Pre-production- ZOMBIES

COSTUME + MAKEUP

I put together a slide show of the topics covered, meaning the points specifically about the zombie makeup our group talked about with our teacher and the improvements and additional points that were discussed thereafter, I will go over them in depth underneath.
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(Slide 2) The test and influences have been covered in recent posts so a summary is:

We have heavily intertextualised elements of Shaun of the Dead, where some elements are close to a simulacra (Baudrillard) following a postmodernism theory, anchoring the preferred reading because if it is left as a polysemic reading, following many examples in the film industry, the preferred reading will be lost as the primary and secondary audience will have no anchorage to access it.
One of these elements is the makeup and therefor we are drawing heavy inspiration from zombie characters in Shaun of The Dead, especially Nick Frost's

(Slide 3) The Improvements from the first makeup test are:

- Firstly to include more blue and purple makeup, in the bruised areas of the zombies face's. This will make the look clearer on screen anchoring the fact that it is a zombie, not someone dressed as one.
- The hair wasn't worked on but we are probably going to add talcum powder to make it look more scruffy and dirty
- More white face paint needs to be used to make the character look pale, which is symbolic and connotes zombies as they are cold and dead, however in the example above that wasn't as clear so to anchor that we are going to use more white face paint.
- We didn't use the contacts we ordered as they had not arrived at this point, but they have now arrived so in are next makeup test we will get a completed look for the makeup.
- We also were unable to use liquid latex due to only spikey films and scope productions being together for the first test and neither of them had liquid latex with them.

(Slide 4) Additional points about the Zombie look 

- One of the zombies will have the pleasure of eating a dead corpses guts and we are going to attempt to achieve this using shallow field of focus and focusing heavily on the audio in post production editing.

- We need to use blood capsules for the zombies but we don't know how the effect will appear so we are looking to test that soon 

- We have decided to not film Sunday as we feel we need to test more points 

Pre Production Zombie make up, liquid Latex

Following the liquid Latex post, now I have an understanding of how to use the product I did follow up research about what effects you could create with it.
Our teacher had said that one of the key aspects, that will perfect our ruin our film opening, is the zombie make up. So we want to have the challenge but we don't want to go over board or get too ambitious because we don't want to ruin the piece.

These are some examples I looked at:

Now the first three do look cool, however they do raise questions regarding the issues they may cause. This first being whether it is possible for either myself or our group as a whole to create something to this standard, or even learn to produce something to a similar quality in the amount of time we have until we start to film the opening. The second is if this is possibly too much for our target audience, referring mainly to the middle example. We don't to loose are target audience by either loosing their interest and not appealing to our primary audience or having the scenario where a group such as the BBFC to raise the age limit on the film similar to This is England (Obviously this can't happen however we will treat this dilemma as if it could). If this were to happen it would cause a polysemic reading instead of anchoring the preferred reading.
However if we pulled the look off I think it would perfect our piece

These examples on the other hand are more likely to be our influence towards creating our own zombies, although they are likely to be extremely similar to this. As a group we prefer this kind of look because of the higher focus on the make up yet effectively using the liquid latex to create wounds that help make the zombies look realistic without an expensive amount of make up. 

The example on the right is the make up for Nick Frost in Shaun of the Dead, which is the main influence of our piece and therefor the influence of this zombie make up intertextualises Shaun of the Dead

However the challenge for this is either over doing the make up or under doing the make up as it won't show on screen or it will show unclose and look terrible 

Pre Production Schedule and other notes

Scene 1 

• Wakes up on sofa - snoring and drooling 
• Playing movie in protagonists messy living room
• Not showing protagonist immediately (narrative enigma)
• Playing Scream / Halloween / Dawn of the Dead / Shaun of the Dead
• Opening Baked Beans can with pocket knife and eating them cold
• Wakes up and eats last nights food

Locations

Emma's living room

Props

Baked beans

Pocket knife

Video games (PS3)

