Undead Walking
Fansided

The Walking Dead: Nicotero’s zombie school for Universal Studios attraction

By Susie Graham

ORLANDO, FL - OCTOBER 25: In this handout photo provided by Universal Orlando, Greg Nicotero, Co-Executive Producer and Director of Special Effects Make-Up Artist for AMC's 'The Walking Dead,' found himself surrounded by a horde of walkers at Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights 24 on October 25, 2014 in Orlando, Florida. During his visit to the event on October 25, Nicotero experienced the real-life terror of his own undead creations inside AMC's The Walking Dead: End of the Line haunted house. The Walking Dead: End of the Line is the biggest house in Halloween Horror Nights history featuring the largest cast of scareactors. It is one of this year's most popular haunted houses, surpassing guest ratings from both 2013's and 2012's incredibly popular experiences based on the hit television show. Universal's Halloween Horror Nights 24 runs on select nights now through November 1. For more information, visit: HalloweenHorrorNights.com/Orlando. (Photo by Roberto Gonzales/Universal Orlando via Getty Images)
ORLANDO, FL - OCTOBER 25: In this handout photo provided by Universal Orlando, Greg Nicotero, Co-Executive Producer and Director of Special Effects Make-Up Artist for AMC's 'The Walking Dead,' found himself surrounded by a horde of walkers at Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights 24 on October 25, 2014 in Orlando, Florida. During his visit to the event on October 25, Nicotero experienced the real-life terror of his own undead creations inside AMC's The Walking Dead: End of the Line haunted house. The Walking Dead: End of the Line is the biggest house in Halloween Horror Nights history featuring the largest cast of scareactors. It is one of this year's most popular haunted houses, surpassing guest ratings from both 2013's and 2012's incredibly popular experiences based on the hit television show. Universal's Halloween Horror Nights 24 runs on select nights now through November 1. For more information, visit: HalloweenHorrorNights.com/Orlando. (Photo by Roberto Gonzales/Universal Orlando via Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

Greg Nicotero himself hosted the zombie school for the actors hoping to scare the public in the new Universal Studios The Walking Dead Attraction opening this summer.

The permanent attraction will open at Universal Studios in Hollywood on July 4th. It’s a walk-through experience including live actors and animatronics. Greg Nicotero is involved in the process of making the experience authentic at all levels. (Via Entertainment Weekly)

"“For me, something that’s very exciting is being able to make the attraction as 100 percent authentic as possible. We’re getting a chance to do animatronic characters that we’ve never done before. We’re getting a chance to utilize molds that were created specifically for the show, and translate them into parts of the attraction. It’s one-of-a-kind, state-of-the-art. I can’t wait.”"

Nicotero’s latest contribution is running his zombie boot camp for the 100 or so actor hopefuls who made the cut from the more than 1,000 who auditioned to be walkers for the experience. Nicotero runs a zombie school every season in Georgia to discover a dozen or so walker to feature regularly on the show.

He had Joe Giles on hand as an example of a walker. He calls Joe “Patient Zero” because he’s been a walker on the show ever since the pilot. Joe was in full walker make up and wardrobe.  (Via Entertainment Weekly)

"“Authenticity is tremendously important to me in terms of how the walkers look and more specifically how they move. I want you guys to each bring your own personality to the character, but there’s a really unique body language that Joe brought to his performance that we adopted into the show. We don’t want every walker to appear to look the same.Keep your look focused; the walkers aren’t looking around for butterflies. Moving faster and locking in is better sometimes. We always talk about the idea when walkers are getting close to you, it’s like a lion hunting their prey, and they might get a bit more animated.”"

I hope the walkers had their best walker leans going. That’s my favorite part of the walker posture. The lean. The other classic walker thing for me is the turn toward noise. There’s a special way they turn the torso and ribcage at the waist without turning just the neck and head or just the eyes. There’s a whole body movement that’s pure walker beauty.

Next: All named character deaths of season 6

According to EW, there will be 3 weeks of rehearsal to make sure they are walker ready, including keeping up the energy, entrances and exits.

Fireworks and zombies! Happy 4th of July!

Home/News