I think that's over...

...finally. Whilst I was in a lesson earlier, Dan finished filming Mr. Murphy's scene. Hopefully thats all we'll need Mr. Murphy to do now, so with any luck we won't need to re-film much more.

Re-shoot!

After employing the help of Frank Murphy last week for filming, we had to redo his scene a few days later as the area we used was too light. Learning from our mistakes, we set up the first re-shoot to have the perfect amount of light and included more science-related things to add to the mise-en-scene. However, as we have just noticed, the camera case was in the background of our shot! With no way to remove it, we have no choice but to re-shoot this scene for the THIRD time! I refuse to make any more mistakes with this extremely simple shot, so the third time WILL be the LAST time! I am guaranteeing this shot will go succesfully, so watch this space!

Stupid copyright...

...and it's true! We wanted to use the song '115', composed by Kevin Sherwood and sung by Elena Siegman, it is featured as a music easter egg in the zombies mode of Call of Duty: Black Ops. The composer and singer are both contracted under Treyarch, so if we want permission to use the song we'll need to ask them first. I sent an email to them yesterday afternoon to try and get permission, so i'll let you all know when (or if) they reply!

Extension!

Great news! Even though me and Dan were on track to meet the deadline anyway, we have literally just been told our deadline has been extended from the end of this week to the end of next week!
This means we are likely to carry on filming for a little while, and perhaps add a few more scenes to our production, so stay tuned!

Success!

Finally! We all met as planned, 11 at Morrison's, and asides from a slight detour to Dan's house so he could pick up something, it all went great! Everyone met at Wicksteed's at about quarter to 12, and made our way out to the forest at the back. We found a good spot to set up and began filming at around 1pm. We were finally finished by 3:30pm, and it was off for a celebratory McDonalds to celebrate (and warm up- it was freezing!).

I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who helped out- myself and Dan of course, my good friend Dave McInnes and Dan's girlfriend Lindsey Munro. My brother, Jonathn Navarro-Marin and his girlfriend Megan Davidge- you guys were all a big help and made this movie complete! Thank you all!

Me and Dan will likely be making a new video diary tommorow, so be ready to check it out on his Youtube channel @danmcginey14, or check out mine at Michael Navarro-Marin.

Is this a sign?

Yesterday, on my way out from school, I walked past one of the vice-principals and then something hit me. I felt like I needed to do something, and it involved a VP. Then, it hit me... A CAMERA!
That same morning, I was supposed to have gone and got this sheet signed by a VP and the head of department, but I had completely forgot!

So it began... The time was 16:10pm, and at around 16:20pm or so, the media tech guys with the camera's would start packing up to go. I had 10 minutes to secure two signatures and prevent a possible repeat of our camera problem last week (See my post 'Disaster'). I pulled the sheet from my schoolbag and quickly filled in the neccesary things like my name, card number etc. Then, I almost thrusted the sheet into my VP's face, which he somewhat annoyingly signed. Time check: 16:15pm. I had spent too long writing on the damn sheet and had to move on fast. Racing to the English Literacy and Language department, I searched room-to-room in an attempt to find the head of Media, Mr. Seston, but it was too no prevail. The only teacher I could find was Mr. Wilson, who was working away feverishly on his laptop. Now, I know Mr. Wilson was (I don't know if he still is) a Media teacher last year, and he is the the second-in-command of the department, so I decided to risk it and ask him to sign. Both signatures taken care of, I rushed back across the school to get to the Media tech room. Time check: 16:18pm. I had to hurry.

Flying through the door, I caught the tech man just as he was preparing to leave. Handing him my sheet, he happily accepted both signatures and got my camera and tripod ready. But my question is this... Is this entire event a sign? This almost disastrous forgetting of the camera could be some eery foreshadowing of how today's event turn out. Will they be disastrous like last week, or will they be succesful so we can begin our editing? And now, as I sit here typing this post literally about 20 minutes or so before I leave to pick up Dan and one of our actors, I can only think about one phrase concerning today, one phrase that no matter what obstacles get in our way of filming, this will stay in my head. And what is it this phrase that i'm thinking?

Bring it on...

Plans for tomorrow's filming

Tomorrow we plan to hopefully finally get all the filming done!

My parents shall be picking everyone who needs a lift up and dropping them off at a nearby park (called wicksteeds park) for filming. The land is public, so that shouldn't be an issue this time. We hope filming is done any time before 4:30pm (as it begins to get dark around then). When we're done, my parents again will drop everyone off wherever they need to be and then me and Dan can start to edit next week.