CD's

Empty energy drink cans

Burnt toast/open butter/jam with knife/mould

Mr Burrowes t-shirts 

Plates or glasses

Kruger rand money

empty cigarette packet

Characters

Donnie

Costumes

Graphic T-shirt (rick and morty)

Short Shorts

Odd socks

Possible slippers

Scene2

• Protagonist in shower
• Pans from feet to head (cuts in between)
• Oblivious to zombies in bathroom
• Dropping shampoo bottle knocking out zombie
• Slipping and kicking zombie killing it
• Possible shower singing scene for comedic effect

Location

Someones shower

Props

Shower gel (sporty) - nearly empty

Liquid latex

Fake blood

Glasses

towel
overflowing laundry

Characters

Zombies

Donnie

Costume

ripped up t-shirt

Contact lenses

Ripped up sweatpants

Scene 3

• Getting ready scene 
• Quick shots like in Shaun of the Dead
• Brushing teeth
• Going to toilet
• Putting on glasses
• Getting dressed 
• Putting on badge for blockbuster store

Location

Bathroom

Props

Run out toothpaste

Middle class Toothbrush

Glasses

towel

Badge for work

Costume

creased shirt

Smart trousers

Name tag

Glasses

Black Smart shoes

White visible socks

Characters

Zombie

Scene 4

• Walking out of house with headphones on looking out phone
• Not looking around
• Sees girl ahead (love interest) trying to tell him theres a zombie behind him
• False scare - hand on shoulder 
• Turns out to be the best friend character who pushes him out the way
• Shouts 'get in car'
• Pulls dead body out revealing title on floor

Locations

Emma's house

Props

Wired Headphones

iPhone 5

Microsoft phone

liquid latex 

fake blood

car

Costume

Same costume for Donnie as previously

Fred - cool friend, Black trench coat, Black trousers, smart shoes, Black socks, Black shirt

Hair gel

Cigarettes

Mia Jones - white vest, black leather jacket, blue jeans, hair in ponytail

Characters

2 zombies

1 dead person

Donnie

Mia

Fred

Extra notes

Dialogue can often be clunky  

Dates

Practice shoot - 10/01/2020 - 12/01/2020

First shooting day - 19/01/2020

Second shooting day - 26/01/2020

Pre production Zombie Make up

THIS WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED BY SPIKEY FILMS

Zombie Character

Our film opening is going to be a zom-rom-com, meaning we need to plan a look for our zombie characters. It is important we get this look correct to obtain verisimilitude. Our plan is for our zombie to have white eyes (to show they aren't alive), several wounds/cuts across the face, white face, ripped/dirty clothes and then covered in blood. This style is inspired by the zombies in Shaun of the Dead.            They are all wearing normal clothing, however its all hanging off them as if it was unnatural. The close up of Nick Frost, you can see his face has been covered in white powder/paint to show the character is lifeless. We have ordered white contact lenses from amazon to create the same effect as Shaun of the Dead. We have blood capsules as well, meaning we would be able to create a similar effect to what is going on around Nick Frost's mouth. 

Resources

My practice cuts

Liquid latex - we ordered some to create any disfigured sections of the zombies face.

Equipment to create scars/cuts - we have been practicing creating realistic cuts. On the right is an image of some practice cuts I have done on my arm (using glue, makeup and pens).

White make-up - we have access to makeup that could be applied to the face to create the dead look.

Fake blood - could be applied to face or clothing
Contact lenses - we have ordered 2 pairs of white contact lenses. 

Clothing

We haven't made any specific plans for clothing yet, however preferably baggy clothing that can be covered in blood. The point is for it to look like the zombies have been turned immediately from their normal self to a zombie, which is why they would be dressed in clothing that they would usually wear.

Walk

Once again, inspired by Shaun of the Dead. We chose to go for a slow zombie because we felt it would be easily distinguishable between the zombies and the normal characters. For example if our characters, Donnie, Fred or Mia, are running away, the comedy would be in the style of the slow walk.

