Creating 'Beauty of Decay' Takes More Than Knowledge of Entertainment Industry

"Having a real understanding of history, literature, science and psychology is very important to being able to make movies." 

George Lucas


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Irish Pilots High Risk for UFO

 

Ireland is a “hotspot” for alien activity and many Irish pilots have risked death to avoid colliding into extraterrestrial spacecraft, according to UFO experts.

Carl Nally, founder of UFO and Paranormal Research Ireland, says that he’s met several pilots who have had close encounters with UFO.

“Most of them say that, as they were coming in to land, they were diverted around this cloud, which had a solid object inside it,” he told the Sun.

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Exciting Ideas and Art of 'Beauty of Decay'

"Making movies can be a creative exciting project for director and rest of staff. "To me thoughts and art are fun. The strength of our society should not be idle entertainment but joy of pursing ideas"

Philip Kaufman


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Zombies in a ‘Dead Island’ Vacation

Zombie stories never have happy endings. So when the heroes of 2011’s “Dead Island” made it out alive, you knew there had to be a catch.

The catch is that any video game that isn’t a complete flop gets a follow-up these days. And as “Dead Island Riptide” (Deep Silver, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, $49.99; PC, $39.99) begins, the zombie virus has infected the ship that rescued the survivors — and they soon wash up on another undead-infested tropical paradise, called Palanai.

So it’s time for the old gang — Rapper Sam B, hotel clerk Xian, ex-cop Purna and jock Logan, along with a newbie, a Navy cook named John — to sharpen their machetes and get back to work. You can play as any one of the quintet, and you can team up with friends online to try to even the odds against the ravenous hordes.

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Enjoying the Beauty of 'Decay'

Liking what you do is important in all types of work. Passion for the craft fuels excellence. "Every time I go to a movie it is magic no matter what the movie is about."

Steven Spielberg


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A Personal Paranormal Experience

 

FOLLOWING the huge success of its first season, My Ghost Story Asia (MGSA) is back with Season 2. The series features first-hand accounts of supernatural experiences.

From inauspicious accidents in haunted spaces to disturbing confrontations, eight scary episodes are told through re-enactments, interviews, archival photography and even evidence captured on video.

Currently showing in Singapore, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, it airs here every Thursday on Bio (Astro channel 731) at 9.30pm. Actress Tiffany Leong shares her paranormal experience in the series.

It was reported that there were a few incidents of spiritual encounters at the location site of season two. Did these have an effect on you?

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Respect and Camaraderie Rule 'Beauty of Decay' Production

"I try to create an atmosphere that is comfortable enough to remove tension and everyone feels free. If they feel free behavior happens, small moments happens and that's what ultimately works best for me." 

Barry Levinson

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The Walking Dead’s Chad Coleman Opens Up on Zombies

 

Tyreese has become an increasingly popular character on AMC’s The Walking Dead, and looks to play a key role in the upcoming season. If you’re headed to the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) this weekend, you’ll have a shot to see Chad Coleman, the actor who plays Tyreese, talk about just that.

Coleman heads up a special “Zombie Talk” panel on Saturday at 8:15 in Room W474. Come armed with your Walking Dead questions, but if you’re a huge Coleman fan, he’ll also be talking about his entire career, including everything from Horrible Bosses, Green Hornet, Left 4 Dead 2 and The Wire.

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Believing That 'Beauty of Decay' is The Best Film Yet to Come

“Films are subjective-what you like, what you don’t like. But the thing for me that is absolutely unifying is the idea that every time I go to the cinema and pay my money and sit down and watch a film go up on-screen, I want to feel that the people who made that film think it’s the best movie in the world, that they poured everything into it and they really love it. Whether or not I agree with what they’ve done, I want that effort there-I want that sincerity. And when you don’t feel it, that’s the only time I feel like I’m wasting my time at the movies.”

                                                                                                       – Christopher Nolan


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Hipster Zombies Invade iOS

Hipster Zombies has made its way to iOS devices with style! In this fun zombie title, the undead not only crave brains but fashionable vintage clothing. Defend your home from these fashion victims and beat them to death with their own junk… vinyl records?

