What Happens “After”? || A New Series

Ivan Hayden is a bit of a visionary.  He’s also full of energy, has a wicked sense of humor and a genuine love for his field of work.  It’s contagious.

Remember “Divine:The Series“? Amazing piece of work that you should see if you haven’t.  Well, a lot of the creative minds behind “Divine” have spawned another series, “After:the Series”.

“The After is not what we were led to believe in life. It is much, much worse. From the makers of Divine the Series, a new show featuring Robin Dunne.”

When we arrived at the set of “After” we were warmly welcomed by a busy crew.  I don’t know much about film sets having only been on them a few times but this one seemed to be working like clock work.  People were smiling, joking, then someone would call for quiet and everyone would get serious.

During our first half an hour on set the crew were struggling with ambient noise.  Skytrains every few minutes, buses and planes overhead were causing many a take to be cut.  It was good-natured and professional and people were being taught things they didn’t know while others were multitasking like mad.

After a short scene was filmed with a familiar face from “Divine: The Series“, the bustle began moving inside.  The building was familiar to me.  A while back on “Supernatural” a certain angel took a dive out a window; it was a big stunt that made the media buzz in Vancouver.

“After” was filming at the same Heritage style apartment building.  We headed inside and wound our way up some stairs to the set.  Remarkable.  The apartment was transformed into a very eerie looking place.

We watched for a while as Ivan discussed the shot with other crew members.  Once more it was surprising how smoothly everyone moved around each other in such a small space.

I managed to grab Ivan for a quick chat before Robin’s scene.

DNM: Is this where things start for Robin’s character (Matt)? In this room?

IVAN: yeah

DNM: And it starts because he’s been mugged?

IVAN: He’s been mugged and shot and that’s where our show starts. We find him… and he wakes up here … this is his apartment, his home… just destroyed. He wakes up and then he has to deal with the fact that he’s dead… First thing he has to do is get out of the building.

DNM: Like a puzzle…

IVAN: The rules here aren’t the same as they are in the real world. Some of them are, some of the aren’t. And if he can get out into the “After” then he starts to meet other souls.

DNM: Sounds like a really twisted video game.

IVAN: Kind of. It’s my take on a zombie movie. I’ve always wanted to do a zombie movie. Romero’s got it, hands down, it’s not gonna get any better than that. I don’t think I even wanna try. I think it would be fun to try and do a zombie movie just to say “Romero, here’s my offering. You’re so great.” But, I’ve always wanted to do a zombie movie where the zombie story is a serious thing. Comedy you can come up with. Seriously? I was just trying to figure out how to do a zombie story.

What’s so terrifying about it is – when civilization falls apart is what makes us men. And zombies – you’re running and fighting for survival, civilization’s dead – you’re being stalked by death. It puts you in all those “what makes a man a man…” How bad is murder if everybody dies?

So – in a zombie movie I thought “I’ll make everybody already dead.” And they’re struggling for survival. Then it will introduce those same sorts of things where – if you’re in a zombie movie and there’s not a lot of people and you kill someone – that’s pretty bad news. If you kill someone in the afterlife nothing happens? But if you think about it- killing someone in this world isn’t so bad from the other world’s perspective so we still get to deal with those things obviously in this building – fearful, frightening.

DNM: What’s this scene?

IVAN: This is the visual effect insert where Matt first is stuck in his apartment and beginning his journey. He’s realized he’s trapped.

There were some secrets on the set; some things we were asked not to mention but I bet, if you’ve seen “Divine:The Series” you can spark up your imagination and come up with some ideas of your own.

We’ve got more from Ivan coming up but here are some pictures for you to sort through. See what your imagination can come up with.

For up to date information on the new series “like” their facebook page here. Or you can chat them up on twitter @AfterSeries