Director Michelle MacLaren, who is the director of another AMC masterpiece series, Breaking Bad was interviewed by AMC Blogs and describes when she met Frank Darabont and TWD producer Gale Anne Hurd, she knew right away what they had in mind for the zombie apocalypse saga.
"Although
The Walking Dead is a very different show to
Breaking Bad, they mentioned incorporating some of the pace and style from
Breaking Bad," said MacLaren. She mentioned she wasn't a big comic book reader as a kid and stuck to mainly
Archie, but when she got the call she dipped into TWD and couldn't stop. "When AMC called about the project I immediately went out and got all the comics. I couldn't put them down -- I carried them everywhere I went," she said.
MacLaren was brought in to direct episode two. She describes it as having a ton of action so she didn't have time to incorporate as many wide lens shots as she would have liked. She had a blast anyway with the chaotic nature of the episode.
"I know Frank really likes that look (long lens shots) -- but it does take longer when you're in certain situations, and this episode really required a lot of action. So things were a little bit more frenetic and fast-paced," she said, "We were shooting on the street the other day, where we find Rick and Glenn in a rather dangerously challenging situation with walkers. We had 100 walkers, control of some downtown Atlanta city streets, and Rick and Glenn running for their lives. Both Andy [Lincoln] and Steven [Yuen] got so into it," she said.
MacLaren also spoke on the challenges on set when dealing with the zombie flavored chaos and not just what the actors had to go through, but the director, too. "You're not just dealing with two people talking, there's also 50 zombies banging at the door, and there is zombie goop and intestines and guts and everything around them, which is sticky -- it sticks to the actors and sticks to everything," she said, "I have a major rat phobia, and we were shooting with some rats the other night, so I took an apple box and I stood on it, because if my feet weren't touching the floor, the rat couldn't touch me."
She also brought up if there would be any homages to her other show
Breaking Bad saying, "I have an axe in this show. [Laughs] I thought it was funny that there was both an RV and an axe, and I thought there might be some
Breaking Bad fans who go, "Hmmm?" But the axe doesn't play a huge part, not like in
Breaking Bad," said MacLaren.
Now - I'm not positive if MacLaren is continuing to direct the other episodes of TWD. What I've heard from comic creator/producer Robert Kirkman, they are already shooting episode four right away - and no news of another director has been made public. So if MacLaren is sticking around - good for her. If her style of direction is similar to her amazing work on
Breaking Bad - we all win.