YORK film company MilesTone Films is hosting a Zombie Olympics tomorrow from 10am to noon, starting at the Rowntree Park bandstand.

The event forms part of the on-going Zomblogalypse web series and producer Miles Watts has this advice for any putative zombies keen to roam the park.

“We’ll need people to show up having done/able to do their own zombie make-up and dressed appropriately. A bit of smeared blood on the face and hands would do; it doesn’t have to be elaborate, but the gorier you are, the more likely you’ll be a featured zombie.”

The Zombie Olympics has grown out of an early Zomblogalypse episode in 2008 when the term “Meat Legs” was coined. “Bored out of his mind by having to stay in during the zombie apocalypse, Tony Hipwell straps some chicken drumsticks to his legs and runs into a field of zombies, calling the event ‘Meat Legs’,” recalls Miles. “That killed an hour or so, but thankfully not Tony.

“At the time, a few people said we should hold a ‘Meat Leg Olympics’ where we navigate a horde of zombies in Olympic-style events, so we’ve come up with a load of games such as zombie hurdles, dismembered limb tossing, severed head-put instead of shot-put, and my favourite, pin the entrails on the zombie.”

While Tony and Miles film these “lunatic events”, Zomblog fellow founder Hannah Bungard will provide a sporting commentary from the safety of the Zomblog house a few miles away (although in reality, she continues to live abroad in South Korea).

The zombie series is now utilising “some good tricks” learned by Tony Hipwell on his recently completed MA course in film post production at the University of York. “We’re now able to do a mix of Computer Generated Imagery splatter and practical effects, which opens up the possibilities for more impressive action and horror,” says Miles.

“We did our first CGI zombie death in a new episode of Zomblog Zero, our most recent series. We don’t want to replace everything with CGI in the future but with this and a recent green-screen fight film that Tony directed, we’re expanding what we’re able to do with our films.”

Using these new techniques, Miles and co aim to be in pre-production by this time next year on a Zomblogalypse feature shot in York. “This will follow on from a black comedy we’re in prep for with Sam Robinson, who runs 1331 in Grape Lane,” says Miles.

MilesTone Films are in the last stages of editing the feature film Amber for release next year. “The film is a ‘between larger films’ project and is an improvised comedy drama about six friends getting ready to celebrate graduation, which doesn’t quite go to plan,” says Miles.

“We’re also now in the process of developing the filmmaking scene in York. A lot of great things are happening in film in the city and we’re attempting to draw everything together to make York, and Yorkshire in general, a strong centre of filmmaking. We want to build on the success of our CrimeFighters film by strengthening the filmmaking scene here with several feature films of greater scope and quality.”

• Visit zomblogalypse.com to follow the progress of the Zomblog series.