Created by
Joseph Daniel Rodriguez
About
Ghost of the Deadlands is a proof of concept short film for a much larger narrative. A zombie-apocalypse themed story with a twist. Taking visual inspiration from films like Dune (1984), Blade Runner 2049, and Mad Max: Fury Road, the story becomes a more sci-fi based narrative as the source behind the zombie-virus outbreak is revealed to the main character, The Lone Wolf.
Poster Designs
Ghost of the Deadlands
Poster Design (cartoon sketch)
Original concept design for the poster meant to feel like a cover page from a comic book. With bright colors and a much more wild and bombastic logo design.
Ghost of the Deadlands
Poster Design (version 1)
First live-action poster design meant to emulate the look of the Cartoon poster, but with much more monochrome tones and a more serious logo redesign.
Ghost of the Deadlands
Poster Design (version 2)
Second attempt at a poster, using the characters from the short film itself. Digital coloring and highlight retouching were used to bring out more depth in the images and make them composite better together, creating a nice blend between the first two images.
Behind the Scenes
Filming for the short was done in one night, at Billy Pon’s Def Con Haunted Warehouse, and took about 5 hours to complete. The outside desert shots were filmed two weeks later at the Monahans Sandhills State Park.
James Fite of Check Your Brain Productions, was the Director of Photography for this short film. He brought his professional film equipment and expertise to the project, along with Color grading skills.
Currently, James is working on his first feature length film, Carnage Radio.
Storyboarding/ Concept designs
Storyboards were created for the first half of the short film, Along with concept art for the character clothing. Joseph and James Fite used the storyboards to help inform the rest of the shoot.
The Lone Wolf
concept designs
Joseph found the mask first on Amazon and seeing it’s cool skull design inspired him to start creating a proof of concept short for a zombie story he’d been thinking about for awhile. The rest of the costume came organically from the black skull mask.
Makeup designs
Joseph sketched designs for the look of the viral infection, wanting the designs to be more stylish than realistic. His little sister, Rebekah Delgado, used those concept designs when doing the makeup effects on the actors. Makeup application to about 30 minutes to apply.
Practical makeup effects and blood squibs were used to make the short film look more realistic. This was the first time Joseph worked with squibs and although a little VFX were used to boost the squib shots in post, it was all done practically on set.
