About Us

Bus of the Undead Films is committed to the production of high quality, high entertainment short films. From humble beginnings in 2003 as Danger Cart Films, we have continued to produce critically acclaimed and popular award winning short films. We mostly went to/are still going to the University of Otago. While some of us have moved into more gainful employment, or even left the city, we continue to hold a passion for making films. During the five years we have collaborated our technical skills have increased markedly. We have expanded our productions to include live action, animation, musical scoring, sound effects, post production, costumes, props, web development, and DVD content creation and authoring.

The awards we have won, lovingly referred to as 'Freds'.

History (how the travesty began)

In December 2002 a group of us were having a few beers and came up with an idea for a film which, once we started moving our collective arses in June 2003 would become our first movie - Sex With Mr. Collins.

Despite everyone telling us it was going to suck, that we wouldn't get it done and that what we did have was shit, it was actually quite good. We won two awards at the campus film festival, and have had a ton of positive feedback. While it looks like shit, it is pretty funny to this day. It has since been played at the Dunedin Fringe Festival (thanks, John Ong). Perhaps most interestingly (or stupidly, depending on who you ask), we began advertising our film before we had even shot it - you can even see some of our advertising in the film. How is that for breaking the wall?

2003's Sex With Mr. Collins

With dreams of glory in our heads John and Daniel after a few beers and a long walk home from a friend's 21st Birthday come up with another script (Kind of). What we actually had initially was Daniel singing about John's cat which had a drooling problem. This song which consisted of the inspired lyrics 'Dribbly Meow Meow, Dribbly Meow Meow' was soon declared the theme tune for a cartoon trilogy we wrote that very night. And when I say wrote, we had about half a page on Word. Thankfully by the time Dribbly Meow Meow screened we had dropped the theme tune and our trilogy became a single episode. Concept drawings began in December 2003 and Daniel began animating in January 2004. And by began, we mean for the very first time. Ever. With a very loose idea on cell based animation from a 'making of Footrot Flats' show that Daniel saw when he was about 6 or 7, he dived into Flash.

Dribbly rocked the party, or at least according to the audience at the film festival - it won the people's choice award. Really, it was probably because no one had tried anything like that before at the festival. It certainly wasn't as funny as Sex With Mr. Collins. It just looked better.

2004's Dribbly Meow Meow

So on to 2005. Everybody was busy as heck, so what seems like a good idea - more movies. Three more to be precise. We started with the creation of an art film, a project we had talked about a few times in 2004 but decided to finally do. John came up with the title 'Unquarried Landmass' at a bar in the Octagon during a classics conference - the perfect incongruous name for our abstract film. So on Easter weekend we got our crap together and started filming. Remy was a good sport and performed all sorts of crazy tasks (try explaining to an 8 year old why you want her to play hopscotch in a cemetery, or what the point of rubbing sun block into a television is). She wasn't particularly fond of the face paint, but she managed to do it and overall the footage was, well, weird. But I guess that was what we were going for. Scott was brought on board to do a soundtrack for it and many hours were spent after we filmed doing the editing. I think the plane shot took something absurd like 45 minutes to render each time. The shot itself was about 30 seconds. Being the perfectionist I am, I usually had to change something after each render that I decided I didn't like. Very time consuming. A big shout out to all who helped with this film, on and off screen, we asked you to do some pretty stupid stuff.

2005's Unquarried Landmass

The next project we worked on was 1692: The Salem Witch Trials. A pretentious name, I know, but it was a conscious choice. The idea formed during a classics happy hour in about June 2004, we didn't film it for another year. It expanded a little during this time to really underline the ending, which I think worked out well. There was a tonne of pre production stuff involved - I knew that we were going to be filming on location with a few people and didn't want to waste their time so I tried (in vain it seems) to have everything planned. We hand made our costumes (well I should say Lauren and Cass hand made them) and they looked amazing! Even Brian's earrings were hand made. We also tried to dress the set to make it look creepy, while that didn't show up so much because we mainly used very tight shots on Odette, it made for some awesome shots which were used on the DVD. This was also the first time we ever used Pyrotechnics! That was a mission in itself. On the day of filming it was a terrible frost and therefore a treacherous drive. But most of all it meant that Odette had the bluest hands you will see on camera short of a smurf. We were in the shade almost all day in already cold conditions and everyone was cold, but she had it the worst. Thanks for being a good sport! Once we finally had it in the can it was cut together and quickly revealed that it was absurdly short. We also had to go out with Odette again and re-film a couple of her close ups which weren't quite close enough. These new shots were much better. Scott spent a lot of time on the soundtrack for this one and while it was down to the wire, it came out far beyond my expectations - it was truly robbed of the best score award. We played as the last movie on the last night of screening at the 2005 Mothra film festival. Rob, the organiser said that was a pretty prestigious slot. While we didn't win a lot of awards (always the bridesmaid, never the bride) we still came out very happy with the audience response.

