The Origins of UnDead:
Universal Dead (UnDead for short) started out as a movie idea that was kicked around for a while by Vernon Mortensen and Kelly Parks. The original idea was to make it into a feature film and distribute it through Unconventional Films' sister company, Rogue Arts.
In the mean time, Kelly and Vernon, along with their business partner Neil Trusso, began production on Unconventional Films' first web series, "The Crusader," starring Stargate SG-1's Colin Cunningham and featuring Star Trek Enterprise's Gary Graham.
Then one day Kelly wrote a short film called "The Presentation," which took some of the ideas for Universal Dead and melded them together with Kelly's theory about how zombies function ("It's not a virus!") and suddenly Universal Dead the web series was born.
The History of Unconventional Films:
In 1993, Neil Trusso and Vernon Mortensen were both serving in the US Navy; Neil as a US Navy SEAL and Vernon as a US Navy SWCC (pronounced swick). Vernon's Special Boat Detachment was assigned to Neil's SEAL Platoon and after an entire year of hardcore training, they deployed to the war-torn African nation of Somalia in early 1994 (as portrayed in the Ridley Scott movie, Black Hawk Down).
In between running missions and the daily grind of life in a Special Operations Team, Vernon and Neil started developing comic book ideas. Vernon would write the stories and Neil would render the illustrations. It was from this creative collaboration that Unconventional Films was born.
Between 1995 and 96, both Neil and Vernon left active duty, entered the reserves and decided to go to film school. Neil attended film school at Chapman University and Vernon attended the Art Center College of Design and later USC. It was while they were both in film school that Unconventional Films was officially founded.
Years later, in 2006, Vernon would meet Kelly Parks at a monthly meeting run by the professional organization, the San Diego Filmmakers. Kelly, an Ex-CIA analyst, and Vernon, a retired Navy SWCC, found they had a lot in common and they both hit it off. Soon they were developing ideas for movies and web series together and by 2008 they were in pre-production on their first joint project, "The Crusader."
By 2009, Vernon and Neil were so impressed with Kelly's work on "The Crusader" that they made him a partner in Unconventional Films, and they all realized that the adventure was just beginning.
