The highly technical tricks behind all the blood and gore on 'The Walking Dead'

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Gene Page/AMC

Ever had to clean up zombie blood? John Sanders does it all the time.

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Tech Insider spoke with John Sanders, the property master for AMC's "The Walking Dead" about the gallons of gore that make up the series. Keep reading to see how the team handles and coordinates the massive amounts of blood and guts on the show. 

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There are about a dozen different types of blood, used in lots of different occasions. Humans, for example, have a brighter shade of blood than walkers.

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The "deadness" of the zombie affects what color blood the props team will use.

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Sanders explained that the more decomposed a walker is, the blood will become a darkened, rotten color. 

"[Executive producer and makeup supervisor] Greg Nicotero’s guys, they have all these different colors of blood that we use for the actual killings of different things, whether it's humans or zombies or old zombies or new zombies or old dead people," Sanders said.

When Tech Insider spoke with Nicotero last fall, he described how the walkers will appear more decayed as time passes on the show. As Sanders mentioned, this will affect the color and material of the prop blood they use, saying they have different shades of "zombie dark blood" for the further decomposed and "zombie light blood" for newly resurrected walkers.

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Lighting and the environment affect blood choice as well.

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The show also uses different colors depending on the brightness or darkness of the scene.

"The [director of photography] may say 'Well, there’s not enough light. We need a lighter color.' or 'There’s too much light, we need a darker color.' Environment can make a difference, the type of walker, the type of person will make a difference."

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In addition to different colors, the blood is made up of various materials so it will drip, spray, and shoot differently.

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Blood moves differently. When Glenn was covered in Nicholas's blood earlier in season six, the blood sprayed his face and briefly misted in the air. Other times, we've seen blood gush forth in torrents from zombie bites. 

"We may have a rig from effects that is an actual 'spraying blood rig,' [or] "It may splash someone in the face [and] we’ll be the person flicking the blood," Sanders told us of the different ways they animate blood.

The animated blood must also match the source of the wound. "We have to match that on the instrument that’s gonna do it, whether it’s a sword, a knife, [or] a crossbow bolt," Sanders said.

 

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Cleaning up all of the blood requires an "industrial" amount of wipes and cleaning solutions.

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Killing walkers is messy. Whether it's with a long range shot or an up close and personal melee weapon, blood and guts go everywhere — onto weapons, clothing, even the camera lens. Sanders and his team takes care to clean up all the gore when filming, particularly to preserve the expensive props that are regularly covered in blood. 

"We go through the giant stores [where] you buy the industrial packs of things because there’s so many types of wipes and cleaners and sprays and things," Sanders told us. 

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Some of the blood isn't real. It's digitally added in post-production.

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When adding blood in post-production, Sanders's team must be careful that the blood used in the scene can be easily matched to the blood that the effects team will add later. Usually it's a mix of props and digital blood, but sometimes it's entirely digital. 

"The VFX guy will also have have some input based on how much blood they’re [going to] add to the blood that we’re doing," explains Sanders. "So we don’t want to sometimes overspray the blood because they can’t match that kind of look. Or we might want to not put any blood so that all the blood spray is theirs."

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When blood stains weapons on the show, the crew uses alcohol-based paint instead of prop blood in order to maintain the quality of the prop weapon.

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If a weapon has to remain bloodied for more than one scene, they'll usually paint onto a plastic or rubber version of the prop weapon. This way the team won't have to worry about permanently staining the weapon, as the alcohol based blood is easier to wash off. This trick is especially handy because one scene may take multiple days to film, and constantly re-staining with prop blood may damage the weapon.

"We have a number of alcohol based paints that we’ll paint on there because they may have to match that for a whole scene," Sanders explained. "That weapon’s supposed to be bloody for the next 10 scenes of the show, but those 10 scenes may be over eight days. We have a lot of tricks."

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Different teams put their heads together to coordinate the goriest moments on the show.

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To coordinate all of the "wetwork" as it's called, many different members of the crew work in unison. Sanders told us that the prop team works with both the digital and practical effects people, executive producer Greg Nicotero, the cinematography team, and the individual directors for the episodes. 

"It’s definitely a process, but we’re all so used to it. We all know who to talk to, about what, it’s all planned. Everything on 'The Walking Dead' is very well planned," he said.

"There’s a lot of meetings and discussions and tests and test footage to make sure that when we get out there, when the whole crew is out there and the big money’s on the line, we get these things just right," he continued. "And we do. We do it all the time."

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Sanders and his team love all the bloody effects work: "It's like Halloween every day."

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Gene Page/AMC

Despite how gory, bloody, and messy it all is the crew loves it.

"It’s a lot of fun," he said. "You go out there and you just splatter stuff with blood if you’re into that. It’s all fake. It has nothing to do with the real world so we make our own version of everything. It’s fun to be involved with the whole process to things you would never do. It’s like Halloween every day."

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