From the Press Release

The young German independent game developer Sharkbomb Studios is bringing it’s debut game Hipster Zombies to Apple iOS devices. After having only been available on Android it is now available to mac-loving hipsters all over the world. Starting today the brain-blowing game is available for iPhones 3GS and newer, all iPads and the iPod Touch starting with the 4th generation. 

In this light-hearted arcade action game you need to defend your neighborhood against invading hordes of zombified hipsters. In the night they shamble towards your block looking for brains and vintage clothes. If you can’t stop them they will tear down your barricades and ruin your home. Can you hold them back until sunlight? And can you do it with nothing but trash for weapons? 

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'Beauty of Decay' Awaiting to Shine from Team Effort

A Team Effort is a Lot of People Doing What I Say.


                                                              - Michael Winner



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Zombies Gets to University of Michigan

                                     

Students Shara Evans, of West Bloomfield, Mich., left, and Maia Frieser, of New York, act during a “zombie

At least that’s what a University of Michigan professor hopes her 31 graduate students took away from Tuesday’s bizarre, albeit bloody, “zombie apocalypse.” The classroom exercise was designed to get School of Public Health students thinking about what the appropriate response should be during a disaster.

Four times as many students who typically attend Epidemiology 651, “Epidemiology and Public Health Management of Disasters,” were on hand Tuesday to welcome — or become — the undead. The zombie exercise was modeled after a curriculum designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a handful of CDC staffers also participated.

“‘Zombie apocalypse’ sounds a bit silly, but the point of this is to show that if we’re prepared for any hazard, even the unimaginable hazards, like zombies — because we know they don’t exist — we are capable of preparing ourselves for perhaps anything that might occur,” said Dr. Eden Wells, the epidemiology professor who teaches the course and serves as the brains behind the exercise.

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With Struggles Come Success For 'Beauty of Decay' Film Saga

                                   Film is a battleground.

                                                            - Sam Fuller


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California’s ‘Ghost Town’ Gives a Little Insight on Its Past

 

It’s not every day we come across an abandoned home — especially not one like the “Murphy House” in Bodie, California’s “ghost town.”

What was once considered a thriving mining community in the Bodie Hills, has been left a desolate strip of abandoned homes, taverns and other structures after the last mine had closed in the 1940s. According to Urban Ghost Media, several visitors have reported supernatural experiences here, including specter sightings.
While we would be too chicken to visit this place at night, we can’t help but wonder about all that went down in this tiny, eerie abode when the town wasn’t so, well, haunted.

Click through our slideshow to see photos of other famous haunted houses. And be sure to head over to Urban Ghost Media and California State Parks’ website for more information.

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Lasting Impression That Will Come From 'Beauty of Decay'

Pain is temporary, film is forever!


                                 - John Milius



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Zombies Reminisce Their Odyssey

It’s remarkable to still have with us. And rather unimaginable, really. They first broke up in 1968, just before their seminal second album, Odessey and Oracle, was released. They never really sold any records in back home in England, but in 1964 and ’65, they had two hits in the U.S. with “She’s Not There” and “Tell Her No.” A third hit, “Time of the Season,” made it to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969, well after the band was broke and disbanded.

More than 30 years later, two of the band’s founding members began a tentative reunion. Rod Argent, whom you’ll see most often behind a keyboard, and singer Colin Blunstone have rekindled The Zombies from time to time since then, but this isn’t a nostalgia trip. They’re really good, and the new music they make, including their 2011 release Breathe Out, Breathe In, is more than respectable. It’s a joy to hear.

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'Beauty of Decay' is Ultimately Telling a Story

I was always a filmmaker before I was anything else. If I was always anything, I was a storyteller, and it never really made much of a difference to me what medium I worked in.
 
