After earning an award for his editing work on "The Walking Dead," Hunter Via is revealing his thoughts on why the AMC zombie series resonated with audiences.

Via was recently honored with the 2011 ACE Eddie award for Best Edited One-Hour Series for Commercial Television for the show's pilot "Days Gone Bye."

"The Walking Dead" broke ratings records when it premiered Oct. 31, 2010, reaching more adults 18 to 49 than any other show in the history of cable television. Hailed as one of the best new shows of the year, the series was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Television Series -- Drama.

"I think there's a confidence in the filmmaking that assumes our audience is going to be intelligent," Via said. "This episode -- as well as the overall series in general -- really stands out from what most other programs have. I think people were really shocked that it was zombies told in an intelligent way.

"That sequence with Morgan that starts when he and Rick part ways, and the inter-cutting of Rick going to kill 'Bicycle Girl' and Morgan trying to kill his wife -- you're not expecting emotion when you're watching a zombie show. You're expecting a bunch of heads to explode. You do get that, but you're not expecting to actually care about the characters along the way.

"Also something that I think is so fantastic is not have to spoon-feed things, especially with the sound design and the music. Less is more, whereas other things are just big and bombastic and crazy."

Based on Robert Kirkman's acclaimed comic, the tragic tale follows a police officer from a small Kentucky town as he leads his family and a group of survivors across the country in search of a safe home.

Frank Darabont wrote and directed the pilot, with Gale Anne Hurd ("Aliens," "The Terminator") of Valhalla Motion Pictures and David Alpert of Circle of Confusion executive producing along with Darabont and Kirkman.

AMC has renewed the series for a 13-episode second season, which will premiere in October.

The series stars Andrew Lincoln ("Love, Actually," "Teachers"), Emma Bell ("Frozen"), Jon Bernthal ("The Pacific," "The Ghost Writer"), Steven Yeun, Sarah Wayne Callies ("Prison Break"), Chandler Riggs ("Get Low"), Jeffrey DeMunn ("The Green Mile") and Laurie Holden ("Shield").

See more of Via's interview at AMCtv.com.

See our review of "Days Gone Bye" here.