Thursday 6 May 2010
Tuesday 4 May 2010
Monday 19 April 2010
Evaluation
1. Zombie Nation uses conventions of a horror film including zombies, blood, and guts. Also we challenged the conventions of the horror genre by shooting the opening sequence on the beach as well as in the daytime such as '28 Days Later'. This was also challenging as the setting still needed to look scary and abandoned however upon finding our location it was clear it held the best atmosphere than other settings we viewed.
2. The characters used, i.e. all female zombies, is purposefully used to subvert the gender stereotype and show women as stronger and more harmful instead of the classic 'damsel in distress' used in horror films. This will also shock the audience as the women are the aggressive types which is also seen in the film 'Lesbian Vampire Killers' and 'Teeth'.
3. The film, 'Zombie Nation', can be likened to other zombie horror films such as 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Zombie Land' which have been box office successes, ours could share the same success if there was a high budget and a lot of media adverts. We could also have merchandise for our movie including tee shirts quoting lines such as 'Where is everyone?' with pop art images of the characters. Our movie could be released as a straight to D.V.D. release if the project was made on a small budget and wasn't as well accepted as first thought.
4. The audience for our film would be aged between 15-19 but could also range further into young adults and other exceptions however the films attraction would be closer focused onto teenagers.
Friday 19 March 2010
Editing and Screen Grabs
Wednesday 17 March 2010
Rough Cut and Analysis
The opening sequence above is the rough cut of our coursework piece. It is a opening title sequence of a horror film to which we then chose the sub-genre ‘zombie’.
The clips starts showing two back packers walking away from the camera in a pan shot, the location is uninhibited to show the viewer that the back packers are alone. This scene was inspired by the opening to ‘American werewolf in London’ in which two back packers are walking alone in the moors. It then cuts to a medium close-up of the main character ‘Carl’ and then back to ‘Percy’ as they briefly converse. We used a minimal amount of speech as most horror films aren’t overly speech reliant. The sound track here is inspired by ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ and ‘Zombieland’ which both use a heavily distorted guitar and bass line to add tension build up and increase the tempo of the scene, however we need to add more to the soundtrack for our final cut also altering and dubbing the voices in some scenes. We then see a low shot of the two characters climbing up a sand dune, we chose to film the opening sequence during the day as we were inspired by the film ‘Shaun of the Dead’ which was also filmed in day time and this subverts the horror stereotype yet is being used more and more often in modern horrors. The next shot is a over the shoulder shot showing two people kissing on a beach, the camera then zooms in to give the viewer a closer look. It then cuts to a match-on-action shot of the zombie grabbing the humans arm and then quickly cuts to the girl being pushed over onto the sand using a high shot to show her inferiority. The zombie is wearing regular clothing, again inspired by ‘Shaun of the Dead’ to show how quickly the virus can take over the body. The zombie then climbs on top of her and high pitched screaming can be heard, after which a zoom-out shot shows the zombie’s shadow moving out of shot and a body lying on the ground. We then cut to a scene in which the characters are breathing heavily to show their fear, cutting to the zombie climbing up the sand dune in front of them, the zombie’s face is very bloody and bruised as well as there being a maniacal look upon her face to emphasize the difference between human and zombie. A close-up of the zombie’s face is used to show the victim’s P.O.V. however we need to shorten this clip in our final cut as it is too long and distracts from the plot line. The next scene is of three other female zombies climbing over the other side of the sand dune showing the viewer the victims are now trapped between them, a popular association (can’t remember the right word but it begins with a ‘c’ not connotations) with horror films. We cut to the next shot showing ‘Carl’ and ‘Percy’ surrounded by another angle intensifying the scene. The next clip shows ‘Percy’ falling down a sand dune in his attempts to escape, with a second shot of him falling from another, lower angle – however this needs to be edited to show more consistency and will be altered to a ‘jump shot’. A high shot then shows ‘Percy’ cowering on the sand cutting to a medium close-up of ‘Carl’ as they panic. We cut to a pan shot showing the main zombie approaching ‘Percy’ and then dragging him slightly, then cutting to another pan shot showing the other zombies jumping from the sand dune to attack ‘Percy’. The sequence ends with a shot of ‘Carl’ running away and the title of the film, ‘Zombie Nation’, appearing on the screen in a blood red to accentuate the horror and zombie connotations.
