Bite Size Bio:

Milan Todorovic is a film producer, director and screenplay writer, you would probably know of him from the 2009 Zombie film Zone of the Dead.

Milan finished film school for directing at the Center for Visual Communications Kvadrat in Belgade. Graduated in Film and TV Productions from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade in 2006. Worked as the producer and the director on several short films prior to founding his own production company.

Talking Wolf Productions was created in 2005, co-founded with Vukota Brajovic. As the  head of  this new film production company he conceived, produced and co-directed (with Milan Konjevic) the zombie feature film Zone of the Dead, starring zombie-genre legend Ken Foree (George A. Romero's Dawn of The Dead). This won him the award for best producer of the year at the "Producers' Day" ceremony held by the Faculty of Dramatic Arts Belgrade. 

Milan Todorovic - I served this film as the producer, co-director and the story creator.

After a few years of unsuccessfully developing a TV series called “The Fatal justice”, my friend Vukota Brajovic and I decided to drop the series concept, since no television producers had the sense to do a genre show, and go back to our original idea of shooting a feature length movie. ZONE OF THE DEAD was originally entitled “Escape from Pancevo”, and it supposed to be a low budget trash rip-off of Carpenter films. We planned to shoot it with no money, with our friends, and maybe one or two famous Serbian actors in cameo roles. I was set to direct and produce the film and Vukota would be a leading actor and producer. The script we wrote received positive reviews from many different people, so we started thinking bigger. We wrote a new draft, changed the title and made it much more serious. Since we decided to shoot it as a real feature film the budget became real problem for us, we were forced into looking for finance. Serbian movies are mostly funded by public money, and they are usually social dramas or mindless comedies. A Zombie movie was something everybody laughed at, but this gave us determination to succeed. We also made a very representative catalogue for the movie, which was so good that most people thought the movie was already shot. Loris Curci, the Italian producer (Hate2O, Thy Kingdom Come), saw that catalogue and asked if this movie could be shot in English. We said  "YES!" and started developing Zone together with him. It was much easier then, since everybody started to take us more seriously. When Loris suggested Ken Foree, we couldn’t believe our ears, Ken Foree, would that even be possible. At that point we decided to hire a screenplay writer to draft a new version of script which would include new character written with Ken in mind. That’s how Milan Konjevic (the other co-director) entered the ZONE! He thought that we were crazy saying we will shoot zombie movie in Serbia with Ken Foree in it. But he wrote a new script, which was more “American” that ours was.

Well, first of all was the mother of all difficulties, lack of money. It was hard as hell to raise enough money from Serbia to do a zombie movie. We managed to cover part of the needs by bringing more co-producers (from Spain, Italy and Serbia), but still, we had really low budget to do it. When you have low budget  it forces a new difficulty onto you, lack of time.
Which means you have to do it as fast as you can, our  schedule was really tight. We had very short nights and a lot of exterior scenes, we could not afford to mess up scenes because there was no time to  re-shoot. But! We managed to shoot everything, and didn't  lose any scenes, not even part of a scene, which was a miracle. This also helped the film turn out better than we imagined, the energy of the shoot came through and that created tension. We imagined it more stylish, and now it is more realistic, the only area  I think the movie suffered in was not enough gore and zombies. This was mainly due to the time constraints but the lack of experience of the Serbian crew on this pioneer project played into it as well. Miroslav Lakobrija and his FX team did an extraordinary job in under the conditions, but the saddest moment for them was when we had to cut out some of the awesome FX scenes they prepared. One of those was something like this: a guy falls down from the top of a  six story building onto a spiked fence. He lands on his back the spikes coming through his midsection, but he twists his torso around, 180 degrees while leaving his body from the hips down in the same position. Then he pulls himself up and breaks into two, dragging himself away with his hands,  leaving a trail of guts falling out behind him... It was really well prepared and ready to be shot, but it would of  taken at least half of the day and we just didn’t have time. Sadly there were more scenes like that we never had time to shoot!

It was funded from Serbian public funds – part of it. The rest was from Spanish and Italian co-producers and from Serbian co-producers which provided equipment, people, offices etc. Plus we managed to provide something for free, like locations and some other services. We also had some sponsors – like Serbian Train Company which gave us the trains. But the real budget in a sense of money was so low, I cannot even say. Much less than you could imagine!

Finding the locations were easy, we filmed the movie in the town of Pancevo, near Belgrade. I live there, so it was all authentic and imagined like that in the script. The President’s office was shot in the Serbian National Parliament. All the rest was in Pancevo. The police station was actually an Army Club. And the harbor scene was kind of last moment solution. We wanted to make the final fight at the river coast near the town’s center, and it has a museum train wagon there. But we realized it would be impossible to close such a huge part of the town, so we changed it. Lucky for us, the harbor allowed the shooting and plus they had train tracks there, so we just drove the wagon there. I think it looked much better than it was originally imagined.
When our producer, Loris Curci, told us that he could ask Ken Foree to be in the film, we felt like our dreams were comeing true. So we wrote a new character especially for Ken Foree, and we gave him some cool lines and character drama, and when he said “Yes, I’ll do it”, we were up over the moon! It was such a huge honor to have the original zombie slayer in our movie, especially since it was his first zombie film after Dawn of the Dead. It was a big pleasure and honor to work with Ken Foree. He is an amazing actor and the nicest person in the world! With him on the set, it felt like we were in a Romero movie – live! He helped us a lot on the set. He created a  great atmosphere. He was nice to everybody and everybody loved him. He is really a great actor and a great person. Working with him was the BEST thing that happened to me during the shooting. I am happy that we stay in touch, ‘cause I really respect him, and love him as a friend. Ken Foree suggested Kristina Klebe for the role, because they became friends after Halloween...So he suggested her to our producer Loris, and when she read the script she really liked the role, so it was easy to get her involved in the Zone. She also thought it was a very interesting idea to come to Serbia to shoot zombies.Miki Krstovic plays Ken’s partner, and he was my favorite Serbian actor of all time, so it was really pleasure having him with us, and working with him!
For The Prisoner role we had Vukota Brajovic (my fellow producer), but while we were looking for the actor for Armageddon character, we saw Emilio Roso’s show reel, and we knew immediately that he would be perfect for The Prisoner. So we hired him to play the Prisoner and Vukota got the crazy monk Armageddon role.

