites, that we didn't have to bring in an entire team from out of state the way you do in a lot of other markets, that there was a pre-existing crew here that Z Nation only helped grow.
And since those initial years, now there's a much more robust union crew that is able to handle projects of pretty much any size we can throw at them.
OH: Both Daniel and Karl, what were some moments and stories from the show creation and filming process that still stick with you?
KS: Well, some of the most fun we had was we shot at the MAC, the Museum of Arts here in town, and we actually built our sets. We were the show at the MAC for the summer. So we built our sets in their galleries and people could come watch us film.
And we used that as our base of operations and shot all over the museum as the billionaire's hideout during the apocalypse. And it was great to have people come and see because part of the show was, there was one gallery that was all the artwork that the artists who worked on the show in other capacities, you would see some of their art and what they did on the show as well and how that translated between the two things. So that was really fun.
And some of the stuff we used to — just every place we shot was funny. I mean, the first day shooting up here, I realized how into it the zombie extras were. We were shooting — it's the scene in the pilot where there's a bunch of dead zombies floating in the water. And they all of a sudden get spooked, and they jump up and chase after our characters.
And so we had extras who were laying face down in the muddy water and they did not complain. They just loved it. They were just totally into it.
And you start wide. You shoot the wide shot; then you keep moving in. And so as we're filming the scene, a lot of the zombies laying in the water face down were no longer in the shot as we moved in.
But they wanted to — I'd say, ‘You're not in the shot anymore. You can get up.’
And [they’d] go, ‘No, no, no. You might want to turn around. I'll stay here.’
So the other people — they were so into it. And then that night when we were going home, I was one of the last people leaving the location. We were shooting out in the woods.
And I noticed one of the one of our zombies still in full makeup hitchhiking. And I'm going, ‘Do you need a ride home?’
He goes, ‘No, no, no. I'm waiting here to scare somebody.’
And a lot of our zombies would go home in their makeup to scare their kids and their family and just show off.
DS: And it became a rite of passage that the first time you were a zombie — the makeup ladies came up with this and they would give you the option of like, ‘Listen, we'll take you out of your makeup. Or if you want to really have some fun, just hit a drive through on the way home in full zombie makeup.’
And again, to that sort of thing, like Karl's the showrunner offering a guy a ride. That is a very typical sort of thing of the mentality of that we were all in this together.
And so we were all more than happy to wear any hat and dive in, and across the five seasons, you'll see everyone from the showrunners, directors, even a couple of senators who came and visited the set, throwing on the zombie makeup and having a good time.
OH: Now, Daniel, talk to me about what's happening at the Garland Theater on Sunday for the anniversary celebrations.
DS: Yeah, we're partnering with them to do a 10-year anniversary event and turning it into sort of a full afternoon of local filmmaking fun.
So we start at 2 o'clock. We're going to do a sort of a community panel. And instead of just having sort of the bigwigs there to talk — [we’ll] have as many bigwigs as we can, but then also if you worked on the show in any capacity, if you were an extra, if you were in art department, if you were a driver, if you were — whatever you did to help make that show, because it is a collaborative process, we want you there talking about your experience with [us.]
Again, we have this amazing kind of small army of newcomers who get very excited by seeing that there is a way to make that union career in a city like Spokane where the cost of living is what it is and you don't have to deal with the L.A./New York nonsense of it all in order to have like a really creatively satisfying career.
So 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., we're doing sort of this community panel.
Four to six p.m., we're doing our usual monthly mixer and giving everyone a chance to mingle. Jasmine at Bon Bon’s helping us put together an amazing sort of zombie-themed cocktail and mocktail menu, which will be super fun.
And then at 6:30 p.m., we're doing our screening and we're going to screen, funny enough, what we use as the Season 3 opener. It's sort of one of our favorite standalone episodes because it functions as sort of the made for TV zombie, Z Nation movie.
So episode 301, “No Mercy,” which is a really, really cool episode that Karl and I co-wrote that opened season three and that we shot almost entirely at Kaiser Aluminum in the old abandoned foundry up in Mead.
So it's a really, really cool piece to sort of show, in a lot of ways, Z Nation at its best and at its most exciting and enthusiastic, both at a crew level, a cast level and just a community level. So, yeah, it's a chance for everyone to get together and sort of swap stories and talk about where we went and what we did and then what comes next.
OH: Daniel Schaefer, Karl Schaefer, thank you so much for sitting down with me for this chat.
KS: Thank you.
DS: Thank you for having us.
