Gary Ugarek

Gary was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut in July 1971. Residing in the city until age 8 when his family moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania. After a few years in that area the family again moved because of a job transfer to Syracuse, New York. Gary resided in the Liverpool, New York area for the better part of 10 years, and then on and off for 5 years. He attended Liverpool High School, and then moved back to the Scranton, PA area and completed his degree in Computer Sciences in 1993. In 1994, formed a side band with members of the local Pennsylvanian band Cheap N Nasty called Bak Alley. The Bad recorded 2 ballads in 1995, "Tell Me Why" and "Far and Away" Both songs were written at a gas station in Wilkes-Barre, PA by Gary and the bands lead guitarist Charlie Gilroy.

In 1997 Gary relocated to Allentown, PA to work as a DJ for local night clubs and Adult Entertainment complexes. He spent the better part of 2 years working for the Cabaret Adult club in Kingston, PA as a Dj, and in 2000 worked for the Grandview in Daleville, PA as the Saturday Night Dj. He also work for the Professional Dj company the Pro's from 1997-2000. In 2001, Gary went back to writing music on his own and having been heavily influenced by Techno and Club music for the better part of 3 years, he composed a 9 track CD of Dance music tracks based on the musical stylings of his favorite "remix producers." One of the songs from the LP, titled Tribute, appears in his directorial debut "Deadlands: The Rising" (2006)

Gary relocated to Baltimore, Maryland in December 2002 to find work, and in 2004 relocated to Gaithersburg, MD where he now resides. While living in Baltimore, MD he actively contacted the production company behind the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake in order to get information about the production. He started and hosted the now defunct online radio station Wetnwildradio.com (2003-2005) where he posted those tidbits of information about the production. In January 2004 wrote a 128 page screenplay for a zombie film titled Beyond Dead, some of this unused screenplay was used for his first film Deadlands: The Rising (2006)

In 2005, he began writing a short story titled Deadlands which would later become a short screenplay. The original idea was to film a very low budget short film and see where things went. Through many drafts the screenplay evolved and went from an 18 page post apocalyptic story, to a 30 page outline for a zombie outbreak scenario. The 30 page outline was used to film Deadlands: The Rising. The screenplay contained the format of a standard screenplay but was always considered an outline. Many scenes for the film were noted in the outline but not fleshed out until 2 weeks before filming of that particular scene.

Has won 5 awards with his film Deadlands: The Rising from 2 film festivals. Awards included, Best Director, Best Zombie Movie, and Excellence award.

When not filming, Gary also works as a Quality Assurance Specialist, and has worked in both the automotive and pharmaceutical industries for the past 12 years as of Jan 2008.

In 2007, was approached by Producers Chris Kiros and Elias Dancey of Art Held Hostage Productions [us] to become one of four directors for a Zombie Anthology project titled "Zombthology" (2008). Gary will be directing the segment "Trapped." As part of his agreement, Gary will film two versions of Trapped, a 15-20 minute short version to be released with Zombthology, and an extended version that will receive a separate release. This was done because Gary found it hard to sum up the story of people Trapped inside a movie theater in 20 minutes. The extended cut will contain up to an hour of additional story and material and is expected to release in October 2008.