Ayzenberg creative lead and seasoned commercial director Mitch Cohen is running a Kickstarter to get his first feature film off the ground. The goal is to raise enough money to produce a proof of concept for Super Zero, a zombie apocalypse movie. That is a, um, well-established genre, but there are several noteworthy aspects to this project. First off, Cohen has agreed to document his experience with running the Kickstarter campaign on [a]list daily.
Mitch Cohen, writer and director of ‘Super Zero’
“Making a film is really freakin’ hard. Making a good film is even harder,” says Cohen’s Kickstarter page.
Win or lose — and we’re pulling for him to win of course – Cohen has agreed to share the up, down and dirty of his go at crowd funding through a series of articles.
The Super Zero storyline also has a couple of twists in its treatment of the zombie genre. The world is already in disarray with massive water shortages before the zombies come. When scientists attempt to transport and test a water sample found on Mars, they unleash a zombie infection.
As for the protagonist, he’s not the conventional film hero. The lead character, Josh Hershberg, is a loner gamer who also happens to be terminally ill with brain cancer. That makes him immune to the flesh chomping zombies. The character and plot give the film a Seth Rogen comedy vibe. Hershberg literally looks like a cross between Rogen’s Superbad stars Michael Cera and Jonah Hill.
Last but not least, and we quote Cohen, “There’s a friggin’ clown in this movie.”
Cohen has built the core of his above the line production team. He’s writing and helming, and he’s brought on board Shane Spiegel from CollegeHumor as producer and Idan Menin as cinematographer. Menin studied his craft under a couple of venerable Hollywood cinematographers, Close Encounters of the Third Kind’s Vilmos Zsigmond and True Blood’s Amy Vincent.
Stay tuned for Cohen’s first piece next week.
