This is Part I of AMCtv.com’s two-part report from the set of The Walking Dead. Check back tomorrow to see the conclusion. New Dispatches From the Set are released every week throughout the production.

On a misty morning 40 miles outside of Atlanta, actor Andrew Lincoln, who plays Rick Grimes on The Walking Dead, stands beneath a tent on set. Behind him lies a Victorian farmhouse that will constitute a major setting within the show’s second season, but today the action will be taking place in a valley below, where the show’s production designer Greg Melton has built a menacing structure of splintered wood and rusted metal that looks like it’s been sitting in that spot for 100 years. (In fact, the barn was constructed for the series out of brand-new material.)

Lincoln and the rest of the cast are psyching themselves up for what’s to come: A major action scene that will be the culmination of Season 2′s first main story arc. Standing in a distant field, Jon Bernthal, who plays Rick’s partner Shane, listens to his iPod, bouncing back and forth on his feet and jabbing his fists in the air, Rocky-style.

Lincoln too is listening to his iPod — a “Rick Grimes Mix” filled with country artists like Waylan Jennings to whom, he imagines, his character would enjoy listening. He speaks with a Southern drawl even when the cameras aren’t rolling, and his voice is hoarse from yesterday’s rehearsals, in which both he and Jon Bernthal had to scream at each other again and again. “I told Jon if we haven’t lost our voices by the end of the day, we haven’t done our jobs,” he tells me. “So we’re having a contest.”

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The Walking Dead director David Boyd has dropped new hints about the show’s second season.

On the AMC blog, Boyd revealed that events will begin to take their toll on Lori Grimes (Sarah Wayne Callies).

“She’s kept her s**t together through Rick (Andrew Lincoln) getting wounded and all that stuff, but she’s starting to come apart a little bit,” he said.

Boyd, who worked as a cinematographer on the AMC drama’s first season, will direct the seventh episode of the new season.

“By the end of [that] episode [Lori] and Rick put it all out there,” he said.

Boyd also revealed that episode seven will see Andrea (Laurie Holden) take on a more action-oriented role.

“Episode 207 is cool in that we see that Andrea, this girl can shoot, man,” he hinted.

Frank Darabont recently stepped down as showrunner on The Walking Dead, with reports suggesting that he was fired after objecting to budget cuts.

Cutbacks to the show’s budget are believed to be a result of the new $10 million (£6.1m)-per-season budget allocated to AMC’s Mad Men.

The Walking Dead will return to AMC in the US and FX in the UK in October.

Source: Digital Spy.