The set of CW's 'iZombie' offers a taste of something different

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VANCOUVER, CANADA — A random zombie outbreak at a party on a boat flips Liv Moore's life upside down in CW's new horror drama iZombie.

Once a young doctor with a fiancé and a lot of ambition, Moore is now stuck in a state of being that she once thought only existed in movies. Also, she's really hungry for brains.

Luckily, on the Vancouver set of the show, there is no shortage of people available to cook some up for her.




There's not a lot of actual cooking involved, but there is a lot of agar agar, the jelly-like substance from which the brains on the show are made. It's not exactly delicious, but for the sake of star Rose McIver, they are always working on new ways to make it easier to stomach.
They also keep spit buckets on hand.


But no spit buckets were needed when we visited the show's set in October and a group of reporters took a nibble. To say the least, the reactions were diverse.

Months later, though, there certainly seems to be a critical consensus about the show itself.

The show has all the tools and tricks that Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas used to make the aforementioned series into cult hit — it's witty, self-aware and centers on an intelligent heroine who worries first about catching bad guys and second about who she has to battle in order to do so.


Hand


To make a zombie wound, makeup artist Lori Sandnes starts with a fleshy cutout, applies water, then dresses it up with paint and texture.
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable
On set, a full six months before the show would even debut or be formally reviewed, McIver knew the comparisons were coming. But she was unfazed.


"I would only ever take that as a compliment... but we're not trying to mirror it," she said. "We're trying to make our own thing."

If you have any doubts about that, see the photos below. When was the last time you saw brains and pig heads on Veronica Mars?



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The brains used on 'iZombie,' particularly the edible ones, are made from agar-agar, a coconut-flavored jelly-like substance.
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable

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On the show, Rose McIver's Liv works in a morgue, which is how she obtains the brains she needs to prevent her zombie rage. The character likes to mix her brains with ramen and hot sauce, but later episodes will see her try different food combinations. Brain tacos, anyone?
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable 

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Between the jelly, the coconut flavored agar agar and the "blood," eating brains does a number on the blood sugar.
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable

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"It's been trial and error," McIver admits of finding the right flavor combo for the brains. "We've really got it down to something better than it was."
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable 

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For certain shots -- like ones where the brains are not necessarily for consumption -- oil is smeared on the brains to give it a more, um, human look.
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable

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Much care is placed in the handling of the brains, with most details applied with small paint brushes.
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable

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Makeup artist Lori Sandnes does different variations of zombies, depending on the needs for a scene. Some will have missing pieces of their face while others, like the one pictured on the right, will have gory details. In this case, there's a necklace embedded into her flesh, to give the impression "she's been rotting for a while," she says.
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable 


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Sandnes and her team are responsible for every zombie extra that ends up on screen, and the amount of time they have for the transformations depends on production. "If they give us and hour, we'll do it in an hour," she says. "But to do a really cool zombie, you need a couple of hours to make it."
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable

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Before the was a zombie, Liv was a doctor, but post transformation she spends her days working at the morgue for practical reasons. (See: brains.) She also makes a quick friend out of open-minded colleague Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti (Ravi Chakrabarti).
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable 

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Yum.
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable

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Blood and gore can be found all over the set of 'iZombie,' so much so that it becomes second nature after a while. Though, McIver admits, "I'm actually quite squeamish."
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable

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...ok, this is a little harder to get used to.
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable

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After being turned into a zombie, Liv must try her best to blend into her old life while sporting a very different look -- pale skin, white hair, dark circles. -- which, oddly, never strikes those around her as too terribly weird. In fact, her family and friends pass it off as a case of PTSD.
"We know it's a bit of a sell," McIver says. "But, actually, working in Vancouver, I've seen people that, post shooting this, I'm a little suspicious of."
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable 

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Liv's bedroom isn't always so gloomily lit.
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable 

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"She now has to rediscover herself and, in the course of the pilot, she does," McIver previews of Liv's journey. "She finds this way she can use who she's become and where her circumstances have landed her to contribute to her community and have some fulfillment in life."
Image: Sandra Gonzalez/Mashable

iZombie airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the CW.

Source:Mashable


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