2005's 1692: The Salem Witch Trials

We did however manage to pull off one little surprise. John and Daniel worked very covertly to create a short animation called Vive La Dugong. Daniel had an idea to do a cartoon about a depressed hippo and discussed this with John on the half hour walk to campus. When they met up later in the day, John suggested changing the animal to a Dugong and suggested the name Didier. At this point Daniel was doing a French accent and came up with the infamous line 'I fucking hate zem'. Thus was our underwater adventure born. Absolutely absurd in nature, it did have a catchy theme and produced a lot of laughter at the festival. The fact that no-one at all knew anything about it added to the overall impression it left on people. Not bad for a weeks work.

2005's Vive La Dugong

In November 2005, Martin made an off hand comment about a Rugby player whose last name was Te Whare, which translates form Maori to English as 'The House'. Soon comments such as 'The house always wins' and 'Bring down the house' were being thrown about with wild abandon. From this humble beginnings Te Whare and Te Furious was born.

Te Whare and Te Furious was conceived as a blaxploitation film, and was going to be presented in the form of an Action Trailer. Not only did this allow us to fit in as many ridiculous lines featuring the term 'House' as we wanted, but it also allowed us to be flexible with the story and shots being used. We filmed intermittently from November 2005 right through to July 2006. Skim Milk was on board from the get go, and really got into the swing of things with our Blaxploitation epic. His flair for music really stood out in the fantastic Te Whare soundtrack. Te Whare and Te Furious was an excellent learning experience for us in many ways, utilising numerous new techniques. We had never really shot an action film before, and had never done fight scenes, which raised all sorts of issues. In addition we were shifting to a new manual camera which we had to learn to use. Most significantly we began using an extensive array of post production techniques which surpassed anything we had done in the past. From digital colour grading, to compositing muzzle flash, Te Whare and Te Furious had the lot. As our visual climax we featured a shot of an exploding train station, which featured the fantastic matte painting of newcomer Mike. We were so impressed by the matte paintings that an entirely new sequence with a car racing across a dam-top was made for the trailer to take advantage of what Mike had to offer. Te Whare and Te Furious was heavily publicised (although it wasn't planned that way) and ended up getting two awards at the 2006 Mothra Film Festival. More information about the making of Te Whare and Te Furious, including a production diary, shots of the matte paintings, and publicity photos, is on the Te Whare and Te Furious page. More information regarding the 2006 awards night is here.

2006's Te Whare and Te Furious

In April 2006 it was mooted that we enter the 48Hours Furious Filmmaking competition. Strangely the crew agreed that entering was a good idea. The competition rolled around in late May, and the Bus of the Undead crew were given the genre of puppet. Our entry was Hank Nova: Galactic Defender, a retro sci fi serial pastiche. The sets and puppets were fantastic for a 48 Hour effort. Skim Milk put in monumental effort and came up with an astounding soundtrack for the film within the competition time frame. Sadly technical issues in the final hour culminated in the film being about 10 minutes late for the crucial 48Hours deadline. Despite this set back, Hank Nova was a fun short to make, and everyone was able to really get in and have a go. The crew were resolute to have another go in 2007 and do an even better job. More information regarding Hank Nova, and the entire 48Hours experience can be found on the Hank Nova page.

2006's Hank Nova: Galactic Defender

On top of the other film projects, 2006 also saw the release of our very first documentary entitled Get Rich or Roll the Die Trying. The topic of our foray into the world of documentary was tabletop war gaming in Dunedin, and revolved around the 2006 SouthCon tournament. We shot extensively at the tournament and conducted a number of interviews with competitors. Unfortunately the sound quality coming from the on location footage left a lot to be desired. The use of subtitles became an unfortunate necessity. Despite lacking in the sound department, we were rather pleased with how the whole thing looked. Our use of inlaid images worked well and helped emphasise the scope of the event. The work of Skim Milk was once more featured, and the credits sequence we created won 'Best Credits' at the Mothra Film Festival. The film was well received and featured as the last film to play on Thursday at the 2006 festival.

2006's Get Rich or Roll the Die Trying

To see what we've been up to from 2007 onwards check out the latest films on our films page.