Zombie Film Location Leatherhead

This location is only a short distance from Therfield so it would be easy to get to. Along the river is a perfect location as its usually empty so we could film without interruption. Aswell as this we wouldnt need permission as its a public area. We have discussed possibly using an underwater camera but this would depend on the temperature on the day of filming.  

We also might film in leatherhead town as around this time of year it's lit up really well as it gets dark so early. Although the lighting will be good it also means we have little time to film if we want natural light scenes. I've looked online to check the times for sunrise to sunset so we can estimate the times we need to meet up. We are planning to film on the 9th or any time within the first week of the year. Based on this we will most likely be meeting everyone in Leatherhead at 11:00 giving us plenty of time for makeup and costumes aswell as filming.         



 



Zombie Film Location School

SCHOOl- After researching the locations of a variety of Zombie films we felt school would be a good location as it follows the popular use of commonly busy locations deserted. Using location aswell as being effective would also be more convinient as we would be able to film during our free lessons, time for filming was somthing we struggled with last year. Hopefully we would also be able to have more extras and actors in our trailer if we film parts in school. On top of this we would hopefully be able to get permission to film after school meaning we would put some scenery us making it a more believeable location. We want our film to have theme's of comedy in it we wanted to show the teenagers being sterotypical and go about there day to day life in school but the outside being surrounded by zombies 

The long corridoors are perfect for chase scenes so we would want to include an action scene of some sort within the trailer.   

 As our cast are all teenagers we thought we would see if we could use the gym equipment for a training scene where we see our lead charector come in to train to teenagers in combat.

  We havent decided yet as to where the bass will be for the charectors, but we will most likely use one of the room in the school that isnt use too often allowing us to mess it up. If this isnt allowed then we wil probably leave these scenes till the end of term and film it after school meaning we wont be in anyones way.

 

 We want the canteen to be show in the begining of the trailer where we see the charectors going about there's lives in school as if nothings changed.



Zombie Film Summary

Fifteen years have passed since the united nations released a virus that would help control the population of the world and the years that followed saw the population start to dwindle. The United Nations believed that the virus was succesful, and released it with no further testing. This mistake proved to be fatal. Two years after the second strain was released, a man in Colorado had his throat ripped out by his girlfriend, who then ate his internal organs, turning completely feral.

 

Fastforward eight years, where the world has been ravaged by Zombies, and the only people unaffected are those under the age of 18. A small group of teenagers form a group in there school where they fight for survival until the arrival of Jen Lowe. After saving the group leader she is brought back to headquaters where she informs them of the possible cure being held in a goverment building. 

Zombie Film research Antagonist & Victims

The antagonists for this trailer will be the zombies. the zombies will be creating chaos and will be chasing the victims. we want the viewers to be grossed out by these zombies, so their behaviour and look should be disgusting, we want blood to be everywhere.

The victims for our trailer and going to be the survivors that are placed in this post-apocalyptic world, they have to fend for themselves, and because they are under 18 it makes it very difficult for them. because our rating is a 15, making these characters under 18 means that any under 18's viewing the trailer means that they can sympathise with these victims and can imagine themselves in this situation.

 

Zombie Film Zombie Actors Reasearch

There are three types of Zombies we have been looking into when planning our trailer:

Warm Bodies: 

This is a more recent interpretation on Zombies following on from the beauty and the beast themed teen flicks like twilight. This type of zombie is more interactive with other characters meaning he can communicate with a love interest which makes him more appealing to the teen audience. The zombie's also arent as physically effected by the disease as normal, this is also to make him more appealing to the audience as they aren't falling apart.

Although this modern interpretation of a zombie appeals to the same demographic as our own trailer hopes to we don't plan on making the Zombie's key characters within the film. We also don't want our audience to empathise or like the zombies we want them to be scared of them. This style of zombie is too soft for our film.  

Zombieland:

                               

In zombieland they play on the tradition appearance of zombie's. The film put a more comedic spin on the traditional zombie showing them in funny places such as weddings, shops and theme parks. This takes away the fear of the zombies as they don't follow all the cliche's of a horror film. Unlike common zombies these ones can move fast, this makes up for the fear lost by it being a comedy as it adds suspense.     

We are looking into adding a bit of comedy in our film so looking at this film was helpful. I really likes the idea of making the zombies move faster as it compensates for it being less scary by making it a comedy.    

Shaun of the dead:

 

 

Shaun of the dead presents far more cliche portrayals of Zombie's, they show no sign of intelligents like in 'warm bodies' they slowly move around with distorted bodie parts blood gushing from there faces. This sort of Zombie I would say acts as more of a prop than an actor.   

