Napoleon Dynamite and Blades of Glory star Jon Heder is producing and starring in Electric Farm Entertainment's online series "Woke Up Dead," and we headed down to the Los Angeles set last week to catch the final day of shooting.
Heder will play Drex, a USC student who wakes up underwater in his bathtub one day and begins to suspect that he may be dead - though he doesn't want to believe it. "It's a show that plays with the conventions of the zombie-horror genre," Heder explains. "My character (Drex) doesn't really get that he's a zombie, contrary to all the signs everyone else is seeing, including this insatiable hunger for brains."
Described as a live-action zombie comedy, Electric Farms developed the project with Heder in mind. "Woke Up Dead" will consist of 50 three minute episodes produced in live-action with some CGI elements. Heder, who's producing, seems to have been bitten by the bug. " I love the creative process of producing and I'd definitely like to do more of it. What these guys are doing is really inspiring, and they're really reaching out in a way that hasn't been done with such commitment before. I want to move more into that kind of a direction, and writing, and maybe directing at some point. I really just love that whole process."
What drew him to the project? "It's a whole new kind of experience," Heder explained. "You're working within a similar sort of production schedule, but things are much more lo-fi and manageable.These things are only four minutes long each, so we're on a tight schedule, and I enjoy that because I had my second kid last week, and the off-time really helped. Also, as far as viewing it's all easily accessible on the internet, and that idea really appealed to me. There's also a website involved, you can pick and choose what to see and when you see it, so there's a whole world you can create there with the message board, behind-the-scenes stuff and so on. We also have a lot of footage taken by the actors themselves that's kind of hilarious you can watch."
When asked to describe his character, Heder explained that, despite the fact that he's dead, he's a pretty normal guy with pretty normal problems. "This guy kinda can't catch a break. He's got problems with girls, pain-in-the-ass roommates, no money, no job, and now he's dead. It's just a lot to handle for anybody, I'd imagine."
"Woke Up Dead" will debut in October on Crackle.com in 23 four- to five-minute episodes. Check out the official site.
