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 THEORY3 Postmodernism Deconstructionism Intertextuality and Simulacra

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POSTMODERNISM

Argues that all the 'isms', eg. capitalism, communism, are now meaningless - the meta-narratives no longer have the power to explain the world or reality.  It is of course self-contradictory: postmodernism is an ism!
Strinati argues there is a collapse in the high/popular culture divide - all are now equally valid.
Such notions lead to playfulness.
The concept of postmodernism denies definition to some extent, but Dominic Strinati outlined 5 key characteristics in 1995 that are often cited:

1. Breakdown of the distinction between culture and society
2. An emphasis on style over substance
3. Breakdown of the distinction between high art and popular culture
4. Confusions over time and space
5. Decline of metanarratives ['grand theories such as Marxism, Christianity and ... modernism have lost their currency for modern societies']*

DECONSTUCTIONISM

The ironic use of existing conventions in a knowing way; the audience is assumed to be in on the irony.  EG: in Scream the Matthew Lillard character cries out dramatically "I'll be right back", an old horror trope being that this denotes a character will be killed.  The other teens at the party respond with that in mind, in a scene where they're sat watching Halloween.  Craven is poking fun at, or critiquing, the very genre he helped to create with 1972's The Last House on the Left.
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This occurs across all media - this Depeche Mode video is a classic example, deconstructing the band's poor, tawdry image and the male gaze.
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via GIPHY
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INTERTEXTUALITY

A simple but profound concept originating with Kristeva - the preferred reading (Stuart Hall) of two texts are linked; the viewer needs knowledge of the earlier text to be able to follow the preferred reading of the newer text.  TV shows like The Simpsons are built on this, and there is a strong vein of this running through the slasher genre.
To help generate cheap publicity for his 1978 proto-slasher Halloween, director John Capenter cast the daughter of the Psycho's scream queen.
In Scream, the characters are watching Halloween.

SIMULACRA

Scary Movie exemplifies the ideas above - it takes intertextuality to a new level: Scream had the working title of Scary Movie, and this film is a satirical remake, quite literally signposting the conventions (eg the Carmen Electra scream queen sees a sign giving the options for either death or safety... and runs up the stairs where the death sign points to, as the dumb scream queens tend to).
These movies have been much analysed, not least for gender representations.  Baudrillard might argue that this leads nowhere as there is no ultimate meaning behind an endless sea of signifiers; Scary Movie is an expression of many existing ideas or signifiers, which cannot be tracked back to any concrete 'true reality' or meaning.
Ideas like encourage playfulness, as seen in these two films.