Well, the short, but action-packed shoot of Andrew Cymek's "Dark Rising" sequel and television series, which I was very lucky to be a part of, has nearly wrapped-up. Only a couple of days of shooting left and both ambitious projects will be "in the can" as it were.

Even though the production started a little later than expected (having the opening wedding sequence of the film take place on a chilly fall day, or quiet outdoor conversations take place in subzero temperatures wasn't the original intention by any means), was working off a microscopic combined budget, and ended with a very basic crew of around eight tireless people, amazingly, the quality and quantiy did not suffer at all.

You know, it's something that I have believed all along: you don't need to spend bucketloads of money on frills and perks and with the right handful of people, you can plow through an amazing amount of filmed material; on the "Dark Rising" TV series, 20 script pages in around 75-100 slates (roughly 30-40 camera setups) has become the norm, and most of us are secretly disappointed when we deliver less. But everyone has a breaking point and I think we are nearing that, eagerly counting the hours until we wrap so we can all rest, but I still marvel at the idea that we've managed to accomplish so much in so little time. 

After a short break for the holidays, post-production begins — about the same huge amount of work to do, but at a slightly less frantic, quiet pace. "Dark Rising: The Savage Tales of Summer Vale" premieres on Superchannel in Canada sometime during the summer (appropriately, I guess), to be followed by the release of "Dark Rising 2" later in the year. If you still haven't checked out the first "Dark Rising", it's now on NetFlix I understand, and is available at your local video store (Canada and the U.S.).

I'd like to give a heartfelt thanks to producer/star Brigitte Kingsley (@beekingsley) and writer/director Andrew Cymek (@andrewcymek) for inviting me to be a part of the shoot and everyone in the cast and crew who made me feel so much at home here (in the city where I grew up, strangely enough). It's been a blast! And I think we managed to prove how good low budget filmmaking can be!

Speaking of Twitter ... (technically, I wasn't, but what the hell) ... today, and tomorrow, Saturday, December 19 are the last days wrapping the series and sequel so I will be ramping up to a mini-Tweet marathon (very much like my previous full Tweet Marathon Thing a few weeks ago), so drop on by http://www.twitter.com/zombiespirit if you have nothing better to do. And don't forget the "Dark Rising" sequel and TV series Twitter list, where you can follow a whole bunch of entertaining people from the cast and crew in one convenient place. It's the next best thing to actually being here (and probably a hell of a lot warmer too).