Beware of Zombies: Indie Filmmakers Descend On Edina

By Echo Menges

St. Louis based independent filmmakers, 88mm Productions, was in Edina shooting the company’s fourth feature length film, “Sound of Nothing,” on Saturday, March 10, 2012.

The cast and crew described the film, Sound of Nothing, as a, “father, daughter, post apocalyptic story,” complete with zombies.

Edina was scouted by one of the film’s directors who told about the location by a “friend of a friend.” Long story short, he made a stop in Edina and thought the rustic atmosphere, look of the buildings and quiet setting made the location perfect for their project.

The group worked out of the Edina City Hall building, using it as a kind of “home base” serving as a makeup room, dressing room, cafeteria and nap hub while shooting at various locations around Main Street using the quaint, quiet town of Edina as their backdrop.

The film’s stars are Robert Strasser playing the central character George the overprotective father, Melissa Jordan playing Megan, George’s 14-year-old spirited daughter, and Maggie Soto playing Lilly the disruptive love interest/femme fatale.

The “zombie” extras, Truman students from Kirksville, stirred quite a buzz around town as they lurched, shuffled and groaned their way up and down Main Street. Several locals accidentally crossed paths with either the gun-toting or zombie-fied cast members and found themselves unexpectedly driving through an array of the “walking dead.” Some traffic was stopped briefly on Highway 6 during some of the filming.

The crew, an upbeat bunch of self-proclaimed “Dungeons & Dragons players,” was comprised of equipment toting directors, producers, writers, makeup artists, a wardrobe/production designer, a script supervisor and camera operators. They worked as a multitude of multitaskers, many of whom were performing more than one duty. They were respectful, friendly and forthcoming and once the cameras were in place and rolling they were steadfast to the task at hand, working diligently on their movie.

“A lot of us have other jobs, but we like to spend as much time as we can doing this,” said actress Maggie Soto.

“These guys are really good,” said Edina Mayor David Strickler who spent the day with the cast and crew and watched most of the filming in Edina. “We’re so happy to have them.”

“We started shooting in December,” said one of the film’s producers, Brock Roberts. “We hope to wrap in April. Then the hard part begins.”

According to Roberts the goal of the indie film company is to have the movie put together and ready to go in time to be shown in the St. Louis International Film Festival this fall. If they don’t make that deadline it may be shown at another film festival at a later date.

Chris Grega of South St. Louis started 88mm Productions in 1999. Grega is originally from Imperial, MO. The company’s most recent film “Rineland” is set during WWII and won several awards, as did Grega’s two other full-length feature films, “Game of the Year” and “Amphetamine.”