Brains DigestCDC Goes World War Z

Inside this issue...

How the threat of the zombie apocalypse has

actually made you safer

2.8 Hours LaterThe infamous cross-city zombie game

returns to Scotland

Get The Zombie

SFX make-up artist

Sarah’s Scars

shares her best tips

for zombie make-up

Issue # 1

Look

Inside this week’s issue of

Brains Digest...

Get The Zombie Look - p.3

CDC Goes World War Z - p.4-5

Gore make-up specialist Sarah’s Scars

gives us a run through of her favourite

make-up effects - and how to apply them

Maggie Silver from the Centers of Disease

Control, America, shares the story of the

CDC’s zombie prepardeness campaign - and

how it’s actually preparing us for emergencies

2.8 Hours Later:

A Survivor’s Perspective - p.6-7

Last year’s survivor Liam Franklin shares his

experience of the biggest cross-city game of

all time, and game team Slingshot give us a

sneak preview of what’s to come for Scotland

this time around

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Get The Zombie LookWhether it’s for your planned in advance Halloween costume, your

upcoming appearance as a zombie in 2.8. Hours later this year, or your next

viewing party of AMC’s The Walking Dead, Sarah McCracken has the

make-up tips to ensure you’ll be the most gruesome zombie in town.

“Shotgun Eye is one of my most popular requests,” Sarah tell us. “ And

it’s much easier than it looks. “To achieve this look, start off with some

thick paper or thin card. Draw a circle roughly the shape of your eye and

a bit of the surrounding area. Colour it in with black marker, cut it out

and stick it over your eye. I use liquid latex because this is the safest,

but eyelash glue also works with minimal damage. Leave it on for five

minutes and be careful not to get any of the adhesive in your eye. Use

scar putty to make the flesh around the eyehole - the stuff can be

messy, so don’t worry if it’s not perfect. The messier the better, anyway.

Next, use a powder foundation and blend the scar putty in with your

natural colour. When you’ve done that, get some fake bloody and smear

it around the bullet hole. Also make sure you cover the black card with

fake blood, because it’ll give the hole a shinny kind of surface and make

it look less like felt tip coloured paper and much more like an actual

wound. Viola!”

And what about those all important zombie bites? “Of course,” Sarah

says. “You can’t be a zombie and not have the bite to prove it.

“This, again, is actually really easy. All you need is fake blood, and

basic knowledge of what a bite looks like. I’d advise going on Google

images just to get a better idea. If a zombie bit you, it would use it’s

most forefront teeth, meaning the five or six you can immediately see

at the front of someone’s mouth. It probably can’t sink all it’s teeth into

your arm. I would take a thin pen and lightly mark out on your arm

where the teeth marks should be. Once your satisfied with the position

and shape of the teeth marks, take your fake blood and fill in the

shapes. It’s also a good idea to get a thin paint brush, dip it in the fake

blood and flick it across your arm for a blood spatter effect.”

Based in Falkirk, Sarah is the proud owner of special

effects make-up business Sarah’s Scars. She

embarked on her career in 2011 while employed as a

youth worker, and has long been interested in gore

make-up. Her notable credits include the make-up for a

music video of Glasgow band Siphon, as well as

various film, music and stage productions. She also

quotes working on Glasgow’s 2012 Halloween Ball as

one of her ‘best experiences.’

Sarah has also used her talents for good causes.

“I noticed there was a strange need for scar workshops:

burns, fake cuts, bruises, etc.

“I know what you’re thinking. Why would anyone want

that? Well, there is certainly a fun element to the

workshops as far as young people are concerned.

“However, depending on how a workshop is used, they

can also be very beneficial for learning.

“When giving a talk to young people about fire safety, for

instance, the addition of a scar workshop lets them see

just how much burns can affect body image. When doing

a First Aid course, they will find themselves bandaging

very real looking wounds. These additional touches can

really help impress upon young people the importance of

fire safety and knowing first aid.”

Sarah also makes and sells costumes, masks and props,

as well as buying in certain stock to sell on.

Today, though, she’s going to give us some tips on how to

apply the perfect zombie make-up.

For more information, visit sarahsscars.co,uk or call Sarah on 07858 266591

CDC Goes World War ZHurricanes, floods, tornadoes, epidemics… and the zombie apocalypse. The

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) may not take the latter

seriously, but the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in America have pulled out all the

stops to ensure the general public is ready for an outbreak of zombies.

What began as a tongue-in-cheek way to engage with the

public back in 2011 has become a full-blown campaign in

preparedness – and an incredibly successful one. The idea? If

you can survive the zombie apocalypse, you can survive an

earthquake, hurricane, epidemic or terrorist attack.

