What was the contribution to the process during the planning, production and post production stages? - George Peat

For the planning of the film i wrote the script with Callam, found the location of our film, contributed to the storyboards, writing down of the conventions of a zombie film to use in the film, and writing down the original film outline (this was changed so the time could be met and so the film would be more interesting). I also contributed ideas of what shot types should be used and what the story should be (an example is the ringing credit sequence).

For the production of the film I assmebled a cast, this cast however was not to be used again since they could not make our other shooting days, as a result they were replaced for the final film. I bought make up to make the zombies more realistic as well as some clothes so they could be made more gritty. I also helped apply make up. I also did a portion of the filming notably edits of our first shoot to correct things which had not gone correctly and the portion after the attack scene where one of our lead characters gets attacked.

During post production I helped with the editing of the film with Callam (aswell as the credits) deciding how long certain shots should be and what order they should be shown. Another part of the editing of the film I did was the darkening of the scenes, this made the film have a more distinct image which as a result made it more visually pleasing and inline with the horror genre. I also helped with the editing of the music, making sure that it did not disrupt what was being shown on the screen and so it did not sound messy. I applied the ringing noise during the opening credits which helps create an awkward tension.

How did you attract/address your audience? - George Peat

To attract our audience we started off with a chase sequence, this involves many fast cuts and numerous angles and shot types to get a visceral image across to the audience. Audience's of zombie films are attracted to the chase sequences so to grab their attention we had one at the start to give a taste of what the rest of the film may be like (if it was being made). An example of another film which does this is 28 Weeks Later which was an inspiration for our own sequence.

 

When we did our evaluation research we got positive feedback because it held many trademarks of a zombie film. Chase sequence, gore, realistic zombies, and awkward quiet moments. By having a realistic crying scene it made the film feel more real. We did however alter our music since we were told it was too much and effected the film viewing in a negative way. When this was solved the film was fine.



To target our audience we made sure we had a good cast of actors to make the film seem realisitc which is vital with any horror film since if they werent it would make the film less scary if it does not seem real. The music was vital to keep a distinct feel to the film and to portray what we wanted to be portrayed at certain points, a major example is when our male lead character is being ripped to shreds on the ground, we had loud chaotic music to show how terrifying it was for the chacters involved. The setting was chosen since it gave an isolated feel to it, making the situation even more dangerous since help was unlikely.

Personnal Evalutation - Callam Montgomery

In the project I helped write the script with George Peat and did part of the storyboard. I also used George Evans images of make up to try and come up with our own, and helped apply it when on set. I found 4 actors for the film. I helped alot with the filming on set and mainly decided which shot should happen where trying to be as close to the storyboard as possible. In editing I mainly cut the shots to fit together and helped darken a few. I also helped a little with the sound effects, i mainly did the zombie sounds and recorded my own voice and helped a little with the music.

Question 7 - Callam Montgomery

We used garage band to create the sound for our film, we mainly used the software instruments and the musical typing window which lets you put in the notes you want to play just by typing in letters on the keyboard 

We also used the ability to record from actual instruments and recorded our voices and put effects on them so that the voices sounded scary and unnatural, these helped fill in for zombie sounds so they aided the film and made the zombies more scary. This is a good example of how this piece of software helped us be more creative and gave us much more control over the overall outcome of the film.   

We also used blogger in our project, it helped to keep track of what we had done and when we had done it. This helped us review over our mistakes we had made easily and helped us see what mistakes we had made with our practice shoots so we could review what went wrong and make sure we don't make the same mistake in the actual film.

At this point in the film the actors quite clearly move between the shots when they are not supposed to of moved, this kind of mistake is the thing we were veery concious to avoid during filming of the final product. This didnt aid our creativity in any way but did help us improve how we review our film and helped us alot with the technical aspects of the film

We darkened the entire film and editied the contrast to make everything seem much more menacing and changed the contrast so that everything seems a bit more unnaturalThis definetly helped us be mroe creative with our project as it also allowed us the create a silouette effect on a particular shot and helped us make things look much nicer to the eye and much scarier

Final Film - Dawn of the Zombie

This is the final edit of our film, incorporating the music we also made on GarageBand.

50

Lighting was a bit off
some shot in classroom
Some shots don't flow very well

Evaluation Questions - 1 (George Peat)

What did you make, who did you work with and where did the original idea come from?