                                                                                                             - Nicholas Meyer


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Top 25 Iconic Zombies

 

The Walking Dead is about a lot of things. It’s about leadership, and variances in leadership styles; it’s about making tough choices and sacrifices; it’s about the human will to survive, despite all evidence that full-scale annihilation is not only possible, but probable – and imminent. Lest we forget, though, it’s also about zombies! Glorious, gory zombies.

In compiling this list we were looking for zombies that were either iconic, a creative and/or technical feat, or represented a significant moment for the characters and/or plot. Considering the special make-up effects on this series are second to none, we found plenty that were all of the above.

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Filming 'Beauty of Decay' is a Continuous Learning Process

I think one of the privileges of being a filmmaker is the opportunity to remain a kind of perpetual student.
                              
                                                                                                                                                         - Edward Zwick


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It All Starts With Rabies for Vampires and Zombies

                               

“What disturbs me is I smashed his mouth off, I smashed his teeth in, but he still wanted to continue in the attack mode. I was terrified at [its] resilience.”

This gory description could have been one of many zombie survivor stories from the novel World War Z, but it’s actually a man’s factual description the tenacity of a rabid raccoon he beat to death with a hammer in the non-fiction book Rabid. Many people are familiar with Max Brooks’ 2006 best-seller World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (soon to be a film starring Brad Pitt), a novel about a global pandemic. People are probably less familiar with the 2012 non-fiction book by Wired Senior Editor Bill Wasik and veterinarian Monica Murphy, Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus 9 (a 5,000 word excerpt can be found here). If Rabid walks us through humanity’s two thousand year history of trying (and failing) to cure this horrifying disease, World War Z shows us what the consequences of failing could be.

 

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Things Aren't Always What They Seem in 'Beauty of Decay' Film Saga

A theme that has always interested me is the difference between how thing appear and how they are. Image versus reality, etc.
 
                                                                                     --Curtis Hanson

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Local Filmmaker Digs Deep Into ‘Orbs’

Local filmmaker Dane McCarthy’s last two offerings have dealt respectively with the mysterious creature Mothman, and with the notion that the 9-11 attacks were, as the saying goes, an “inside job.”

Sticking with the fearlessly offbeat, McCarthy latest film, “Ripped from Life,” addresses the question of “orbs” – mysterious globes of phantom light that sometimes show up in videos and still photos. The film, which won Best Documentary at the 2012 ITN Distribution film and Webisode Festival in Los Angeles, will be screened at ARTS/West in Athens Sunday at 7 p.m.

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The Different Chapters of 'Beauty of Decay' Yet to be Unveiled

It's all just one film to me. Just different chapters.
 
                                                      --Robert Altman



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Humans Up Against Zombies

 

A hoard of  humans and zombies battled for dominance during UAF’s first annual Human vs. Zombies event hosted by Residence Life.

Starting out with 201 humans and one zombie on April 5, the end of the first day brought had 8 zombies. With the most people playing at 252 players, the week long battle ended April 12 at 5 p.m. with a final stand by the humans in a losing effort.

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Challenges Reinvent 'Beauty of Decay' Film Saga

What I look for in a script is something that challenges me, something that breaks new ground, something that allows me to flex my director muscle. You have got to think fast in this business, you've got to keep reinventing yourself to stay on top.

                                                                                                      --Michael Bay

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Safe Haven From Zombies

If and when the zombie apocalypse happens, a hipster hot spot like Brooklyn or San Francisco is the worst place to be.
No, you want wide open spaces where you can spot the brain-eating zombie hordes from a distance and take action towards self-preservation.

It turns out there are at least five state parks that are definitely great spots to hide from zombies, according to Parks By Nature, a multimedia network catering to outdoor enthusiasts.

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The Magic Awaits From 'Beauty of Decay' Film Saga

Art is a sense of magic.
 
               --Stan Brakhage




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Plants vs. Zombies Invades Books, eBooks

 

Following last’s year expansion into merchandise including toys, underwear (!), and more, EA’s PopCap is now taking its popular “Plants vs. Zombies” title to the printed (and e-inked) page. Penguin Children’s has acquired the physical and e-book publishing rights to the game, in a three-year deal.
The first books – Plants vs. Zombies Official Guide, The Official Sticker Book, and the Plants vs. Zombies Joke book, will be published this summer, in August 2013.

