Note to moderator

Dear Moderator,

Hello and welcome to our group blog, thank you for taking the time to look around and we hope you enjoy are blog! The best way to navigate around our blog is by clicking on the labels on the right hand side of the page.

Under the research and planning label, you will find evidence of all the research, planning and development work we did as a group during pre-production, production and post-production stages of our project.

In order for you to see exactly what each candidate contributed to this process, we have also included Individual Contribution labels named for each group member. All research, planning and development posts contributed to by the named candidate will appear when you click that label.

Each member of the group has completed their own evaluation. You can access our responses to the evaluation questions under the individually named Evaluation labels, please make sure to click older posts at the end of the blog page to see the rest of our posts.

Our finished Film Opening Sequence is at the top of the blog, and each candidate has posted their Preliminary Task Video Sequence as part of their answer to Q7 Evaluation.

You can also filter our posts by labels or date, and there is a blog archive if you want to look through chronologically.

You will also find a link to the Class Film Blog which contains links to the other group blogs from our school.


Once again thank you for taking your time to read our blog and we hope you enjoy reading and watching the content on our blog!

From,
Aidan Szczurek, Candidate number- 1770
Jeremy Kumarathasan, Candidate number- 1400
Daniel Gittings, Candidate number- 1230

Closing Post

Our blog is now closed. Hope you enjoyed going through it!

Thanks,

Jeremy, Daniel and Aidan

zombie make-up

Zombie Make-Up

We wanted to make our Zombies as realistic as possible so we researched make-up and found out how we do it and what we require.

This a video of a possible way to do the zombie make up:

This is the effect we intend to create with our zombies, but as we have a few zombies, we will make each zombie have scars in different places to make it look as realistic as possible. We will have the dripping blood in different positions and have different amounts.

• We will use fake blood made by using golden syrup, water, food colouring and flour. 
• We will use black face paint to create the scars and the eyes.
• We will use either powder or something similar such as white face paint to create the pale effect on the skin.

These are the style we intend to use:

This is what we created on our shoots, both the test and real shoot:

muzzle flash tutorial

We are going to include a variety of different gun shots, therefore we had to look into how the gun shots are actually made and we came across this video which goes through the process. 

We will use this Freddiew2 tutorial for all of our muzzle flash effects and for general tips and dos and don'ts. The main thing we found out was that we needed to have quite a large muzzle flash and you need to have smoke following the shot. Most video have too small muzzle flashes so we will use a seemingly over-sized flare but it should make it seem more realistic. The other main point with the muzzle flashes was how it interacts with the environment. We need to add in brighter sections on places which would be lit up by the flare. As we have many shots fired in our sequence we need to get it right so we feel that this is the most accurate way of putting in a muzzle flash effect.

Storyboard

To help with our shot list, animistic and editing we created a rough idea using our storyboard. 

Post it note storyboard

Shoot Preparation

There were many things we did in preparation to our real shoot

Facebook: 

We created a Facebook event and invited many people to be actors, this time we clearly thought about the date and time we did our shoot, as last time people were late because it was too early and many couldn't make it due to the poor weather and other commitments they had. For our re-shoot (our final shoot) we arranged based on numbers and did a poll on whether they wanted a Saturday shoot, Sunday shoot or whether they didn't mind. We also got feedback from potential actors on whether the time was suitable and they said to make it slightly later, which we eventually did and it helped increase the numbers.

Screenshots:

The screenshot above shows the information for the zombie shoot sent to people we wanted to act in our media, such as the date and time of the shoot, the location and a brief description of what was to be expected to happen on the day.

Above is a screenshot of a question we asked to our invited actors to help us select which day of the weekend they preferred. We did this to get as many actors as possible and chose Sunday as this was the day most of them preferred.

Costume:

We wanted the zombies to look quite realistic, so after doing the relevant research and finding out that the zombies could just wear normal clothes, we looked online for face paint which would be appropriate for proposed zombie look and at a reasonable price. Here is the face paint we purchased online, it wasn't very expensive and had free delivery.