Sound

Similar to the sounds above, the generic zombie noise would work well for our scene, as it has been used in several zombie movies before.

Pre Production Location Scouting 2

PRE-PRODUCTION Location scouting 2

(THIS BLOG POST WAS ORIGINALLY MADE BY SCOPE PRODUCTIONS)

VIDEO



ADDITIONAL NOTES

• The Shaun of the Dead scene i'm referencing (from around 40 seconds)

• I was thinking of having Donnie not seeing the zombie rather than him seeing it as there would be no reason for him to think it is normal like how they think the zombie is just a drunk guy in Shaun of the Dead.  
• The field is very long so it wouldn't need to be very obvious.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

• The construction work there should hopefully be done by the time we film.
• I think that the cul de sac is a good place to have a car as it won't block anyone trying to get past.
• The 'dead body' coming out of the car could have a zombie attacking it, but then we would need to think about how our protagonist wouldn't see it.
• We could use the front of the house on the end as Donnie Romero's home (but probably not the inside as it doesn't have what we want.

Pre production Location Scouting

(This post was originally made by Spikey Films)

These are some pictures Spikey Films contributed to the group as possible locations for filming our Film Opening.

BATHROOM

LIVING ROOM

KITCHEN

Pre Production Props

(THIS BLOG POST WAS ORIGINALLY MADE MY SCOPE PRODUCTIONS)
This is a list of some of the props we are planning on using in our Film opening, these will help anchor the preferred reading

Video Games












Pocket Knife

 Baked Beans

XBOX360

 Plates

 Glasses

 Towel

 Graphic Tee

 XBOX Controllers

 Graphic Tee

 Empty Cans

 Toaster

DVDs

Location finding

These are some videos of possible areas to film, in our film opening, however it is not necessarily going to be filmed in these locations, this is just part of the pre production.

LIVING ROOM

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Benefits of Filming-
- Space to film in 
-Lots of mise en scene already available 

Disadvantages of Filming- 
- Lots of removal in order to place correct props and create mise en scene, as to get preferred reading 
- Not the best as far as social class, it doesn't fit the middle class stereotype
- awkward for group members to get too

BATHROOM

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Benefits of Filming-
- Space to film in 
-Lots of mise en scene already available 
- has mirrors we wanted for certain camera angle 

Disadvantages of Filming- 
- awkward removal of items in order to place correct props and create mise en scene, as to get preferred reading 
- Not the best as far as social class, it doesn't fit the middle class stereotype

- awkward for group members to get too

KITCHEN

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Benefits of Filming- 
-Lots of mise en scene already available 
- fits the social class

Disadvantages of Filming- 
- not a lot of space to film
- challenge to avoid filming balcony window 
- awkward for group members to get too

Liquid Latex Zombie Make Up

I’ve been looking into zombie make up and ways to create a convincing look for the zombies in our film opening.
One of the products our teacher generously got us was liquid latex. However none of the members of our group have experience with liquid latex so I’ve looked into how to use it and what effects can be done using it.
1 video I liked, for the tutorial as well as the end effect.
The video:
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So knowing how to use the product, I will try and test it on the people who are going to be zombies as it will work differently on different people, as far as how much to use as it will last longer time periods, and it may need a thicker layer as it may not show as well, especially when on the face.

It is important we get it right as if the zombies look bad it will clearly look fake and a lot of the effect is lost. Therefor the more practice we get the better as there is a lot of pressure on the zombie look.

Ideas and film opening notes

Location idea - near Louis's house + near James's scene

Mia Jones - James
Donnie Romero - Tristan
Fred East - James
Main Zombie - Louis

Instead of Donnie heading to work, he is heading to shop for teabags.

Gets shampoo in his eyes and can't see anything
On his way to shop - woman tries to wave at him but listening to woman
False scare when Fred east puts hand on shoulder

Key framing for editing process

possible hand of god