Here's hoping that tomorrow goes a lot better than last saturday!

Thanks for reading!

First filming scene done!

It's official! Me and Dan have literally just got back in the classroom after filming the scene with Mr. Murphy, and everything went well. It took a few shots to get a perfect one, but it's all done now. Saturday will be the next filming session, and tomorrow we will be going through our shots to see which ones we want to keep and which ones have to go.

Stay tuned and as always thanks for reading!

Black Ops 2 Zombies Trailer Analysis

For a change, I decided I would analyse something other than a movie trailer. Something that I am pretty passionate about, and that is the popular game mode within Call Of Duty, Nazi Zombies. It's likely that you have heard of Nazi Zombies before as it has been around for a few years, and has even been turned into an iPhone/iPod Touch/ iPad app. Simply put, it is a survival horror gamemode where the player starts as one of four characters that range depnding on the map, for example the majority of the maps have you playing as the game's main four characters. These are all stereotypical characters, based on stereotypes now-a-days and back during WWII (when the game originally began). The characters are a Russian (named Nikolai, very common name, who drinks a lot of Vodka and always implies he is drunk), an American (named Tank Dempsey, as he could be considered a bit of a 'tank'- very brave, strong, tough, but dumb as a plank of wood), a Japanese (Takeo Masaki, who loves Sushi and often spurts ancient Japanese proverbs) and finally a German (Edward Richtofen, ex-Nazi scientist and known psycopath, has an obsession with spleens), then other maps allow you to play as people like John F. Kennedy, Fidel Castro and Danny Trejo. It's huge success has spanned from a large fanbase (It was originally featured as a simple bonus at the end of the Call Of Duty game, World at War), who constantly come up with theories to the confusing and non-linear back story to the gamemode. Thanks to the popularity of the mode, Treyarch (the gamemode's creator) have decided to include it for a third game running and recentley released a trailer to advertise the game and this mode. So, after asking Mr. Seston and getting his permission, I decided I would analyse the trailer as it was full of great things like camera shots, ligthing, character positioning etc. that would be very interesting to discuss. So, let's begin.

One thing to notice in the trailer is the choice of soundtrack. At the beginning, for the first 15 or so seconds as the bus rolls in to the station the theme playing is rather obviously the popular childrens song 'The Wheels On The Bus'. Aside's from this being relevant to the story, it also adds to the tension and aura the trailer is setting. Children's songs are nearly always perceived as being creepy, and the fact that this one is seemingly being played from a rusty old bus adds to the fear factor. The next song however is drastically different. From the minute the zombie groans change from being rather low pitched, unthreatening ones to the loud shout at around 37-38 seconds into the video, the song changes to Avenged Sevenfold's latest song, 'Carry On'. The fact this is now an Avenged Sevenfold song playing in the background shows portrays the change on screen. On screen, it's gone from zombies shuffling over to the bus too a full out zombie onslaught/ bloodbath. The music matches the scene very well.

Another thing to note is the protagonists. There entrance into the scene treats them as though they are the 'saviours'. This is because of the way the scene plays out. On board the bus we see that, whoever's there are preparing for a fight. Guns reloading, being cocked- they're getting ready. Then, a shot from outside the bus show's the doors creak open, showing a girl armed with a shotgun prepared to go to war. It's a very good scene which portrays the characters in a good light as ones that can be entrusted to help humanity. The way they go to arms at the sight of trouble also implies they are all brave and willing to defend either themselves or each other. Another way the trailer shows these characters off as being undefeatbale is the way they use the bus. As the bus moves on to the next location, a grouo of zombies is in its way. However, the bus simply ploughs through them, the zombies unable to even cause a dent. The fact the bus was moving means someone (the survivors) were onboard, and the way they tore through the zombies shows they are unstoppable and undefeatable.

Next is the messages Treyarch hid inside the trailer. For example, one scene at about 0:50 seconds shows a zombie sliding down a roof, with the words 'Dine' written in neon in the background. The sign is actually suppose to say 'Diner', but both have to Do with food which is exactly what the zombie is hoperfully sliding too. The 'Diner' is actually used one other time in the backdrop of the trailer to write a message, and this scene occurs at around 0:57 seconds, when the zombie is dropping to the ground. It's quite hard to see, so i'll include it as a picture in this post, but as the zombie drops to the ground dead the 'North Highway Diner' sign has all the letters in 'North Highway' except the No in North and the W in Highway blacked out, and in the word 'Diner' all the words  except D, I and E are left black. The message spells "Now Die", and could refer to the obvious that the zombie has just died after being shot several times. It could aslo refer to the fact that perhaps these protagonists will eventually die? I don't know, but it's pretty well hidden stuff and keeps any audience that sees it guessing.