Screenshot:

Script for Element 115

This is the script for our 2 minute opening sequence, he shows the dialogue we will use for our actors.

Daniel: Let’s get back to the camp, we’ve seen nothing for hours.

Jeremy: Hold up, look ahead.

Daniel: What?

Jeremy: Walkers, a whole group.

Daniel: How many?

Jeremy: 6 I can see…

Daniel: Reckon we can take them?

Jeremy: Should be good, alright, get down.   

Daniel: I’ll take the 3^rd from the left.

Jeremy: Ok, about 100 yards. Nice shot.

Daniel: One on the right now.

Jeremy: Slow easterly wind. They’re getting closer.

Daniel: Ok, cover me. I’m done, let’s move.

Jeremy: We’ve gotta move fast, they’re really close.

Daniel: Alright.

Jeremy: Quick through the gate.

Daniel: Damn, it’s locked.

Jeremy: Give me a leg up.

Daniel: I can’t make it. Open the gate.

Jeremy: I can’t, it’s locked.

Daniel: Get back!

Initially our script was very simple and minimal, this wasn't good as we lacked interaction between the two charcters, however this our developed one which higlights characteristics of the two charcters.

Feedback on rough cut

After our shoot with all the Zombies we created a rough cut of our film opening, however our outcome wasn't up to our intended standard.

Comments:

• Lack of shot variety, too many wide angles and hardly any close ups.
• Continuity errors. 
• Wrong shot types- a shot from behind the Zombies.
• Not many conventional shots, such as the sniper view, binocular view etc. 
• Not enough Zombies.

We therefore have to plan new shots, and ensure we pay attention to details. Organise more Zombies and have a clear plan in place for our re-shoot. 

The sniper we bought

In the end due to our preferred sniper being out of stock we had to go with a less desired gun with a sniper scope on. This still looks a little like a sniper and should be easy to tell what it is. This was cheaper than our original so gives us a larger budget to spend on other things.

The fake grenades we will buy

We have searched for replica grenades but they are very hard to find or very expensive, so we decided to look for toy grenades instead. This led to many more findings and them being a lot cheaper. We found a few fully plastic ones but decided that we would prefer to go with the more realistic looking half metal ones. The best ones we found where we have backup grenades as well was on amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kids-Army-Grenade-Ammo-Box/dp/B00A65ACHU

As we get multiple grenades it makes it better as if one breaks we have another as back-up.

After our presentation on our idea we were given feedback on our film. We had to make changes, and we did this parallel to the development of our idea.

Teacher Feedback- 29/01/2013

Conditional green light

Improvements to be made:

• Our USP needs to be changed to the conflict between the two survival group rather the initial idea to focus solely on one of the survival groups.
• Work on our secondary audience and clearly state and include the appropriate elements to appeal to both genders and fans of the genre. 
• Do research on zombie make-up and special effects such as muzzle flashes, body shots and exploding head. 
• Gain a better understanding on titles and provide evidence. 

Positive comments:

• Good research and planning on locations for the film. 
• Clear demonstration of research on films which influenced. 
• Good presentation and roles well distributed within the group. 

Ideas for buying Sniper

http://bbguns4less.co.uk/products/G22-Spring-Sniper-Rifle-BB-Gun-with-Scope-and-Bi-pod.html

This site has a very good sniper that fits our idea perfectly as it has a scope and a bi-pod. It is also one of the cheapest we could find and fits with our budget. It costs around £40

Others with scopes that we could use as back-up would cost around £80.

In the worst case scenario there are machine guns with scopes on that cost around £40.

Before we could go ahead with our production we had to receive a green light for our presentation on our idea. We did a presentation highlighting all the factors mentioned before, however we had to hand out a double sided sheet with all the key information, and those sides have been attached below.

Click on the two images to view on a larger scale. 

