Production Treatment For Main Task

The opening of a short film:
Duration: Two minutes
Audience: Male specific audience aged around 15-24 as we know that other films with zombies included in them have appealed to this type of audience over others.
Resume: A man comes out of a house, where a party is slowly ending. This is set late at night. As he is walking out the door he puts on his headphones on, therefore he is oblivious to what is going on around him. He then walks past a barely lit alley and doesnt notice he has walked past somebody is the alley. As the opening caries on we begin too see this man has come from a place full of regular people too being in a place where he is the only regular person around.
Suggested Elements: For the costumes of some of the character's that are actin as zombie's, we chose to use fake blood and ripped clothes for the zombie's and neaurtal clothing for the main character. In our opening our main prop is an iPod, to show the charactor cannot hear any surroundings.

Location: We chose our location to be in sale.

We chose the ratin '15' for out opening sequence. We chose this rating because the film doesnt include heavy violence or strong language. Our film is also aimed at teenagers from the age of 15.
As it is a simular to the film zombieland we thought it would be appropriate to use this rating.
No one under the age of 15 can buy/rent or view a 15 rated film because of language and distubing scenes or themes.

Draft of Shot List for Main Task

1) We begin our opening with a low angle shot of the characters feet coming out of the house. We chose this shot because it does not give away much detail of the film or character, it also doesnt tell the audience alot about what the genre is of our film.
2) From the low angle show were next going to use a panning shot of the character turning out of the garden and walking down the road. We chose a panning shot so that the we could reveal more of the character to the audience and so that they could see that the character is walking.
3) We then are going too use a close up shot of the characters face to show neautural emotions and that there is nothing out of the ordinary going on yet in the film.
4) After the panning shot we are going to then have a tracking shot of the character walking round the corner showing no one is behind him, still nothing out of the ordinary.
5) Were then going to have a close up of the back of the characters head and him putting on his headphones, still nothing out of the ordinary. We also chose to have this shot because the character having headphones on blocks out other sounds, therefor the charater doesnt know if there is anything around them because they can only hear their music.
6) After this shot were going to use a Two shot of character one walking past an alleyway in which character two is standing in. This shot will show what character one is doing and also what character two is doing.
7) To show the character has not noticed the zombie were going to then use a close up shot of the characters neautral face expression.
8) As he is still walking down the road were going to use a mid shot of the characters feet still walking.
9) We then decided were going to use a over the shoulder shot showing that there is nothing in the background.
10) After the over the shoulder shot we then decided were going to use a close up of the character's iPod.
11) Now the audience have now been introduced to the zombie's we can now begin to bring more into the opening, were then going to use a another over the shoulder shot to show that there is another zombie standing in the middle of the road in the background.
12) After the audience have seen the zombie were going to do several close up shots of the
zombie and what their face looks like and how they are dressed etc.
14) Now that the audience have seen the zombie, we decided were going to then show a chasing the character, we chose to use a panning shot of zombie walking towards character.
15) After the character has noticed the zombie we going to use a long shot of the character walking away from the zombie, as if the character is backing away.
16) As the character is backing away, were going to use a close up shot of a zombie grabbing the characters ankle.
17) Then were then going to use a long shot of the character trying to get away from the zombie's
18) Were then going to then use a tracking shot of the character running, the tracking shot will have a big effect of the character running as it will look like the camera is the zombie following.
19) After were then going to use a long shot of the character turning a corner as the zombie follows shortly after....

Research into Main Task

Dawn of the Dead

As we chose not to do a comedy style introduction we looked at the more serious version of "Shaun of the Dead" which is "Dawn of the Dead". It begins with a small family where the majority have turned into zombies this shows it goes straight into the zombie theme which is what we used as an ideabecause we only have a short amount of time to do our opening.
"A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman, and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall."
This is similar to ours as it is going to be a violent zombie movie with a serious storyline regarding zombies. Again as this is a zombie movie we looked closely at the cosumtes and make-up for idea's on our zombie's. Also as this film is aiming to be more realistic we looked at how the zombie's move so we would have idea's on how to make our actors act like zombie's. There are also a few long shots of how the zombie's move, as a group we decided these sort of shots may be good for our opening because they will show movement of the zombie's.

Below is a screen shot of the fast cutting used in the opening of dawn of the dead. We decided to use fast cutting in our opening to cause suspence showing the character is scared of the zombie.

