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TW Burger, ready to be an extra in Zombie Girl Diaries
Editor's note: Local writer Terry Burger had the opportunity to work as an extra in the zombie film being shot in the Chambersburg area, "Zombie Girl Diary." Public Opinion asked him to share his experiences.

--- I get around pretty well for a dead guy, if I do say so myself.

Well, not "dead" as in "somebody call the coroner," but dead as in "I'm a zombie." I got to be a zombie because film director/writer/actor/producer Mike Pine of Chambersburg invited me to be one for a day.

Pine has worked on several films as part of the crew, but this film, Zombie Girl Diary, is his baby. ZGD is centered on a mother and daughter trying to survive a world gone nutso because there are gobs of reanimated dead people staggering around trying to eat the living, thereby turning them into yet more zombies.

Understand that the film is clearly on the side of the living, as one would expect. Probably because zombies don't go to movies. But the un-dead should get a little sympathy, I'm here to tell you. It's no picnic being dead. There's a lot of sitting around in sticky, itchy makeup waiting for the director to be ready for you to go menace somebody.

Speaking of picnic, the bulk of the film is being filmed way the heck out in the boondocks, on Mountain Road, on a piece of property owned by Kevin and Michelle, good friends of Mike Pine. Kevin took the precaution of going around and warning the neighbors that there would be odd things happening in front yard, including people being shot at and bitten to death, but not to worry.

Pine's makeup equipment and some of the props lay spread out on a faded wooden picnic table beside the couple's house; a mini-airbrush compressor, serious-looking metal cases full of makeup, the odd latex gash and bullet-wound appliance waiting to be applied to leading zombies, a bucket of latex guts, and worse.

I was a little worried about Mikayla Wagaman, who is only 10 and is the title character in the film. I wondered how all this was going to affect her. Then I saw her sitting on the grass, surrounded by zombies drinking bottled water and sending text messages from their cell phones. A bug climbed onto her legs, and she screamed, jumped up, and brushed it off. "I HATE bugs!" she said. I stopped worrying.

I was a mere extra, basically moving scenery, so I didn't rate an appliance or rubber guts or anything like that, only makeup. I didn't have any lines to memorize. Apparently, zombie conversation is limited to "aaaarrrgh," said louder and with more feeling if the zombie is actually attacking a living person.

You don't see a lot of zombie actors pacing back and forth trying to get their lines right.

It's more a thing of attitude. Think about what a zombie is: a dead person reanimated by some mysterious force. The first zombie film (not counting "White Zombie" with Bela Lugosi in 1932) was "Dawn of the Dead," released in 1978. Its zombies were brought to life by radiation from a passing comet. Other films have blamed a mutant virus. So far as I know, nobody has blamed fluoridated water or Pink Slime.

OK, so you're a corpse. You have no awareness. You are not the person who used to inhabit your body. You are nothing but a relentless, savage appetite on wobbly legs. Your only goal is to find victims, feed on them until they die, at which point they also become zombies or, possibly, members of Congress.

And you can't talk.

See? It's harder than it sounds.

Mike tells me to go see Tim to get made up. Tim, a hyper-energetic fellow from Hanover, confessed that Halloween is his favorite holiday, and he loves to dress up in costume, take part in "Haunts" of houses and parties, and stuff like that. He tells me to sit in a folding chair, lean my head back, and relax.


In no time at all Tim has smeared theatrical makeup all over the parts of me that stick out of my clothes. The stuff is thick, and makes me feel as though I have been spackled. It's like regular theater paint but made especially for people who want to be zombies.

A whole industry devoted to zombie paint. What a country.

Then come the various colored pencils to etch lines on my face and red lining around my eyes. If I were to be getting a close-up, I would be fitted with special contact lenses that would give my eyes a really eerie look, sort of like staring into the eyes of an Alaskan Husky, except Huskies don't say "aaaaargh."

Crystal Moats, who plays one of the important zombies in the film (I don't want to give too much away,) said the contacts feel a little weird and make things a bit blurry. Crystal's contacts had little red squiggly lines in them, and she also got a big latex appliance that made her neck look as though somebody had bitten a hunk out of it. She looked pretty awesome.

So, Tim has me stand up, and then fetches a jar with a two-inch paintbrush stuck in it. The stuff in the jar looks like strawberry jelly. "Close your eyes and your mouth, please," he says from about three feet away. I do, and he starts slinging the sticky goo all over me. It is colored corn syrup, i.e., blood. Then he steps closer and finesses the effect by painting me here and there with bigger gobs of the stuff.

This is the part where I remember that I left my change of clothes sitting at home, 30-some miles away. It was going to be a long trip back.

Tim finishes up with a jar of black zombie blood. He tells me to pour a bunch into my mouth, look straight up, and shove it out of my mouth with my tongue. I do. It is unexpectedly sweet. I had expected zombie blood to be bitter, all things considered. A lot of it runs into my shirt pocket, covering my cell phone's Bluetooth earpiece and my favorite Chubby's Barbecue ballpoint pen with dark purplish-black zombie blood.

Oh, well. Any sacrifice for Art.

I am done. I go find a place in the shade to sit and make small-talk with the other dead people. We watch Mike and his crew film a few scenes in which we are not needed. At one point we watch Gus Zucco, a real, live professional actor from New York City. Gus is a "method actor," and so stays in character almost the whole time, which is a little unnerving. He is so convincing that I suggest we check him for a pulse, thinking he might actually BE a zombie. I mean, he IS from New York City.

"No," he said. "But I spent about a year and a half riding commuter trains into the city. So, I've had a lot of time among the living dead."

Finally, it is time. My Big Scene. I am to walk from a certain point, right past the camera, and then around the corner and out of view. Behind me is a zombie in a priest's black suit and collar, and perhaps a dozen more of the undead staggered out behind the two of us. We all have to walk, seemingly without any purpose, to certain places.

Gus is rolling around in the dirt, growling, so as to have that worn-and-battered zombie look. I remind myself not to let him get too close. You can't be too safe.

"Quiet on the set!" Mike yells. "Action!"

Tim runs out, announces the scene and "take" numbers, and slams the clapper down. We the zombies begin our blank shuffles.

I move deliberately, trying to look like a re-animated corpse. I try to make my hands hang at an odd angle, fingers twitching as though in some sort of nervous spasm. I drag my right leg a little, because my knees are shot and that's pretty much the way I walk. I keep my head down a little, eyes turned up, in what I hope looks like dull menace. I keep my eyes fixed to a point on the hill behind the house so I don't catch anybody's eye and start giggling. As far as I know, zombies don't giggle.

The crew behind Mike seems to be intent on what they can see on the camera's screen. I walk past them, and give it another 10 feet, just to be sure. I stand up and breathe for probably the first time since the camera started rolling.

And then I realized what I had done.

I had forgotten to say "aaargh."

I'm finished.

There goes the Oscar.