Plants vs. Zombies has been downloaded over 120 million times since its release in 2009. It made a big comeback in March after the company made the paid title free, ahead of the release of a sequel due out later this year. As TechCrunch noted at the time, many game developers behind older, but still popular titles, on iOS are making their original games free, most notably Rovio, which also made the original version of Angry Birds free that same month.

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Creative Forces of 'Beauty of Decay'

 A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something. 

                             --Frank Capra


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Zombies Versus Vampires

Max Brooks, author of “World War Z,” is back in undead territory with the vampires versus zombies tale The Extinction Parade, an epic horror comic series through Avatar Press.

This massive 250+ page event teams Brooks with super-star illustrator, Raulo Caceres and is scheduled to debut in comic shops worldwide on June 19th, the day before World War Z opens in theaters.

The Extinction Parade is Brooks’ first all-original serialized comic book work and is positioned to be an instant genre classic. In a world where the zombie plague has put the human race on the endangered species list, another predatory undead species realizes that to stand by idly means the end of their food supply. Vastly outnumbered by the zombie hordes, vampires descend into all-out subdead war, with humanity caught in the crossfire.

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The Pursuit of Ideas for 'Beauty of Decay'

 

To me, thoughts are fun and art is fun. The strength of our society should not be idle entertainments but the joy of pursuing ideas. 

                                                                                                  --Philip Kaufman


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Zombies Turning to Facebook

It sounds terrifying. Baroness Susan Greenfield has proclaimed that “Facebook Home could change our brains”. Cue visions from Stephen King’s horror novel Cell, in which anyone using a phone instantaneously morphs into a ravenous zombie.

For now the streets are free from undead hordes, but that rumbling sound you hear is real. It’s the collective groan of the neuroscience community whenever the Baroness makes headlines. Those of us who study neuroscience and psychology regard Greenfield’s views on modern technology as stemming more from ideology than evidence. With every article or talk, Greenfield deepens her quasi-religious vision of a lost golden age before computers devoured our humanity.

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Writing 'Beauty of Decay' is Like Writing Poetry

My films are an extension of my poetry, using the white screen like the white page to be filled with images. 

                                                                        --James Broughton



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Philadelphia Holds First Zombie Run

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Philadelphia’s first zombie run was held in FDR Park in South Philadelphia Sunday.

By using make-up artists and the theatrical zombie theme, the 4,5000 runners taking part in the sold-out 5K event where they run as either zombies or living zombie prey.

Spokesperson Allysia Allan said the purpose is to have fun and help veteran charities through an organization known as Active Heroes.

After the relatively short run, people prepared to dance, eat, drink, and party.
The zombie run is held in 16 cities nationwide.

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'Beauty of Decay' can Leave a Lasting Impression

 

Film is incredibly democratic and accessible, it’s probably the best option if you actually want to change the world, not just re-decorate it.
 
                                                                                                   
                                                                                     -  Banksy


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Zombie Lesson 101

 

By any observable metric, zombies are totally hot right now. Look at movies like “Warm Bodies” and the coming “World War Z,” the ratings for AMC’s hit series “The Walking Dead” (12.9 million viewers for its recent season finale) and $2.5 billion in annual sales for zombie videogames. Over the past decade, between a third and a half of all zombie movies ever made have been released. A glance at Google GOOG -1.51% Trends reveals that in the past few years, interest in flesh-eating ghouls has far outstripped popular enthusiasm for vampires, wizards and hobbits.

Why are the living dead taking over our lives, and why have so many other domains of American culture, from architects to academics to departments of the federal government, been so eager to jump on this macabre bandwagon? Is it all just good, scary fun—or something we should worry about?

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Full Commitment Will Push the Success of 'Beauty of Decay' Film Saga

Commitment is the enemy of resistance, for it is the serious promise to press on, to get up, no matter how many times you are knocked down.