Our team (Me, George Evans and Callam Montgomery) is going to make a zombie film entitled 'Dawn of the Zombie'. We were inspired to make a zombie film via it being our favourite sub genre in the horror genre since it can be seen as a lot more believable than other areas such as vampires, were wolves, monsters etc; especially when put into a modern day setting in common environments. Our favourite zombie films are those by George A Romero, the Dawn of the Dead remake by Zach Snyder and 28 Days Later by Danny Boyle. We tried to show aspects of these films in our own, via the use of gorey make up and running zombies. Another film which we could have aspects from is Alien by Ridley Scott since we have a tough female lead. We researched the zombie sub genre on IMBD and looked at who views this type of film (young adult males mostly) and decided to combat this by making the lead female so that the film would attract female viewers.

Our production has gone well with each member contributing well in numerous areas, whether it is directing, editing, sound production, casting, or other areas. Our cast at first consisted of  friends Rachael, Chris, Ewan, Rosie, Aeli-Mai and Nay; however our first shoot did not look well when put on screen due to bad framing and a few other factors so we refilmed. The original cast (apart from ewan) was not able to make the filming date so we used a completely new set of actors/actresses to re film and massively improve on what we first made.

Dawn of the Dead (remake)

This intro represents the sort of gore and zombies we wanted. But not the filming style.

Our title shot for Dawn of the Zombie.

A screen shot from one of our inspirations 28 Days Later, the chase scenes were a major inspiration

Evaluation questions part 2 George Evans

6.  Before being distributed, our film would have it's first screening at a film festival, Our film would likely be distributed independantly, or by a small company, an example of this is a film called 'Colin', about a zombie apocalypse, the film reputably cost only £45 to make, and recieved mixed reviews by critics, it was distributed by a small independant film company called 'nowhere fast productions, this is run however by the people who made the film though.

Our film would almost certainly not be distributed by a high profile company, for example, 28 days later - a film with a much larger budget was distributed by 20th century Fox uk, a company that deals with a wide range of different genres, Our film would be shown at a UK film festival such as Bang short film festival in Nottingham.

They show short independent films such as ours every year, the films are usually low budget, however the website claims that some directors who have shown their films at bang! have gone on to become successful.

Another, and probably more likely possibility is the mayhem film festival, which is more horror-oriented, which would be better suited to our film. the festival is also relatively local, being in Nottingham.

here is an example of a typical film being shown at the festival

8. whilst working on our first film, we had the basic outline of what we had to do, and we spend a great deal of time carefully storyboarding the project, however when we came to film it, we made a number of mistakes, mainly in the form of jump cuts and continuity errors, and at one point, breaking the 180 degree rule, the film was however a highly positive learning expierience, and it helped us a great deal when designing our actual film, there are noticeable similarities between our original film, and our final film, we chose to keep the parts that our peers responded to positively

The original film lacks music, and the sound quality is broken, in contrast to the new film, which contains a soundtrack carefully put together to create an eerie and tense atmosphere.
The camerawork on our new film is steadier and has smoother motion during pans, we had to shoot twice, as our first shoot was unsatisfactory, although this was disapointing, it did give us an opportunity to recieve some feedback from our peers and teachers that we put to use when correcting the film during our second shoot, for instance ommiting swearing, and a punch sequence which caused people to laugh.

                                         
     In this scene, our lead actress swears, however we felt this was more tasteful, so it made the final cut.
If we were to do the production again, we would likely spend more time planning the script, as the finished product is eventful, but required a great amount of filler in the middle in order to fill up a boring part of the storyboard which consisted mainly of running.

The final edit still contains a large segment of running, however we felt the fast paced music combined with multiple fast cuts from different angles and perspectives would keep the film interesting.

9.(George Evans)
My contribution to the process during the planning was completing the majority of the storyboard after reading the script written by Callam and George Peat, researching existing zombie horror films target demographic and the types of codes and conventions associated with our genre, I also researched the costumes worn by actors in these films.

                                - The original model for our zombie costumes, found on google images
During production I provided an actor and fake blood to be worn by the actors, I helped apply the fake blood, I along with Callam and George Peat took turns directing and filming.

During post production I have mainly been working on the soundtrack, being aided by Callam who is working on the editing.

                                       Our lead actress. she was cast due to her short hair, which
                                    we felt challenged the dominant ideology of how a woman
                                   should look, this was perfect for her character.

                                     A zombie attacks our lead actor,  note the look of surprise

                                      our lead actor is devoured by zombies, the fake blood looks
                                     quite realistic in this scene