 

 

 

 

 

 



Zombie Film Location Research

I AM LEGEND- Francis Lawrence's I am legend follows the life of a scientist, Will Smith based in New York following the outbreak of a plague. After wiping out most of humanity it transforms the reminding population into monsters. Smith then spends his time trying to reverse the effects of the outbreak which concequently results in more drama.

I think using a city in a Zombie movie is really effective if you have the budget to CGI it like 'I am legend' or just empty it like we see in the opening of '28 days later'. I think it's so effective as its such a contrasting image to what cities are which is busy. There is a reasonable amount of safety in a cities are there are always people around to help which is a contributing factor as to why these images are so affective because this is no longer apparent. New york is a popular locations for all genred films due to the iconic landscape. Everyone can identify this city which makes it that more dramatic when we see it torn apart. 

    

DAWN OF THE DEAD- Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead follows a group of survivers in amoungst a Zombie apocalips who seek refuge in a mall. As there group continues to grow they must survive together.

We see again the use of usually busy locations deserted. This is a reacuring factor in these Zombie films probably due to the fact that these places with large buildings can contain mass amount of people but from the outside it appears diserted/ safe. Another reason these locations are effective is because it's not common to see these public and comercial buildings destroyed enforcing the idea of danger. 

   

Zombie Film Media Examples

We felt in order to start planning the trailer we should look at other peoples so we could get an idea for what to do and what not to do. We looked at a total of three to get a decent range of examples.  

Zombie/ Horror film Directors

Alfred Hitchcock

Psycho, Birds and Rear Window

Aspects of horror but mainly a thriller director. His ability to build suspence and keep the audience terrified for days after seeing his films.

Takashi Shimizu 

The Grudge

I feel Shimizu is the best horror/ thriller director, I feel his films have a lasting effect on there audience. The clear language barrior he presents in the film between Gellar and the japanese people really emphasises how alone she is which i think is a big contributer to the success of the franchise.   

Wesley Earl "Wes" Craven is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor known for his work on horror films, particularly slasher films.

Wes Craven is the creator of such films like the Scream franchise,

Guillermo Del Toro

Guillermo del Toro is a Mexican film director, screenwriter, producer, and novelist. In his filmmaking career, del Toro has alternated between Spanish dark fantasy pieces.

Guillermo del Toro most famous films that he has created are; The Hell boy series, Pans Labyrinth

Zombie film soundtrack research

1. Blue Öyster Cult -- Don't Fear the Reaper
2. Chuck Mangione -- Feels So Good
3. Crash Kings -- Its Only Wednesday
4. Doves -- Kingdom of Rust
5. Hank Williams -- I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
6. John Stafford Smith -- The Star-Spangled Banner
7. Kristin Chenoweth -- Popular
8. Marching Band -- Feel Good About It
9. Metallica -- For Whom the Bell Tolls
10. Metric -- Gold Guns And Girls
11. Paul Anka -- Puppy Love
12. Ray Parker Jr. -- Ghostbusters
13. Success -- Hard to come back
14. The Black Keys -- Your Touch
15. The Droge & Summers Blend -- Two Of The Lucky Ones
16. The Raconteurs -- Salute Your Solution
17. Van Halen -- Everybody Wants Some
18. Velvet Underground -- The Oh! Sweet Nuthin'
19. Willie Nelson -- Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain
20. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart -- The Marriage Of Figaro, K.492

Shaun of the dead- Zombie Nation.

01. Resident Evil - Red Queen 00:00
02. Slipknot - My Plague (New Abuse Mix) 00:04
03. Marilyn Manson - The Fight Song (Slipknot Remix) 03:06
04. Coal Chamber - Something Told Me 06:56
05. The Crystal Method - Name Of The Game (Clean Name) 10:18
06. Adema - Everyone 13:52
07. Fear Factory - Invisible Wounds (The Suture Mix) 17:26
08. Static-X - Anything But This 21:03
09. Rammstein - Halleluja 25:06
10. Depeche Mode - Dirt 28:46
11. Ill Nino - What Comes Around (Day Of The Dead Mix) 33:43
12. Mudvayne - Dig (Everything And Nothing Mix) 38:11
13. Method Man - Release Yo Delf (Prodigy Mix) 43:08
14. Saliva - 800 49:04
15. Five Pointe 0 - The Infinity 53:41
16. Resident Evil - The Umbrella Corporation 58:07
17. Marilyn Manson - Resident Evil Main Theme 58:38
18. Marilyn Manson - Seizure Of Power 1:00:47
19. Marilyn Manson - Reunion 1:04:40
20. Marilyn Manson - Cleansing 1:07:26

Marilyn Manson - Resident Evil main theme.

28 Weeks Later Theme - John Murphy

Zombie Film Title research

 

Eighteen: The title Eighteen is linked into the fact that in the film no people under the age of 18 can become a zombie, as that is the mutation of the disease.We liked this font as it is quite messy and looks like it has been written in blood.

