Looks like the Scots aren’t the only one in love with Brad Pitt and the filming of ‘World War Z’! Recently, Max Brooks, the author of the novel the movie is based on, visited the set in Scotland and was overwhelmed with how great the zombies looked and how enthusiastic the Scots were for the film.

Glasgow, Scotland, has been transformed to post –Zombie era Philadelphia for a 2 week shot which includes an invasion scene filmed in George Square. Brooks was invited to come and watch how the filming was coming along. “It’s incredible.” he said, “Brad Pitt really conquered the city. I’ve never seen this much enthusiasm for a film and everyone is really excited to be working with all these people cheering and watching. I was on set watching a scene where Brad Pitt is running with his family, and a hundred extras running with him, and behind us was a crowd of about 500 people just watching. The assistant director said how great it would be if only we had the money to hire all the people in behind us.”

It was in this stampede scene that Pitt became a real life hero when he spotted one of the extras fall to the ground. During filming, the zombies invade the city and all the extras were to run down the street trying to get away. The scene was filled with people as crazed zombies, terrified Americans and soldiers carrying heavy machine guns. The extras were filling the street bumping into each other and into the parked cars. It was at this point that Pitt noticed one of the female extras slip and fell to the ground. Pitt quickly went to her and helped her up before she got trampled over. An onlooker commented that “He didn’t have time to speak to her as it was mid-shoot. But she said afterwards how grateful she was, despite having a badly-grazed knee.”

Brooks was also impressed with the look and the interpretation the film makers had of his zombies. “They look very much like what my impression would be of new zombies who had not really begun to rot, kind of like phase one zombies. (The production crew) have a zombie school, where they are teaching extras how to act like zombies, and from talking to people on set they have really put a lot of research into everything.” In the film, the zombies capture humans and eat them, with whatever is left of the corpse comes back and joins the zombie regime.

Thanks to Metro UK, we have some first views of these zombies:

Here are some “dummy zombies” in the costumes used for the film. Looks like these could also be used as “extra zombie” bodies in the film:

Brooks thoughts of the movie overall? “It was incredible to see it for myself and I’m still amazed they are making a movie of the book…I’m still waiting to wake up from this one…I’m not involved so I just want to be able to enjoy watching the movie when it comes out. At least I know they did at least as much research into things as I did for the book.” This should calm some of his fans who were worried that the film wouldn’t do justice to the book.

‘World War Z’ is set for a theatrical debut December 2012.