Doug Sakmann served as Troma Entertainment’s Executive in charge of Production from 1999 to 2002. During his period at the legendary 35 year old indie studio, Sakmann worked alongside founder Lloyd Kaufman as a Producer on all of Troma’s film and TV projects, including three feature films and a 20 episode TV series for Channel 4 UK. In this time Doug created many special effects for the projects, developing new techniques and honing his skills.
In 2002, Doug left Troma to co-Founded Backseat Conceptions, a new media production company with roots in viral videos and extreme live promotions. As a production company Backseat has been a partner on over 15 feature films, several TV Pilots and numerous music, commercials, viral and industrial videos, many of which Sakmann has produced and/or created SPFX for.
In 2003, Doug directed, produced and wrote his first feature, "Punk Rock Holocaust," a slasher/zombie comedy based on the Vans Warped Tour which screened at film festivals all over the world to critical acclaim and was released on DVD (thus far) in the United States, Canada, UK, France, Germany and Australia. The movie spawned a sequel that was recently released to the same fanfare and there is a third movie in development. Sakmann created all the special effects, makeup and design for the series as well as coordinated all the stunts.
Continuing
with his love for horror, zombies and all things bloody, in 2007 Sakmann founded
the NYC Zombie Crawl, an organization which produces zombie walks and zombie
themed events in the NY Area as well as provides zombie SFX makeup for nationally
touring acts. Sakmann has personally created & coordinated zombie makeup
and events including the Tribeca Film Festival, the Today Show on NBC, the
cast of Bravo Network's 'Step It Up and Dance', (To promote Sony Records'
25th Anniversary Re-Release of Michael Jackson's Thriller) the band New Found
Glory and even a George Romero's 'Diary of the Dead' Premiere event in NYC.
With the NYC Zombie Crawl Crew, Sakmann has zombified massive crowds of zombie
lovers in NYC, at one point totaling over 350 zombies in one day!
Sakmann has almost 10 years experience as an SPFX artist on all types of projects,
most recently a series of commercials for Trojan and a number of horror/thriller
feature films including Evan Meszaros' "Windcroft" (Released by
Vanguard Entertainment in Feb 2009).
Sakmann has worked with Adam Ahlbrandt on both "Sight," (released
by Lionsgate in May 2008) as well as Ahlbrandt's latest offering "The
Burnt House", creating all the SPFX and co-producing both films. Doug
is on-board to produce and create the special effects for "Children of
Torture".
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