Also, talking about this zombies death, I love the shot they used to show it. The camera started behind the zombies back then swooped round to his front as his head was popped off before dropping to ground level at the same time the corpse does and showing the hidden message in the background saying 'Now Die'. It is for this reason that I think the shot is brilliant and one that I personally love.

The lighting used in the trailer is quite dark (as it occurs at night) yet has an orange glow. This orange glow comes from the missiles which destroyed the Earth, but could also be perceived as there still being hope. Although it's dark, the glow of light implies the darkness will be broken and good will prevail, which again portays the characters as being the 'saviours' of the Earth as they are the only ones present in this trailer killing the zombies.

Another thing used in the trailer a few times is longshots. Longshots are used on a number of occasions to show, normally, the vast number of zombies opposing the protagonists. For example, in the opening to the trailer (at around 0:22 seconds) a longshot is used to show the bus waiting in the station.

Then, at around 0.33 seconds a very similair shot is used, albeit this time the bus is surrounded by zombies. The similarities between the two shots shows how the scene escalated quickly from zombieless to zombieful.

Also, later on in the trailer an over the shoulder shot of one of the protagonists shooting zombies also shows a rather longshot of the ground below, full of zombies.

For these reasons, I believe longshots are used throughout the trailer to show either a sign of a scenario gone bad, or to show the vast amount of zombies in the scene.

So, this was my review. I have actually been planning to upload this for a while, but then we began our prelim task and main task and this never came to completion. It's only because the game was recently released that I even remembered I had this on here. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this analysation and to anyone one with the game, enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

Filming to begin today

As you all know by now, our first planned day of filming ended in disaster last saturday (10th of November 2012). Now, 5 days later, we are ready to officially start filming. We have a camera booked for our Media lesson later and the teacher we need has a free lesson, so he can help. With any luck, we can have his part done by the end of today and concentrate our efforts on getting the filming in the forest done on saturday.

Thanks for reading, and i'll keep you all posted!

Actor's contract

We have got Mr. Murphy to sign an actor's contract, which gives us permission to use his face and voice and upload the video to Youtube. The contract also says that we are to arrange dates for us to do the filming with him. We tried to scan the contract onto a computer so we could upload it, however the scanner bizarrely cut the document up into several pieces, so we will sort it out and get it uploaded soon, we just thought that we should update the blog with this new information now.

Thanks for reading!

Disaster!

So, we had everything planned (as you can see from my last post) for our day of filming today. We all met (except one actor who couldn't come down till 1) as planned, 12 at Morrison's. At around 10 past 1, we set off to begin filming. Now, we had planned to use the perfect forest just behind our school for the film. So, after getting through a gap in the fence we made our way up there. However, to our dismay, we discovered it was private land, so filming there wasn't an option. After spending the next hour or so trekking around nearby, it became quite clear there were no better places around. The time by now was 2:30pm, and we were fast-approaching the time when the sun would dissapear and his friend the moon would be out, cascading our filming location in a sea of darkness. With time being of the essence, we continued our desperate search, but to no prevail. The realisation kicked in that this had become a wasted day, and no filming would be occurring for now. Destraught and dissapointed, we made plans to use an alternate field the following in Geddington and made sure our actors (and actress) would be readily available too. So, we began our long walk back, to home or a lift home. But, there was some hope, as I found a good spot we could use to film an escape scene from the zombie, just so we had something we could use. Quickly getting out my Dad's camera and my own tripod (purchased this very morning), I set it up and everyone began discussing what we'll be doing. Then, another disaster struck! My camera, which had been working brilliantly just a few hours ago when I tried, and that had been charging throughout the night, decided now was the time to no longer work. So, after attempting to fix it (even phoning up my Dad for tips), it was clear we were definately NOT doing any filming today, and that this had indeed been a wasted day. Finally we gave up, and went about our seperate ways...