                                                                            - David McNally


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Upcoming 'Haunted Encounters'

 

Haunted Encounters is a ‘spine-tingling’ new series for the Bio channel which sees a team of investigators, known as the Paranormal Syndicate, visit some of America’s most haunted locations.

Their aim is to collect and record tangible evidence of ghostly activity. Armed with a variety of techniques to try and prove the hauntings do exist, the Syndicate is also joined by a specially trained canine investigator, Captain, a three-year-old yellow Labrador.

This first episode sees the Paranormal Syndicate head to Fall River, Massachusetts to explore the site of one of America’s most brutal murders. In 1892, Lizzie Borden was tried and acquitted for the axe murders of her father and step-mother, and it is thought that her ghost still resides in the infamous farmhouse that was scene to this slaying.

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Passion and Dedication Run 'Beauty of Decay' Film Saga

What I always tell people is… Unless you are so passionate about filmmaking that you would rather live out of your car than not do it, find something else to do as a career and do filmmaking as a hobby. This industry is one of the hardest to break into and be successful. It takes a lot of passion and dedication for it to get anywhere…
                                                                             
                                                                                                         - Ryan Connolly


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Zombies Go ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Style

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is a killer of zombies. Roll over, Jane Austen. Shakespeare’s great romance is the latest classic to get an undead makeover in Warm Bodies, a clever redefinition of the idea of star-crossed lovers.

Romeo died at the end of the play, as I recall. In Warm Bodies, that happens up front, before the movie even starts. The young man who will later be known only as ”R” (Nicholas Hoult) has shaken ”the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh”. He’s dead, in other words, but not in a good way.

He wanders aimlessly through the wrecked terminal of a modern airport. Other zombies mill about looking for someone to eat, but the living are scarce. It is eight years since an apocalypse killed most of the humans. The ones who survived are holed up in a fortress, encircled by an enormous wall. Their leader, General Grigio (John Malkovich) is a benevolent dictator who wages relentless war against the zombies, since they killed his wife. He sends raiding parties out at night to rescue supplies from the suburban wastelands.

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The Ability to Influence and Entertain are the Inspiration for 'Beauty of Decay' Film Saga

 

There is no reason why challenging themes and engaging stories have to be mutually exclusive – in fact, each can fuel the other. As a filmmaker, I want to entertain people first and foremost. If out of that comes a greater awareness and understanding of a time or a circumstance, then the hope is that change can happen.



                                       - Edward Zwick


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Zombies and Politics Don’t Blend Together in World War Z

It’s not often that you hear “zombies” and “politics” in the same sentence, but apparently there were some major issues keeping the two separate in the upcoming horror flick, World War Z!

In a recent interview, Brad Pitt, who stars in and produces the highly anticipated film, explained that they started shooting in hopes of exploring some new territory:

“At the time, I was really interested in a more political film, using the zombie trope as a kind of Trojan horse for asking, ‘What would happen to sociopolitical lines if there was a pandemic like this? Who would be on top? Who would be the powerful countries and who would be the most vulnerable?”

That definitely sounds interesting to us!

However, he went on to explain that it all began to be too much and it started taking away from what makes zombie movies so much fun in the first place.

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The Passion, Patience and Perseverance Behind 'Beauty of Decay' Film Saga

My three Ps: passion, patience, perseverance. You have to do this 
if you’ve got to be a filmmaker.

                                                                                                         
                                                                  -  Robert Wise



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From ‘The Walking Dead’ to ‘The Working Dead’

Solixir, an Evanston-based herbal supplement-infused drink company, is launching a new marketing and advertising campaign bringing new meaning to “having a case of the Mondays.”
Inspired by the “Walking Dead” and other zombie-filled entertainment, “The Working Dead” campaign will spread Zombie characters across the Loop starting Thursday, supported by an “L” advertising campaign and further promotion on Facebook and Twitter. The ads began appearing in “L” stations on Monday.

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