How The Most Brutal Scene On Sunday's 'The Walking Dead' Came Together | ||
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Warning: There are major spoilers ahead. "The Walking Dead" creator Robert Kirkman was right. The show stuck closely to a popular storyline from the comics. Sunday night's episode of the AMC hit brought a fast close to a subplot about a group of cannibals, known as the hunters, after only three episodes into season five. Last chance to head back before spoilers. A showdown between the "hunters" led by Gareth (Andrew J. West) and Rick's (Andrew Lincoln) group erupted into an unexpected bloodbath in a church. (For the record, the scene doesn’t take place in a real church. The small, white chapel in the woods was constructed for the series.) In the episode, viewers watch as Rick, Abraham (Michael Cudlitz), and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) hack away at the Termites for threatening their loved ones. A lot of the blood in the scene isn't CGI. When it looks like Rick is hacking away at Gareth ... ... he’s actually hacking into a block filled with fake blood to make it splatter most of the time.
West tells The Hollywood Reporter he was also hit with a rubber machete by Lincoln.
"They had to get shots of Andy actually hitting me with the machete because they didn't know exactly how they'd cut it together," says West. "So they wrapped me up with padding around my torso and they gave Andy a rubber machete and just had him beat me with that thing. It doesn't hurt at all because I got the padding and it's rubber, but you feel that pressure and you feel how intensely he's swinging. It creates a pretty remarkable atmosphere. It's scary."
Similar to Lincoln, Cudlitz smashed his gun into a block to splash blood around.
Look close and you’ll notice the camera team actually covered themselves and the cameras in clear bags to film the bloody scenes.
CG is used in the scene when Gareth's two fingers get blasted off by gunfire. The actor is wearing CG fingers covered in blood.
"We put some blood on the fingers so that we had some remnant blood," says VFX supervisor Victor Scalise in a featurette on the episode. "The two pieces [of finger] that fly toward the camera are actually computer-generated and a little blood and gore and then as he pulls his hand down you see the little stubs." If you're wondering why Gareth and the cannibals didn't stick around longer, executive producer Greg Nicotero tells The Hollywood Reporter the show has spent a lot of time with Terminus already and that the crew didn't want to drag it out. "It's very important that the show continue its momentum," Nicotero told THR. "We feel like we had teased arrival of Terminus for almost the entire second half of the season last year. We want to keep our story moving forward. That story line — the Hunters and cannibals — we want to be able to pay tribute to it from the comic but we also want to keep moving forward. As we get into episodes four, five and six, in true Walking Dead tradition, we're going to step off and explore some other characters we may not have explored as in depth in previous episodes." That certainly seems to be the consensus this season. Showrunner Scott Gimple and the crew aren't messing around. You can watch Sunday's talked about scene here. Watch the making of the scene below: SEE ALSO: "The Walking Dead" creator debunks the show's biggest fan theory AND: The most terrifying scene in "The Walking Dead" premiere was inspired by 1979's "Alien" Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Donors pledge $8 billion for Horn of Africa | ||
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Addis Ababa (AFP) - International donors pledged $8 billion in development aid Monday for projects across eight countries in the Horn of Africa, UN chief Ban Ki-moon announced at the start of a visit to the region. The aid, from organisations including the World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB), European Union and Islamic Development Bank (IDB), will support efforts to boost economies and stem conflict and hunger across the volatile region. Countries targeted are Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda. "The countries of the Horn of Africa are making important yet unheralded progress in economic growth and political stability," Ban said in a statement. "Now is a crucial moment to support those efforts, end the cycles of conflict and poverty, and move from fragility to sustainability." Ban, who begins his Horn of Africa trip in Ethiopia Monday, is due to travel onwards to neighbouring Djibouti and Kenya, leading a delegation from six other international organisations. Alongside Ban is World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, and officials from the African Union, EU, the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) bloc of nations, as well as the AfDB and IDB. Projects include support for oil pipelines and improving transport links, as well as boosting education and internet access. Aid will also aim to increase cross-border trade, and boost economic growth in a region struggling with rampant unemployment as well as millions of people forced from their homes by war or hunger. "This new financing represents a major new opportunity for the people of the Horn of Africa to make sure they get access to clean water, nutritious food, health care, education, and jobs," World Bank chief Kim said. "There is greater opportunity now for the Horn of Africa to break free from its cycles of drought, food insecurity, water insecurity, and conflict." While in Nairobi, Ban will also launch a global campaign to end female genital mutilation. This is the third trip that Ban has undertaken with the World Bank and other organisations, following visits to the Sahel and Great Lakes regions last year. The visit comes amid efforts to end fighting in South Sudan that has sent nearly half a million refugees fleeing into neighbouring countries. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Wall Street Will Not Be Kind To Brazil | ||
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Dilma Rousseff has won another term as Brazil's president. President Rousseff garnered 51.45% of votes cast. Despite allegations of corruption at the highest levels of her administration — especially regarding the massive state oil firm Petrobras — the incumbent will have another four years to right Brazil's ship after a close campaign against center-right candidate Aecio Neves. It will not be easy. Wall Street knows that. As a result, the markets may punish Brazil's markets Monday morning. Over the last four years the country has taken a turn for the worse. Low commodity prices have hurt Brazilian exports, and so has a Chinese slowdown. Inflation is high and corporate profits are thin. This is a task that Wall Street analysts thought Neves was better suited for. He ran a campaign on tightening monetary policy and bringing investment back to Brazil. In fact, a Neves win would have bolstered a Brazilian investment theme popularized by hedge fund manager Mike Novogratz: Brazil, "so bad it's good." Novogratz told investors earlier this year that a Neves win could be the change the country needed. As a result, the Brazilian stock market has been a whipsaw for over a month, rising and falling as Rousseff and Neves duked it out in the polls. Either way, however, says Societe Generale analyst Dev Ashish, monetary policy and foreign investments have their limits. They're far less powerful tools without increased domestic output and demand.
That is why some on the Street have been skeptical that a Neves victory would make a huge difference either way. Last Monday, short-seller Jim Chanos of Kynikos Investments gave a presentation on Petrobras, Brazil's quasi-state oil firm, at the Robin Hood Investor conference. His dark thesis on the health of the massive company, sent the stock, Brazil's ETF, and the country's market falling. He said he gave the presentation to warn investors not to buy into what Cantor Fitzgerald once called the Brazil "farce." "... I thought it was timely this week that if that’s what happens and if investors knee jerk run into the Bovespa and buy Petrobras because Neves wins, I think it’s a great entry point on the short side in this story because it doesn’t change the economies of the situation," Chanos told Bloomberg TV. Rousseff's win changes the economics even less. | ||
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