Outbreak: Outbreak was an interesting title because it also hints at how the Zombie plague spread across the world. We used this font because it's similar to blood spattering and that will fit in with our film as people are fighting against zombies.

We decided that the font of our film should be in red, as it is a bold colour that makes people think of blood. We went on to several different websites and found fonts that we thought would fit well with our film, once we'd selected a few we used them with a few titles we'd been thinking of using for our film: Virus, Outbreak, Zombie Run and Eighteen. 

Virus: We thought that Virus was an interesting title to use as it fits with the story, and we used this font as it is reminiscent of zombies rising from the dead.

Outbreak: Outbreak was an interesting title because it also hints at how the Zombie plague spread across the world. We used this font because it's similar to blood spattering and that will fit in with our film as people are fighting against zombies. 

Zombie Run: We liked the title of Zombie Run as this is what the main characters would be doing through the film. This font is a very stereotypical horror font that is reminiscent of the classic horror films that were released in the 1970's.

 

Zombie film Questionaire

When Creating our questionaries we came up with 7 questions we wanted to know the answers to in order to move forward with our development. As our target age group is for 25 and under we chose to only take results from this catogarie. Ubove is the 10 sets of results we collected from the questionaries.

 



 80% said the genres they would place with 'Zombie' films are Comedy and action.

 

40% felt the story line was the most important part of a film 

 

Film Certificates

 

Universal (U) - All ages admitted, there is nothing unsuitable for children

 

Parental Guidance (PG) - All ages are admitted, but certain references could be unsuitable for young children. May contain mild language and sex/drugs references. It can contain mild language and sex/drugs references. May contain moderate violence if justified by context. (E.G: Fantasy Violence.)

 

12A - Cinema only. This classification was introduced in 2002. Films in this category are considered to be unsuitable for young children. Those aged under 12 are onlya admitted if they are accompanied by an adult, at all times during the motion picture. It's generally not recommended that children under 12 should watch the film. Films in this category contain mature themes, discrimination, soft drugs, infrequent strong language and discretely portrayed. Sexual violence may be implied.

 

 15 - Only those over 15 years are admitted. Nobody younger than 15 can rent or buy a 15 film. Films under this category can contain adult themes, hard drugs, frequent strong language and strong violence and sex references. Sexual activity may be portrayed but without any strong detail. Sexual violence may be shown if discreet and justified by context.

 

18 - Only adults are admitted. Nobody younger than 18 can rent or buy an 18-rated film, or watch an 18-film in the cinema. Films in this category don't have a limitation on the bad language, hard drugs are allowed, and explicit sex references and along with detailed sexual activity are also allowed.

Movie Software

Imovie's is the software we will be using to edit our opening film. We made this choice based on our editing experience from our preliminary task, we found the software simple but effective to use as we could change the cinimatography of the film easily. We have chosen this software over others such as 'Windows Movie maker' and 'Final Cut Pro' due to complexity and avalibility.

As you can see from the picture above the layout is far simpler to our other options, But not so simple that the finale products looks bad due to limited options on effects.



Finale Cut Studio: This is the other software that was possibly going to be used. Its a far more complex software thats allows you to create high qualitiy videos with upgraded amount of effects compaired to imovie.

Although this is techniqually the best pieace of software it would also be the most difficult to use in a group. Due to these reasons we wont be using this program to edit our finale.

On the left you can see a tutorial of how to use the basics of finale cut. This was another contributer to my choice in editing software,I felt to much time would be spend getting the hang of the software that the film would suffer due to this.





Windows Movie Maker: This is an older software, that is as simple as editing can get in my opinion. With a simple layout resembling that of imovie, but other factors let it down.

It doesnt have much of a variety when changing the exposure, saturation and contrast of a video. We were hoping to use colour editing to make it less ordinary and stand out, for this reason we wont be using this program either.

Zombie Age Rateing Research

When decideing on the age rating of our film we watched Saw, The Grudge and The Woman in Black. From this we decided what level of violence mirrored what we had in mind for the film.

28 Day's Later (2002)
Age 18
Horror/ Sci-Fi/ Thriller

The story line to 28 Day's Later resembles our own. Despite this we want to take a less serious approach as we want it to be aimed at teenagers, I feel the 18 age rateing might cause us to miss our aimed demographic.

We do want to match the amount of violence and gor in 28 days later but in a light hearted way aiming to entertaining rather than scare.

 Taking in all of this we collectivly decided that portraying the event to be relistic is not how we want to go about filming our trailer.  

       

Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Age 15
Horror/ Comedy






















Warm Bodies (2013)
Age 12
Zombie/ Romantic