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

Question 2 (George Evans). 3+4 - (Callam Montgomery)

Question 2
When researching our chosen horror sub-genre (zombie), and watching films such as Day of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead, we noticed a great deal of similarities between characterisation and mise-en-scene of zombie horror films
 a female being persued by zombies is a staple in zombie horror films, for example Barbra in Night of the living dead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYR3dorshwA.
In films such as Night of the living dead it is common for females to appear vunerable via high angle shots, and frightened expressions, we have attempted to adapt this into our film 'dawn of the zombie' in which the female protagonist flees from the zombies, whilst the male attempts to fend one of them off, thus reinforcing the stereotype of men having to protect women from danger.

 we have though, attempted to make our female character challenge dominant ideologies by casting an actress with short hair, and having her wear a jacket and trousers, she also swears in the film, in doing this we were attempting to make the film more interesting by refusing to conform to all the conventions of the genre, thus setting the film appart from others.

ulike most zombie films, which generally take place in an urban setting, we shot ours in a woodland setting in order to reinforce the idea that the characters are in a secluded environment, far away from civilisation, and yet are still being perued by the threat, we drew inspiration to do this from the opening of 28 weeks later in which the characters are in a remote house setting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd9PWvrkbO0&feature=related
Another key element we have changed is the speed the zombies persue the humans, in most films (such as day of the dead) the zombies are slow moving and uncoordinated, whereas in our film, the zombies run at the same speed as the humans, we did this with the idea in mind that a fast moving threat would be more frightening than a slow moving threat, as it would be more difficult to outwit or escape, 28 days later and 28 weeks later also do this, and as a result of this the situation seems more hopeless as they effortlessly pick of the characters, the zombies themselves are, unlike those featured in mainstream cinema made up to appear as if they are insane rather than brain-dead, we have done this to make them seem unpredictable.




                                   Day of the dead zombie                          Our zombie

Question 3

User Ratings for Dawn of the Dead (2004)

 

User Ratings for 18 Days later

Looking at our research for other films we believe our film should be aimed at people under 18, both male and female. The film will be mainly watched by males by the number of voters, but females also rate the film highly so must be taken into account. People this age like the gore and chaos of a world full of undead, so we want chaos and gore.

Having a female lead role makes the main character seem more vunerable so is scarier to watch (thus making it more fulfulling as a horror film), also having a group of survivors trying to live in the undead world is a running theme throughout zombie films like Dawn of the Dead has a group inside a mall trying to survive, so we have another person along with our female lead and this is a male, as an interesting part of survivng groups is seeing how different people cope with the situations. Both 28 Days Later and Dawn of the Dead's 2004 remake have fast zombies that can run and chase humans down, this seems very popular with modern zombie films aimed at younger audiences so we decided to incorparate this into our film and have fast zombies.

Question 4

Our media project mainly represents teenages as the main characters a couple of teenagers. We have shown them in a very stereotypical light in that both characters swear alot which reinforces the stereotype of teenagers being anti-social, this is alot like many typical horror films in which the main character is very young and genereally swears everytime something mildly scary happens. Normally a femal stars in a horror film (Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday 13th, Scream ect.) as this makes them seem more vunerable, however she normally survives and is quite tough, this is also the case with our film as the main female is the survivor of the group, however we did also challenge this aspect as our female has short hair and wears masculine clothing, much in the same way our male has very well groomed hair so appears to be more concious of his looks which is a challenge to the dominant idealogy  of girls only caring about there looks.

In this picture we can see the male has longer hair than the femal and that is has also been straightened and hair product has been added to it, where as the females in short and slightly unkept



Second Shoot of Final Film

The second shoot used completely new actors bar two since the others were not able to do our shooting date and we felt it was necessary to get quite far.

The starting to our film has not yet been done, but the start of this clip we feel was done much better than the previous shoot, with the shots framed better and being more interesting visually in general.

The shots during the running sequence are not yet in order since we want a mixture of zombies and humans instead of a block of one and then the other. Close ups are also going to be added to add to the visceral feel and give variety from the mostly mid shot type.

During the ending sequence of the film with the zombies ripping 'Callam' apart, there were not enough structured shots and too much shaky cam, this shall be resolved when we re shoot.



George Peat.

Storyboard Summary - George Peat

 1. Title sequence and characters talking. Helps establish who is who and what the situation is, in this case Scarlett, Callam, and Georgia discussing what to do after Scarlett's father didn't answer his phone.

2. Zombies emerging from foliage. First time the threat is seen,  kicks off chase sequence.

3. Chase sequence. multiple angles and shot types are used, this combined with the fast cuts gives a sense of pace and rapidity to the film.

4. Chase sequence. Continues from storyboard 3, multiple angles and shot types used to give sense of rapidity.

5. Chase sequence. low angle shots allow the feet to be seen, and therefore how they the characters are moving, desperate to escape the zombies.

6. Chase sequence. 

7. Characters have escaped zombies. The main characters have stopped for a breather, this allows us to see how much strain the situation is putting on them. Close ups and medium shots to see facial expression more clearly to get this across.

8. Zombies take out Georgia. This part is vital since it shatters the sense of safety given by the previous storyboard section. As a result keeping the viewer on edge.

9. Scarlett and Callam escape. Over the shoulder, close ups and medium shots used to show points of view and facial expressions during the struggle to get away.

10. Georgia's demise. This shows the stereotypical gore element of the zombie genre, with Georgia being clawed at and ripped apart.

Re-framing Shot - George Peat

Our first shot of or characters which we took in our first shoot didn't go well. We had placed our tallest character facing away from the camera and closest to the camera. This caused a lot of the shot to be blocked out by him. Also when we wanted to change camera angle or where we were shooting it caused problems. Therefore we have decided to put him in the centre and the two smaller characters at the side of him. This makes the 4 camera angles pointed out to be visually better.

First Shoot of Final Film - George Peat

Our first shoot went rather well but we spotted some problems which we intend to solve:-

• We need to frame some shots differently, characters being in awkward places ruins the look of the film at certain moments.
• A jump cut is very prominent and can be corrected with the 30 degree rule.
• Some shots are too long and shall be re-filmed.
• No close ups, makes the audience feel detached to what is happening.
• Breaking of the 180 degree rule makes the audience feel uncomfortable.

Points made from people in our class are:-

• Actors more convincing, look more scared, louder. Otherwise it looks funny.

However we think that a lot of the shots are of a good quality, particularly the running scenes which use a variety of angles.