Research and Planning: Christmas

Over Christmas I am going to take an SLR camera home with me and take pictures fit for my magazine and poster.

Research and Planning: My Poster

Today I decided to make some progress on my movie poster, I added text for the credits using the steeltongs font. I also decided there should be a catchy tag line somewhere on my poster I decided to use 'trust in your saviors.' This will be one of the slogans of the Acura company and could also refer to Alexis being a savior of the people.

I have decided that I will definitely continue to use the same font for 'Alexis Von Fury: Zombie Hunter'

Research and Planning: Magazine So far

Research and Planning: Editing log so far

I have decided to upload the progress I make with my editing through my editing log. This way I can keep track of all of the things I am doing and what is going well.

Research and Planning: Me working

Here is a video of me doing some of my work. This should show you how I work and the various tasks I carry out to create my coursework.

Research and Planning: Coverline ideas for magazine

Today I decided to mind-map some ideas for my magazine cover's coverlines. I decided to use Prezi to present this. Some of these ideas could be very useful for me when it comes to choosing which coverlines would be good enough for my cover.

Research and Planning: Bloopers

Research and Planning: Feedback on Trailer

Today our class watched what we have done of our trailer so far, they filled out feedback sheets and handed them back to us. We will take their comments on board and try our best to use this information to make our trailer even better

Research and Planning: Trailer so far

Today we showed our trailers so far to the class and asked for their feedback. This was very helpful to us as our attention was drawn to things we could add to our piece to make it even better. There are a couple of scenes which are missing and will need to be added in soon. We also need to add sound in the form of a voice over to help give the character more identity. Some zombie sound effects and gun shots would also be useful

Research and Planning: Female lead inspiations

To get an idea of how a female lead should be in an action/horror genre I decided to do some research to make sure that my character fits in with these conventions.

 Juliet Starling is the main character from the video game Lollipop chainsaw, she has a positive fun loving personality and is very upbeat (even when she is slicing the heads off her undead classmates) This is something which I would like to recreate in my own character of Alexis.


Babydoll is from the movie Sucker Punch, in this film her character escapes to a fantasy world in order to escape, hre she becomes stronger than she was in the real world. I wouldn't want to take the fantasy element of this but I would like to show strength as well as some vulnerability in my character. For example she may be captured at some point. She is not invincible.


This is Alice, a lead character from the resident evil movies. The aspect of this character I like best is her attitude and seriousness, I would like to represent some of this in my own work. This kind of attitude from a character could help with my film trailer/poster/magazine over being taken more seriously

Research and Planning: Zombie costume

After watching a video of the Walking Dead behind the scenes I saw that a woman was able to create an old tattered look in the clothing of the 'Walking dead' zombies by burning them. I thought this was an extremely effective idea and decided that we should try to do this for our own work. So on Sunday when we began some filming we brought a lighter and burned holes into the costumes of a couple of our zombies.

Research and Planning: All footage

This video contains every bit of footage we have filmed so far, this is completely unedited and I look forward to beginning the editing process as soon as possible. Not all of the footage will be usable but I do think that we have a lot here that will be useful for us.

Research and Planning: Shot list

This form was filled out by Philippa and shows the types of shots we aim to include in our filming. Hopefully we will manage to include all of these in our final piece.

Research and Planning: Weather forcast weekend

This is the weather forecast for tomorrow, I have found this very useful as it will help me to know just how cold it will be for our filming. This means that I have to make sure all of my actors have warm clothes to wear when they're not being filmed.

Research and Planning: Extra filming day

Today is Saturday and as me and Pippa are both free today we have decided to go to Manchester city centre to do some filming. I have made adjustments to my costume to make it more suitable for the weather, I have also printed out some posters to add to mise en scene. I have also called a friend to come along and be my zombie for the day. Today should be exciting!

Research and Planning: Auditions 2

Here is the video of mine and Becky's auditions for the role of Alexis Von Fury. We decided that I would take on the role of Alexis, hopefully I will be able to perform this role well and make my trailer as good as I imagine.

Research and Planning: Filming preparations

I am very happy that I have managed to arrange some filming for Sunday it seems this came to be through the magic of Facebook. Through this I managed to find a few people who seem more than happy to help me with my project. Some are even offering help with make up and bringing props.

This is the original post which managed to spark some interest

I then went on to create a private group to discuss meeting times and places. This will help the whole day to run a lot smoother. We can also discuss costume and other important things here. Extra people who would like to be a part of our work can also join this group

Research and Planning: Auditions

Today I borrowed a camera from my classroom and went out into the college to see if I could find people to audition for my trailer. I will continue to look for and find people to play my zombies as I feel the more zombies we have the better our trailer will look

This is Chris, he auditioned for the part of a zombie. I also decided to give him a role of an Acura company representative and a possible love interest. After discussing this he was happy to take part

Becky auditioned for the main character role, however she seems way too cute and innocent for this. I can however use her to be another one of my zombie characters.

