Cal Nguyen – Day Zero

Cal Nguyen has been a filmmaker since 2011 although he has been an actor since 1999 working in Hollywood. His premiere hit TV series “Day Zero” has won over 100 film awards so far and is an executive producer for several films. 

What was the inspiration to make Day Zero?

For a long time, many no-to-low budget indie productions lacked the quality of the Hollywood look/feel and/or perspective that I enjoyed watching in my youth during the 1980s and 90s, so I wanted to bring that back into the half-hour drama format, but with a bit of the serial type of adrenaline rush that shows like ’24’ had. 

Day Zero has an action-packed story against a backdrop of a post-apocalyptic/dystopian world set in the future, where not only is mankind suffering from cataclysmic events, but I think more importantly is ultimately rotting from a spiritual and supernatural malaise.

Underlying is an epidemic of radiated humans akin to multiple ‘Hulk’ type of scenarios, or ala Jekyll and Hyde. We’ve been compared to LOST and Walking Dead as well, but in season 3, I wanted to get away from some of that and bump up the global, geopolitical and scientific aspects that reflect showcasing more of the outcome as opposed to the cause.

From idea to completion, how did production change?  

Initially I was cast into the project back in 2010 in the “Jim Lecter” role when it was first created by Kelsi Swensen, a BYU film student at the time. When she got married, production stopped and I offered to buy out the creative rights and the first season scripts, because I didn’t want it to die, the story was very important and relevant to today’s times that I wanted to add to it and make it fully fleshed out.

Each season offers a different cast (mostly) and although there is some crossover of characters and story, each has in its own right a different level of production, yet with a convergence of thematic continuity that are interwoven together throughout major essence of the series.

We became the first micro-budget, independent web TV series I believe across the globe to appear on Amazon, partly from being grandfathered in from CreateSpace before they bought them out. Because of that, it became much more renowned. We survived many changes at Amazon in regards to content requirements over the years, even to this day, which is a testament to the strength of the series and its continuous improvements in both content and technical achievements, that earned us over 100 film nominations and awards from national and international festivals.

What was the biggest challenge in getting this Day Zero made? 

Most of the material from the initial Swensen-directed first season was lost (stolen) unfortunately, so upon me taking over as showrunner, I had to recast a new set of actors and find a new crew — however, it started with just Tim Sabuco and myself for a while.

We gained some more interest throughout that season, but it wasn’t until season 2 did we acquire a bigger presence of crew members culled from the Utah film community, for which we are highly grateful for their contributions.

What do you think is the most important takeaway from your series?

From day zero (pun intended), I wanted our show to be thought-provoking, hoping viewers would receive a spiritual message of redemption and a sense of awareness of what could become reality (sort of a warning call, think John the Baptist), without all the profanity or overly desensitizing tactics and antics that Hollywood uses and abuses.

In fact, we’ve predicted so many things that came to pass, it’s almost scary, to be honest. I wish I was wrong in some of these matters. lol. But it really is something I think everyone ought to at least take a glance at, but better yet, marathon binge viewing is recommended to get the full picture 🙂  We hope everyone will be entertained as well as moved by our story.

If you could have a do over with your series is there anything that you would have done differently? If so, what would you change?

I wish there was a way that I could have found a budget from the beginning in order to help relieve me from most of the above-the-line duties, as well as the pre-to-post-production self-funded costs!

What do you have in the works?

Currently I am taking a short break after recently completing post-production on Day Zero, but I am hoping to write and have my first feature film made here in Utah in 2023, but some personal priorities are in the way at the moment. This doesn’t mean I’m not doing something with film (be it performing or behind the scenes), just not my own productions for now.

The season 3 finale of Day Zero will be screening at the Utah Film Festival as part of our monthly screenings on December 2nd at 9pm at The Towne Hub.