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 VODCAST4: First Shot

VODCAST
The first shot is very important for a movie.  This needs to set the scene for the audience whilst still leaving some narrative enigma.  The exposition can be shown through the mise-en-scene.  The first shot often shows the protagonist in a variety of different ways, for example, the rule of thirds.  I looked at Bridget Jones's Diary (Maguire, 2001), About a Boy (Chris and Paul Weitz, 2002) and Hot Fuzz (Wright, 2007).
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X FILM OPENING EG5 Bridget Jones's Diary

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• Medium long shot
• Central framing - rule of thirds - central protagonist
• Black taxis - providing exposition in where it is set (London/South England)
• Doesn't have hat or umbrella - provides exposition on her
• Blonde and female - possible dumb blonde stereotype / male gaze
• Tracking her - anchors her as protagonist and voice over
• Ellipses to little southern English village - stereotypically nice (now normative)
• Red telephone box to anchor where it's set 

X FILM OPENING EG3 About a Boy

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• Fade up
• Audio bridge to first scene
• Diegetic sound from tv 
• Bird's eye view
• Tracking shot
• Protagonist - proppian archetypes
• Rule of thirds
• Narrative enigma - not showing protagonist's face
• Intertextuality with tv show
• Camera movement and zooming connoting tension
• Anchored with tense music from tv show
• Show foreshadowing events - most likely to be Jon Bon Jovi character connotes comedic genre 
• Voice over - inner monologue
• Non-diegetic sound - guitar strings
• Red Bull signifies youth, not sophisticated
• Tea cup with saucer - sophistication
• Cigarettes - negative connotations - complex preferred reading
• Campbell's hero's journey/monomyth - all narratives center on journey and progression of protagonist
• Big book - intelligence, sophistication
• Lower case bubble font block white - connoting comedic genre
• Navy blue slacks, gry blue crew neck jumper, blue shirt, grey blue monochromatic mise-en-scene - conservative guy
• Large collection of books and LPs, electric guitar, speakers - rebellious

X SEMIOTICS3 Semiotics rap

OUR TASK 

We had to make a semiotics rap.  This is in order to help us remember these terms so we can use them regularly.  It's a fun and easier way to remember these different terms.

LOUIS'S VERSES












Semiotics rap this is the way to go
Lots of different terms a bit like juxtapose
I’m guessing you want to know what that means
Well it’s something you see often on your tv screens

The places of two images on either side
Of an edit, creating a divide
This means there is an effect caused
That’s a pretty smart term, how bout you give me an applause

I think it’s about time we look at our next term
Connotation, that’s one to learn
The symbolic meaning of every factual detail
Knowing this, a levels are not something you will fail

Let’s look at the main man Roland Barthes
When it comes to effort, he worked the hardest
Born 1915 and died in Paris, France
Now give us a few seconds this is the semiotics dance
















Now that that’s done we can move on
We can research binary opposition
a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite
That’s pretty cool, isn’t it

MY VERSES

We look at a picture and we denote
But then you have to write some notes
These note are signifiers and connotes
Idk what to say so eat some oats

Many signifiers leads to an anchor
We needed that or it sank her
Signifiers have many possible meanings
Polysemy can be good on screening

There is preferred reading
Negotiated reading
Oppositional reading
Don’t know what it means, do some reading

Spooky scary narrative enigma
Gives the character a bad stigma
With intertextuality, everything links
Like episodes of the Simpsons, don't you think?

Narrative enigma gives some mystery
Making people wonder who is he?
The point is that we don't know
Because on screen we don't let it show

OUR VERSES TOGETHER

We keep it hidden till the very end
And then the connotations are what we send
The symbolic meaning of every factual detail
Connotations even found in Donald Trump's email

Proppian archetypes are a base
I'm about to spill my metaphorical briefcase
Each media text has its archetypes
For example the hero bringing the hype

Equilibrium is where it all starts
Keeping it chill until it all falls apart
Todorov is the owner of this theory
Now we don’t have to query