Walking Dead Season 1 was a Game of the Year winning title in 2012. It tells the story of convict Lee Everett, recently freed by the zombie apocalypse, and his bond with a young girl, Clementine. It was my first opportunity to do a smattering of writing and design, and to co-direct an episode (Episode 5: No Time Left). I’m extremely proud to have been a part of this game.
I shot many scenes through the season, but below is one scene from each episode that I feel is best representative of my work.
Episode 1: A new Day
“Drugstore Collapse”
Toward the end of the first episode, Lee and company find themselves holed up in a drugstore that used to belong to his parents. When they open the back room to get much needed medicine for one of their crew, the alarm rings and brings every zombie in Macon crashing down on them.
The scene was the climax of Episode 1: A New Day.
Episode 2: starved for help
“Dinner”
This sequence, where Lee discovers that dinner downstairs is made of human meat just as it’s being served to his friends, was a difficult challenge and an exercise in tension.
I spent a lot of time on the blocking and staging to figure out the exact most tense version, with Andy St. John sitting right next to Clementine, to make sure the player felt pressure to be calm.
I also shot a significant portion of the end episode fight at the Dairy Farm.
Episode 3: Long Road Ahead
“Shot in the Dark”
Possibly the favorite among my own scenes, the shocking death in this sequence took a lot of editing to achieve. Subtle things like the tick of the flashers increase tension, and the misdirect just before the shooting helped this scene shock a lot of people.
Episode 5: No Time Left
“Epilogue”
As co-director of this episode I did not end up working on Episode 4: Around Every Corner, nor did I do any scenework.
For episode 5, No Time Left, I was lucky enough to work on the epilogue. The scene, shown at the very end of the episode, helped encapsulate both the dread and hope Clementine faces in an uncertain future, alone. Late in the production of the episode we changed the hopeful dawn color palette to the bright, unforgiving day, yet another symbol that any remnant of Clem’s childhood is gone.