It’s not!! People also seem to think that zombie target audience will watch anything. This maybe true  but it doesn't mean they will like everything.
So first of all if you really like zombie movies and want to make one your own go for it, and don’t give up! You’ll have such fun making it!! Before you start try to make it as original as possible. Also, if you realize you won’t have enough money to make it big then don't try, aim for what you can afford and scale back. This doesn't mean you have to compromise on your idea, just be realistic in what you can achieve. Invest all the money on zombie effects and on a marketable actor. If you are talented – it’ll work!!

Meeting Ken Foree!! What to say – I am a fan boy! Also, the scariest moment was when Ken Foree did his own stunt running on the train and jumping from it. I couldn’t watch that!! I was terrified. But he insisted to do it himself!

Well, I think the finale of the film really pays off. I like the finale. It has everything – a lot of zombies, our heroes sending them back to hell using all different kind of weapons… Plus Ken Foree has his monologue. All in all - It’s cool. Although it was hot as hell the day we shot it!!

Well, mostly. As I said,we imagined it more stylish, with more special effects and action, but I guess we’ll save that for the next time. Of course, I did this movie almost three years ago, so I am sure it would look different now, but I really like the film at the end. I hope we made a film that will be a true follower to the canon that Romero set in his movies. I just hope the people will be entertained when they see it. It was kind of from fans to the fans flick. You cannot imagine how cool it is for a small town boy from Serbia to hear that there is a fan page in Japan for his film,
or to hear that there are people who will buy all different editions of his film, or to get non-stop emails with question “When will you make the sequel?”. I even got a message from a twelve year old saying that Zone is to them the best zombie movie after Dawn! I mean – how cool is that!! Even if it is opinion of one person in the world!! I guess the movie received the best response from kids from 10 to 18 years old! Which is fantastic!! I was of that age when I started loving movies!

I am developing several projects at the moment. But the closest to the production is the film THE MADDENING, produced by Julian Richards (The Last Horror Movie, Summer Scars) and Nikola Pantelic (A Serbian Film). I will co-direct it again with Milan Konjevic. We have Craig Fairbrass (Rise of the Footsoldier, White Noise 2, Devil’s Playground) attached for the leading role. It is a story about an American rock band on tour in Europe that makes an unscheduled detour to Serbia, homeland of their drummer. The successful tour becomes hellish fight for their lives.
Trapped miles from civilization they find themselves surrounded by ravenous people infected by a madness who will stop at nothing to kill them all. The only one who can help them is a former UN soldier with a dark past.
Also, I have written the story for ZONE 2 together with KEN FOREE. It’s entitled WRATH OF THE DEAD. I am looking forward to working again with Ken. Ken will do a triple role now – co-writer, producer and actor! It will be awesome!! Ken Foree is the man you want by your side during the inevitable zombie apocalypse!
Also, I have an option to a first Serbian zombie novel – ISLAND OF THE DAMNED. I am planning to bring that to the big screen as well. It is a fast-paced and gripping adventure taking place on the Indonesian island of Java and features an elite team of special agents trying to save a group of porn stars from zombie clutches.
I am staying close to the zombie/horror genre. But what I enjoy to do most is – action scenes! So all these movies will be actually action movies set in horror genre. 
I would also like to do a romantic comedy once… Not!!

I hope not really fast. I’d like to kill many of those rotting mothers before I blow my brain! I hope I’ll have at least one hour to avenge myself!!

Slow zombies. Slow zombies are real zombies. And it could be a distopian heaven. Going around, killing zombies… How cool would that be!! They have the numbers on their side. Let us have the speed.

I think harpoon wouldn’t really work! I would go for a gun, a shotgun, and a machete. All that! Plus a leather jacket and Ray-Bans!

Well, even I know I’ll sound too obvious, but I will say Dawn of the Dead (1978), but I also must add Resident Evil , I really like the entire franchise, and the original Day of the Dead. I like French movie La Horde. Also Zombieland was really cool! And of course, Shaun of the Dead. But if I could take only one zombie movie to a desert island – it would be the original Dawn, for sure!

Is there such a thing? Maybe that silly Day of the Dead II: Contagium. It was really awful!

I don’t play games. But I read comic books. Always loved Marvel’s “Zombie” and "Dylan Dog", the Italian comic book hero! He was fighting zombies more than once. And I will sound too obvious again, but my favourite book is The Zombie Survival Guide. It was so well written and so original. I really loved it.
Is “I am a legend” a zombie book? Although they are vampires, it is more of a zombie book. I think that is the best book I’ve ever read!
And I highly recommend the first Serbian zombie book – Island of the Damned. It is an excellent adventure, well written and has an original style and touch that brings something fresh to the genre. I hope it’ll get translated!

Beware or be dead!