Margaret Silver, CDC worker and co-creator of the Zombie

Preparedness Campaign, sheds light on why she and her

co-workers decided to use zombies as inspiration.

“The idea to use zombies came from Twitter conversations we

had observed,” Margaret says. “Following the Japan

Fukushima disaster we posed a question on Twitter and we got

a surprising number of responses that mentioned zombies.

Since we were in the process of brainstorming for Hurricane

Season and how to drum up attention we decided, why not

give the people what they want and craft a preparedness

campaign around zombies?”

The CDC’s emergency preparedness campaign

features zombie themed posters with the slogan ‘Get

a kit. Make a plan. Be prepared,’ as well as a graphic

novella called ‘Zombie Pandemic’ in the style of the

original Walking Dead comic books. They also offer a

slew of information on how to deal with an outbreak,

including how to put together a survival pack and

how to prepare friends and family for disaster.

Despite the public’s obsession with zombie pop

culture spreading like a pandemic itself, the United

States is still the only country to fully acknowledge

the incredible advantage that this love-of-all-things-

zombie actually has for emergency preparedness.

The ECDC seems unlikely to follow suit, as do

England’s own Health Protection Agency (HPA) or

equivalent organisations in other countries. However,

Margaret explains that, at least within and near the

United States, she has seen other ‘copycat

endeavours’ on a much smaller scale.

“The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency

(FEMA) got on board with a lot of our materials and

local emergency management agencies have taken

the idea and run with it for their local events. The

Canadian Centers for Disease Control have also

used zombies in some capacity…I’m pretty sure it

was a heart health campaign, although they were

very supportive of our zombie preparedness

campaign.”

The campaign’s blog post on the CDC’s website has

been viewed more than five million times, and

Margaret tells us that in the campaign’s first week

alone, a media reporting agency estimated that the

CDC has a reached over 3.6 billion. She also noted

that following the launch, the CDC’s website traffic

increased by more than 1000% compared to the

previous year. So, overall, a pretty successful

campaign?

“It was definitely much more popular than we had

ever anticipated,” Margaret confirms. “It was just

three communicators who came up with and

designed the initial campaign – we just thought we’d

try something new and threw it out there. We were

swamped once it went viral. The purpose of the

campaign was to simply raise awareness about

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personal preparedness and drive traffic to our website. On

those levels we definitely succeeded.

“We saw conversations being sparked online through our

website and social media. Anecdotally, we had people

leaving comments on our blog about how they were

approaching preparedness with their friends and families

now that they could frame it in the form of a zombie

takeover. And of course with the huge amount of media

coverage many more people were being exposed to our

message.”

As a co-creator, Margaret’s favourite part of working on the

campaign has been how much the public have enjoyed it,

commenting that the feedback has been ‘overwhelmingly

positive’.

“Having complete strangers, once they hear that I work for

the CDC, say how much they liked the zombie campaign.

It’s become synonymous with our agency and I love being

able to tell people that I worked on it.”

Zombies are a unique thing in popular culture. Of all the

other movie monsters to garner such widespread public

attention, nobody has ever followed Max Brooke’s

example and written a Vampire Survival Guide, or put

erious thought into how to protect their families against

werewolves, ghosts or any other number of pop culture’s

greatest supernatural foes.

“Zombies are much more ‘in’ right now than other mon-

sters,” Margaret explains, in response to why other hor-

ror movie staples have not been used in the campaign

instead.

She’s right, too; with America’s (and the rest of the

world’s) ever-growing love of popular AMC series The

Walking Dead, zombies are very much in the spotlight.

Combine this with Max Brook’s ‘The Zombie Survival

Guide’ and ‘World War Z’; the popular as ever Resident

Evil video game series; and George A. Romero’s origi-

nal ‘Dead’ trilogy that still stands the test of time, the

zombie theme is never far from the public eye.

The living dead exist not only as a beloved icon of en-

tertainment, but also (and perhaps more darkly) as a

reminder that human beings are not immune to death

or disease. The zombies of horror movies, video games

and novels are examples in and of themselves of what

happens when ordinary people are ill-prepared for dis-

aster. Maybe, then, the CDC’s Zombie Preparedness

Campaign really is the best way to encourage the pub-

lic to plan for emergencies. Besides, if a horde of flesh-

eating undead really do crash through your door, a

planned escape route and knowledge of how to use a

shotgun probably won’t hurt.