Plans use work from last term

This a post which we used in our proposal of our idea. This particular post focuses on:

How our plans use ideas from last term

We will use the ideas from form, style etc that we learnt about like positioning and the composition inside the shot. We will also use our knowledge of how to create titles as we will need to introduce our production company, distributor, etc as this is what is required in a film opening. We practiced how to frame shots and how to use match-on-action techniques which we will need to implement when it comes to filming. We practiced our editing, for how we could make sure the shots flowed seamlessly together to make everything seem like it is happening in the correct order and make our opening make sense. We will also use our knowledge of our audience, which we talked about previously, to appeal to them and make sure we reach our primary and secondary audiences. We will also use the starting structure of setting the equilibrium, which will be broken later in the film and then resolved.

Techniques and technologies used

In our film opening we will use continuity techniques, like match-on-action in the running and sniper scnenes.
We will also aim to not break the 180 degree rule or the 30 degree rule.
We'll use a wide range of shot types to keep variety in our sequence.
We have decided to use cut-away to black titles so we can traverse over larger distances in a shorter time frame.
We will use effects like blood splatters, exploding heads and muzzle flashes to keep with the action genre and to keep the audience entertained.
We will use the relevant editing software available to make our head shots, exploding heads and grenade explosion as realistic as possible.
For the overall editing of the we will use Adobe Premier Pro.

This a post which we used in our proposal of our idea. This particular post focuses on:

Appeal to audience

The characters involved in the sequence and the rest of the film are of similar age to the intended core audience therefore the audience will be able to relate to the characters. The characters as mentioned before are brave young individuals, this means the core audience can aspire to be like them.

The action in the film and this particular sequence will appeal to all the audiences we have in mind. The action will be exciting and engaging to watch and will keep the audience thrilled and entertained. 

The film will follow of conventions of the zombie genre and this will appeal to the audience as they'll familiar with the genre and its style. 

This a post which we used in our proposal of our idea. This particular post focuses on:

Style of our opening scene

The grading of our sequence will be slightly dim, this will reflect the dystopian future and this atmosphere we intend to create, as we believe this will best suit our genre- Zombie/Action. 

The sequence will alternate between titles and action, this will keep continuity and create ellipses which means the audience can fill in the gaps themselves and the sequence isn't dragged out. 

As the sequence progresses the pace of the of the action also increases. As a result tension increases and when it ends with a 'bang' and a cliff hanger, it keeps the audience gripped and excited. It will also have dramatic music which will work in synergy to add to the tension and drama in the sequence. 

We are following many of the conventions of Zombie/Action films. These include: an apocalyptic world, an isolated/abandoned setting, zombies shot in the head to be killed, the zombie virus is transmitted through a bite and people are willing to die rather than living as a zombie. 

This a post which we used in our proposal of our idea. This particular post focuses on:

Representation of  social groups

The main characters involved in the opening sequence are young males and are represented as brave and intelligent individuals. This challenges stereotypes of young people being rude, rowdy and mischievous hooligans. 

Conforming to conventions where men are the one doing the manual work and the more physical work. 

Later on in the narrative a very strong female is introduced. She challenges stereotypes through her role in the film, as she does similar jobs as the men, such as fighting off the zombies and other enemies.

The two missionaries are on an equal footing despite coming from different ethnic backgrounds.

This a post which we used in our proposal of our idea. This particular post focuses on:

Media institutions responsible for the distribution for our production

Our distributor is Momentum Pictures who will own the distribution rights in the UK. The international rights will be sold off to other distribution companies to distribute in foreign countries.

Our production company is JAD Productions. However, we later changed this to 'Bitten Productions'. 

chosen genre and film idea

This a post which we used in our proposal of our idea. This particular post focuses on:

Chosen genre and film idea

Zombie, Action and Horror.

Two missionaries get caught up in a zombie fight. They shoot zombies and eventually get overrun. This results in one getting caught and therefore choosing to sacrifice his life using a grenade. The opening ends with an unknown man knocking the missionary out.