This headshot is myself, I also decided to audition for the role of Alexis. So far it has been decided that I will go forward in this role

Research and Planning: My Film Poster so far

Research and Planning: Sunday Shooting

On Sunday I have managed to arrange a group of people to all meet together in Denton for our first official day of filming. I will be arriving just after work (Around 3pm) We will be trying to get as much filming done as we can in the daylight. We are hoping that we will manage to get a fair amount of good, usable footage. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we will be able to loan a film camera from college for this day.

We have asked a friend to come along to help us get our zombies ready, she studies makeup artistry at college and she will be using my designs to make our zombies look realistic.

Research and Planning: Shooting Scehdule

Today I have begun to fill out a shooting schedule for our film trailer, most of the dates are provisional but we know that these are shoots we would definitely like to do.

Research and Planning: Magazine Font

Today I was ill so I stayed off college. I emailed my teacher to see what work I could be doing whilst I was off. I found out my class were researching masthead ideas for their film magazine covers. I decided to do my research on dafont.com

These are the fonts that I chose. (L to R) Bellerose, American Captain, Outstanding, shwboat

Through my research I discovered that most film magazines tend to chose a simple bold font for their mastheads, this makes them easier for an audience to recognise and read. This leads me to believe that my first two choices could be more appropriate for my magazine genre.

Research and Planning: Props for Magazine/ Poster

                                         
The blade. This may be a signature weapon for our character and could be seen in all of our promotional images for the 'film.

Cricket bat (with added blood of course) This could be an alternative prop for the model to pose with.

Protagonist costume, with an added corset. Dark make up and 'ruffled/ scruffy' hair.

Research and Planning: Makeup test 1

Last night I decided that I would try to do an attempt of my zombie makeup. I convinced my boyfriend to let me practise on him. I used various eyeshadows, lip liner, lipstick and white face paint. These things are readily available and easy to get hold of. I decided to try the look without the fake blood as I did not want to waste what I have. I decided to take pictures to document the progress.

Step 1: Clean face. Ready for the makeup!

Step 2: Cover the face in white face paint. Oops I think I missed some patches.

Step 3: Use different colours to add some dirty patches.

Step 4: Add the bruises and bloody patches

Step 5: Add the final touches and you're done! Now you just need to add the clothing and some fake blood.

As far as first attempts go I am very proud of what I managed to do. I used techniques I have learned from doing my own Halloween makeup and I can safely say that I managed to do a good job, even though I did not have a large budget for my makeup.

Research and Planning: Location Recee 3

Research and Planning: Location Recee 2

Edit: This filming will now take place in Denton rather than the Hyde area, we have found a perfect place.

Research and Planning: Location Recee

This my first location recee for one of my filming locations, I filled this out in order to keep a record of where filming will be taking place.

Research and Planning: Script

Script

Alexis:             My name is Alexis Von Fury. Just your regular teenage girl, I meet up with friends, go shopping, talk to boys.. Oh, and I’m a Zombie Hunter.

The infection broke out about year ago, spreading across the country like a wildfire. It changes people, destroys them. This is the Acura Company, a global giant.  They said they’d help us, they said they’d fix us. Ha. They were wrong.

This will be the only dialogue used in our trailer and will act as a voice over told by the main character. This will give the audience a better chance to bond with the main character and recognize them.This will be used in auditions for the role and will hopefully help us to find a good character.

Research and Planning: Prop shopping haul

Last weekend I went back to Manchester city centre to see if I could find any props to purchase for my project. I found a fancy dress shop which sold these three things.

• Liquid Latex - To create the effect of peeling skin on my zombies
• Fake blood - I only bought one tube as I am planning on trying to make my own blood to save money
• A prop knife - To be used as the main characters weapon. The blood inside of it 'oozes' downwards to give the impression of real dripping blood.

I was quite proud to find these things all for under £10 and hopefully I will be able to get the rest of what I need from my own home or college.

Research and Planning: Editing inspiration

 

I recently saw this trailer for the videogame 'Lollipop Chainsaw' and thought that in some ways the themes of the game are similar to those I wish to portray in my trailer. In terms of editing I particularly like the fades used around 0:40 to build tension for 'Juliets' fight scenes. The shot of the shoe fading into the zombies is something I would particularly like to recreate in my own work. I also like the idea of showing the same scene shot from a variaty of angles to draw in an audience's interest.

Research and Planning: Film magazine cover draft 2

This is my second draft of my magazine cover, this is my favorite idea of the two. I like the idea of having a lot of zombies faded out in the background.

Research and Planning: Film magazine cover draft 1

This is my first draft of my film magazine cover, I have included all stereotypical aspects of a movie magazine including cover lines, main image, masthead and main story.

Research and Planning: Test shots

Here are some test shots that were taken by Philippa on college grounds. These shots show the sort of themes and the style we are aiming towards.