Shaun of the Dead

We researched Shaun of the Dead as it is a popular zombie movie, we chose to research this as our character in our opening scene also gets caught in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. We considered doing a comedy style thriller including zombies like Shaun of the Dead but then decided against it, as there isnt enough time in our introduction. As this film has an ordinary opening of people living day to day life, we thought this would take up too much time of our opening so this just stayed as an idea. We researched this film for ideas for our makeup and costume's, also because it is a very successfull low budget movie. We looked into how they used their low budget so we could use some of their idea's for our opening. Most of their money was used on marketing, as ours does not need that we were able to focus on the actual film. There are a few shots in the film we thought we could use in our opening of the zombie's. In shaun of the dead they use alot of close ups and mid shots to show the zombie's, we wrote this down as an idea so we could show detial of the zombies. As the picture above shows the main character is the only normal one in there our opening has a simular effect as it shows a normal person at the beginning and when another character comes in it is still clear to see this character is the only normal person.

Below is a screen shot of the credits shown in shaun of the dead. We thought this would be a good idea for our opening as we could show the credits as we show the zombie's to represent our film. Also this is a long shot showing their costumes, we thought this should be conciderd to show the location and costume's.

Similar Opening Scence

Zombieland
Zombieland is a film set in the early twenty-first century, it is based on a college student in Texas. He has survived by following his '30 rules'. The college student decides to travel to Ohio to see if his parent are alive. On his journey his car brakes down and he ends up riding with a zombie-hating man from Florida, both men are then tricked by two young woman who tell them a sob story and end up leavin with their cars and guns, the men find a way back on the road and then meet the two young women again. They decide to ride together but the woman are heading to an a LA amusment park, the question is if they all survive?

This film is simular to our main task as we have chosen to include zombies in our opening. This is also simular to our film as it is modern day and includes college students. We looked at this opening because it gave us many idea's on how we could do our horror opening. The opening of this film starts with rules on how to defeat the zombie's or how to avoid turning into one. We considered doing something simular to this as it could make our opening more intresting and end with a better cliff hanger. As Zombieland is a film about zombie's, it has given us idea's on how we can use make-up and costumes to give our opening a better effect. The beggining of Zombieland is set in a dark location, this gave us the idea to have our opening in the dark as this is one of many thriller conventions. Although we do not have alot of equiptment so we may not be able to get the lighting visible so we may have to film our opening as it is getting dark. The opening of Zombieland also uses some good camera shots that we can use in our opening, for example they use a tracking shot to show a zombie chasing the male student at a petrol station. We could use this in our opening to show a zombie chasing one of our characters.


Below is a screen shot image of Zombie Land opening. We chose to take this image because it shows the amount of make up used and the costumes. It also shows credit's, we thought this could be an idea to have our credits over footage instead of on a blank screen.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

What did you learn about the cameras and editing software during the preliminary task?

You have to be specific about where you place the camera in the shot reverse shot, because the shots have to match otherwise the footage wouldn't be in time. Also for a steady shot it was vital we used the tripod so the camera didn't move. We had to pick a high angle shot for when character 2 walked in due to angle and picture we would catch as he approached. For most of the short clips we had to adjust the starting and ending point, for it to fit in with our other shots.

In the Filming and Editing of your Project, What Worked well and what could have been improved?
What we think wroked well was the high angle long shot transforming into a medium shot of character two walking in, we had to think about the angle we was going to take the shot from as we wanted his full body in the shot. What we also thought the close up of character twos shot to speed up the walking in of character two so it wasnt to long. Lastly what we didnt think worked well and could have been in improved is the dialogue was very minimilistic and it could have been more natural.

Give a detailed, specific example of how you have used a shot reverse shot combination in your film...
We positioned the camera behind character 2 to start with looking over his shoulder at character 1, this was the first line of dialogue. We made sure we kept the position of the first pod placing in order to allow a professional image to occur. We then positioned the pod opposite of character two, looking over character ones shoulder onto him. We then returned to the original position to complete our shot reverse shot.

Give a detailed, specific example of how you achieved cut aways during the editing process...
We achieved a cut away by starting off with a long to medium shot of character 2 entering the door. Then we placed the camera on the floor and filmed character 2's feet walking. Finally we ended the cutaway with a close up of character 2 sitting down

How did you make sure that you didn't break the 180 degree rule? Or if you broke it, what have you learn from this?
We avoided breaking the 180 degree rule by not moving the camera but just rotating it from character 1 to character 2, this was to ensure we did not break the 180 degree rule.