MELISSA HARTZ
News Editor

For FDU film students, the senior thesis is a culmination of skills, techniques and ideas accumulated over four years in the program. Whether it is directing his or her own movie or working in the crew for someone else’s, each senior must participate in a film.
For senior Anthony Maddaloni, directing a zombie thesis was the perfect fit for this final project.
“Even though my ideas changed slightly along the way, I knew for a while that I wanted to do a zombie film for my thesis,” said Maddaloni. “I started writing the scripts two years ago. I must have gone through at least a dozen drafts before settling on this one.”
Maddaloni’s film, “The Risen,” centers around the life of Lionel, a comic book author struggling to deal with the recent death of his brother and relationship issues with his ex-girlfriend, Ashlee. After the zombie apocalypse descends on mankind, Lionel and his group take refuge in a nearby church.
“Movies like ‘Shawn of the Dead’ really threw zombie films into popular culture,” said Maddaloni. “We took a lot of inspiration from other zombie films and almost every name or piece of dialogue is homage to the Bible.”
A dramatic film with elements of comedy, “The Risen” confronts real issues of faith, love and the struggles of daily life. The thesis film is the first of its genre at FDU, with a running time of approximately 45 minutes.
“The filming has gone really smoothly so far,” Maddaloni said. “We have about 15 to 20 constant crew members, and so far we have about 14 days of filming.”
On March 6, Maddaloni and his crew filmed an exterior scene at Parisippany Presbyterian Church in Parsippany, N.J. Nearly 40 people, FDU students and community members alike, showed up at 7 a.m. to go into makeup and act as extras in the zombie horde. Maddaloni said the most difficult part of the shoot was finding a church that would allow the scene to be shot on location.
“No Catholic church would even talk to me,” Maddaloni said, laughing. “A lot of other churches would allow us to film inside the church, but wouldn’t allow us on the actual sanctuary. We shopped around for months.”
Finally, the crew of “The Risen” found hope when they stumbled upon the Parsippany Presbyterian Church.
“The church was this big, beautiful place with an incredible chapel from the 1800s,” said Trevor Campbell, actor of the character Sam, and also the film’s soundman. Maddaloni added, “When the woman at the church mentioned [the film] ‘Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies,’ I knew this was the place.”
“The Risen,” along with other senior thesis films, will premiere at Senior Thesis night on May 4 at the Morristown Theater. For a mere $5, students can enjoy a night of films created by their peers.
“Last year we got about 150 people to come out for Senior Thesis Night,” said Campbell. “It’s a lot of fun, and people are able to see what we’ve spent so much time on.”