CDC Goes World War Z

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2.8 Hours Later: A Survivor’s PerspectiveIt’s difficult to scare a hardened zombie fan, but running through dark city streets in desperate pursuit of

safety - all while being chased by the relentless undead - may just do the trick.

And that’s exactly what happened to participant

Liam Franklin last year, after the hugely successful

cross-city game 2.8 Hours Later returned to

Glasgow for it’s second successful run last year.

Named after a rather infamous action-horror movie,

the game is the ultimate test of not only physical

speed and

endurance, but also of the player’s ability to

strategise and piece together the clues scattered

across the city. It’s a truly enjoyable – and

nerve-wracking – experience.

“When you buy your tickets, you’re emailed this

secret location where the game starts,” Liam

explains. “For us last year, it was actually the top

car park of the DVLA building in Glasgow. When

we got there we were briefed, told the basic do’s

and don’ts, and we were given this map and had to

find the first checkpoint. There were three

checkpoints all across the city and you had to

make it to each one, and then the safe zone, in

under three hours – it was roughly 2.8 hours,

hence the name. When we played, the Asylum bit

was actually Strathclyde union, and there was a big

party there after the game.”

Liam laughs when asked how players are ‘infected’

by the zombies. “Well, everywhere you go – and I

mean it, everywhere – zombies are there waiting

for you. If they manage to grab your wrist, you’re

supposed to go back and let them draw on your

arm with these pens they all carry. The ink doesn’t

show up on your skin under normal light, so you

don’t know if you’re infected or not until the end of

the game – when I played, there was this mad UV

light tent at the safe zone at the end of the game.

When you walked under it, some of the pen marks

showed up under the light. I did get grabbed and

penned a couple of times during the game, but

luckily I wasn’t infected and I got ‘Survivor’

stamped on my wrist and some free drinks at the

after party.”

And what about those who weren’t quite so lucky?“

Every single one of my pals were infected,” Liam

laughs, “and they were all taken to this room up-

stairs on the way to the bar and had their make-up

done. They were all made into zombies. I think I

saw like twenty people, including myself, who survived without

being infected. Almost every person at Strathclyde union was

zombified.”

Liam’s advice to future players? “Keep running!” he says. “And

beware the side missions.”

Liam, like thousands of others, plans to play again as the game

returns to Edinburgh and Glasgow this year in May and August.

As always, the adrenaline-fuelled frenzy is strengthened by an

intricate storyline and host of compelling characters. Now in the

third run of the game, 2.8 Hours Later: Survival begins where

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2.8 Hours Later: A Survivor’s PerspectiveIt’s difficult to scare a hardened zombie fan, but running through dark city streets in desperate pursuit of

safety - all while being chased by the relentless undead - may just do the trick.

the previous game Asylum left off. Whereas last year’s players were

rewarded by finding the last safe place in the city, this time around the

aim of the game is to survive the hordes of living dead in search of

supplies outside the safe zone’s walls. Asylum is still secure, but

without food, water, and medical stock, how long can the survivors

last?

Slingshot, the group behind 2.8 Hours Later, feel pretty happy with

what they have in store for zombie enthusiasts this year. Despite being

busy organising the Cardiff game, they made time to answer a few of

our questions.

Liam, pictured at bottom, after last year’s game

“It’s the next part of the story,” Kara Fraser,

part of the storyboard team, tells us.

“Everything has been cranked up to eleven

since last time. When we premiered the

game back in 2010, it was just the beginning

of the story. Last year’s Asylum was the next

chapter - running not just from zombies, but

from police, vigilantes, and some generally

unpleasant characters.

“This time around, you’re picking up right

where you left off - you’re in Asylum now,

but supplies are dwindling and you’re going

to have to run for them. I can’t give much

away, but think last year’s game and

multiply it by one hundred. That’s the level

of intensity we’re talking.”

When I ask Kara if anything other than the

plot has advanced since last year, she’s

somewhat reluctant to respond.

“I can’t give much away, like I said. It’s one

of these quite secretive games - you know

what it’s like, we don’t even email you the

starting location until a few days before the

game starts.

“But I can say that the zombies definitely

aren’t the only monsters you’ll have to worry

about now.”

That sounds cryptic. Are we talking Resident

Evil style baddies?

“In a sense, I suppose. You could say the

zombies have evolved, somewhat. They’re,

uh... faster. I really can’t give more away.”

it sounds ominous, but it certainly seems

like a massive upgrade from previous

games - which were already difficult enough

to top. Let’s hope Liam survives this one.

For more information and to book tickets for

any of this year’s games, visit

2.8hourslater.com

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