X GENRE CONVENTIONS2 General Media Language

SOUND

As sound goes, zombie movies usually have eerie music with long, low pitched notes with high pitched, short notes over the top.  This messes with the audience's heartbeat making them feel the intensity of the genre more.  In romance movies, they often have light, relaxing melodies that appeals to a female target audience.  The comedy genre can vary as there are many different ways to go about it. When it comes to foley or ambient sound, it is exaggerated for the comedic effect.

1st SHOT AND MISE-EN-SCENE

The 1st shot has a lot of narrative enigma, whether that's with the character (like Warm Bodies) or with the fact that there are zombies and the character doesn't know about it (like Shaun of the Dead).  There is a lot of exposition through the mise-en-scene as well, like in Shaun of the Dead, we can see a lot of junk on the coffee table, eluding to the fact that his character is a slob.

The mise-en-scene provides a lot of exposition for where the movie is set and about the characters.  In Shaun of the Dead, we see the messy coffee table portraying the character as a slob.  In Warm Bodies, we see a run down airport providing exposition on where it is set.

CENTRAL PROTAGONIST AND NARRATIVE

Like most films, the central protagonist is shown through the rule of thirds, a voice over, close up shots and others.  In Warm Bodies, we get the voice over and close ups of parts of the zombies body, so the audience doesn't know he's a zombie.  In Shaun of the Dead, we don't get narrative enigma of his character as the first shot is of a close up of his face, however there are a lot of shots where other characters are speaking but the camera is still on his character.

TRANSITIONING TO MAIN FILM

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X PRE-PRODUCTION18 Pre-Production Schedule Updated

We've discussed a few things about what we want to change for the film opening.

SCENE 1

• Hand of God
• Shows whole town, to street, to house, to living room

Location

• Near Emma's house

Props

• None needed

Characters

• Nobody - looks desolate

Costumes

• None needed

SCENE 2

• Wakes up on sofa with pizza slice on him
• Has a game controller in hand
• Game (specifically a zombie game) playing on TV
• Doesn't show protagonist immediately (narrative enigma)
• Shows a lot of the mise-en-scene - messy and dirty
• Takes a swig of vodka

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Location

• Emma's living room

Props

• Pizza
• Pizza boxes
• Cigarettes
• Chinese take out boxes
• Lighter
• Ash tray
• Work shoes
• Black leather jacket
• Pocket knife
• Video games
• Game controller
• Cans of beer
• Cans of CocaCola
• Cans of Fanta
• Cans of Red Bull

Characters

• Donnie Romero

Costumes

• White shirt, rolled up sleeves, pocket on left side, half tucked in
• Black work trousers/jeans
• White socks
• Black belt
• Thin gold frame glasses

SCENE3

• Donnie takes off clothes to get into shower
• Gets into shower
• Singing Ghost Town by The Specials - intertextuality with Shaun of the Dead
• Zombie comes in
• Donnie gets soap in eye
• Tries to get a towel and hits zombie in the process
• Bends down to grab towel
• Knocks zombie out when standing up
• Grabs toothbrush and brushes teeth

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Location

• Emma's bathroom

Props

• Toothbrush
• Toothpaste (empty)
• Glasses
• Plain white towel
• Empty shower gel

Characters

• Donnie Romero
• Zombie

Costumes

• Donnie
• Nothing in shower (can't see swim shorts)
• Towel around waist
• Zombie
• White top - bloody and cut up
• Grey zip up hoodie
• Dark blue straight leg jeans
• Black socks

SCENE4

• Goes into bedroom
• Smells all the clothes on the floor
• Is disgusted until he finds one that's okay
• Picks it up and puts on

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Location

• Emma's spare bedroom

Props

• Clothes spread out all over the floor

Characters

• Donnie Romero

Costumes

• White towel around waist
• Rick and Morty graphic tee

SCENE5

• Goes into kitchen
• Quick shots of
• Putting kettle on
• Putting in tea bag
• Pouring kettle
• Milk
• Sugar
• Tastes it 
• Puts in more sugar
• Putting bread in toaster
• Toaster pops
• Scraping off burnt bits
• Putting jam on toast (strawberry - like blood)
• Takes a bit
• Jam gets on face

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Location

• Emma's kitchen

Props

• Kettle
• Toaster
• Jam
• Bread/toast
• Mug
• Teabag
• Milk
• Sugar cubes
• Butter
• Knife

Characters

• Donnie Romero

Costumes

• Rick and Morty tee
• Shorts
• Odd socks

SCENE6

• Can't find keys in hallway
• Rings keys
• Finds them in pink slippers
• Grabs change from bowl
• Puts trainers on
• Leaves house

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Location

• Emma's hallway

Props

• Keys - with keychain that plays music
• Pink fluffy slipper
• Paper which says "Keys hear" with an arrow pointing down
• Wooden chest
• Shoe rack
• Asics trainers
• Coat rack
• Change
• Ceramic bowl

Characters

• Donnie Romero

Costumes

• Rick and Morty tee
• Shorts
• Asics trainers
• Odd socks

SCENE7

• Walking to shops
• Listening to music
• Mia trying to tell him there's a zombie behind him
• He can't hear and is amazed a girl is speaking to him
• False scare as Eddie pushes Donnie out of way from zombie
• Pull dead body from car
• Get in car
• Drive off
• Drone shot of car driving off
• Reveals title

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Location

• Near Emma's house (outside)

Props

• Old phone
• Earphones
• Spatula
• Rolling pin
• Knives
• Lots more kitchen utensils
• Car

Characters

• Donnie Romero
• Mia Jones
• 2nd zombie
• Eddie Pegg

Costumes

• Donnie Romero
• Rick and Morty tee
• Shorts
• Odd socks
• Asics trainers
• Mia Jones
• Dress
• Denim jacket / blazer
• High heels with chunky heel and buckles
• 2nd zombie
• Ruined top with blood
• Zip up hoodie
• Jeans
• Eddie Pegg
• Trench coat hiding all the kitchen utensils
• Black trousers
• Black socks
• Black shirt

X PRE-PRODUCTION11 Zombies

(This post was originally by Bright Films)

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 therefore 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 

X PRE-PRODUCTION7 Zombie Characters

Zombie Character

(This post was originally created by Spikey Films)

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. Looking at 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

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.

X PRE-PRODUCTION4 Location Scouting 2

VIDEO
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ADDITIONAL NOTES

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

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• 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.

X IDEAS2 Zombies

SHAUN OF THE DEAD
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Things we liked (ignoring the bar scene):

• Everyone looking like zombies however they're just doing their boring jobs
• When a car would go past and it would cut into next shot
• The continuous panning from left to right 
• The use of titles such as the Shaun of the Dead on the floor
• The narrative enigma of Shaun panning from feet to head and looks like a zombie
• The quick shots of parts of his morning routine

ZOMBIELAND

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Things we liked:

• The video recorder effect
• Point of view shot with the first zombie
• The visuals of Earth (don't know if we could do that)
• The use of titles for the rules
• The funny list of rules
• The slo mo title sequence (however we thought it was too long)
• The moving titles in the title sequence

WARM BODIES

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Things we liked:

• The narrative enigma of the main character then revealing he is a zombie
• The set design
• The internal monologue
• Flashbacks
• Scenes going on behind character 
• The transition back to how it was before and then back to now