So what did we learn? Three things mainly:

• Check your filming location first! Make sure it's not on private land....
• Always check your equipment! Even on the way to filming your scene, or definately as you're setting up, keep checking that everythings working fine before.
• And if you do both of these and then discover, when everyone's in position and it's time for the film to roll, that the camera has decided today is the day it shall stop functioning- BRING A BACK-UP CAMERA!

And finally, a message to all budding directors or indeed other AS-Level Media students (perhaps even fellow colleagues from my class) about your respective works- FOLLOW THE ABOVE STEPS! You should be fine if you do.

If you're in my Media class (or any AS-Level Media class across the country) and you're reading this, then I would just like to say good luck with your filming! Hopefully it'll go a lot better than mine and Dan's!

Media plan for tommorow's filming

Me and Dan have been talking and working together tis morning to deliver this- a plan for what we'll be doing tommorow. It includes the plan of the day (for actors), the items we'll need for the fake blood and a set of instructions to follow in order to get it looking nice and real and, although it's a little early, we have a plan of the music we'd like to use in the editing stage. Finally, we have a list of the credits for people we'd need to thank when all the editing's done. We will likely be adding to the 'credits' list as the days go by, but for now this is everyone.

 

Media plan for tomorrow

·         6 actors- 4 boys (Me, Dan, Andy and Dave), 2 girls confirmed (Lindsey and Georgia), 3 pending (Ashleigh Gibson, Naomi Jackson, Hannah Garlick)

·         Props- Empty beer cans from people, hockey stick, white face paint and red food colouring (or something similar)

·         Time: 12 at Morrison’s, bring money if you want to buy lunch

·         Max 4 hours, unlikely to last longer

·         Weather looks good, cloudy but sunny for most of the afternoon

·         Wear clothing as wanted, nothing too smart due to risk of staining

·         Multiple shots will be taken so don’t get frustrated if it takes a while to film a scene- bear with us, we’re not Steven Spielberg and George Lucas

Recipe for blood

·         Red food colouring and blue food colouring (half a teaspoon of red, enough to cover a cocktail stick in blue)

·         Flour (0.16 oz)

·         Syrup (20 ml)

Quick steps

1.       Mix 0.16 oz of flour and 20 ml of syrup in mixing bowl

2.       Add one cap of red food colouring

3.       Dab (very small amount) of blue food colouring and mix in

4.       Put in container for use on set

Rumours

·         Bring water in case it’s too thick, chocolate sauce if it’s too thin

·         Differ amount if it’s not right

Music ideas

·         Band- Godspeed

·         Anoice- ‘Kyoto’

·         Website with ideas- http://www.postapocalypticmusic.com

Credits

·         Directors and producers- DanNav (myself and Dan)

·         Actors (Andy Elliott, Dave McInnes, Dan McGinley, Michael Navarro-Marin, Lindsey Munro, Georgia Conway, Mr. Frank Murphy and an as of yet unidentified female news correspondent) and three more possible actresses if they come- Ashleigh Gibson, Naomi Jackson, Hannah Garlick

 

The plot of '115' (Working title)

Me and Dan have decided to give you guys a little peek into the story of our work-in-progress, '115':

We got our working title, '115' from a zombies-based video game, where an Element called Ununptenium (element number 115 in the periodic table), which the Nazi's discover can be used to bring the dead back to life, albeit in a more 'zombie' form. Our story is somewhat similair, and takes the element Ununptenium but  is not discovered by the Nazi's, instead by the British Government ran science labs in modern days. At the start of the trailer, we meet the people who will become the hero's of our fake film- a bunch of teenagers out in a forest, drinking and having fun, when one of them falls ill and, unbeknownst to everyone else, faints. When people notice, they think she's drunk and start mocking her until she lashes out, biting and infecting the cameraman (who was recording the whole thing) as everyone else flees. Then, it shows a news reporter telling the country that there has been a zombie apocalypse and that this "could be the end". His report continues as the trailer begins to show other things like our hero's fending off the zombies, and meeting other survivors etc.

This is of course all subject to change, however it seems pretty likely that the title '115' will definitely stick, and the overall plot will likely follow this draft or be similar.

Thanks for reading?

Questionnaire Analysis

The results for our questionnaire are back and have been sorted out, and the results are below...

Q1: How old are you?

For this question, most of the answers came from people aged between 12 and 16, giving us a rough estimate as to who our target audience is. Six people were also aged between 17 and 21, meaning we could expand the target audience up to the 18+ boundary, allowing more gore and other things to be used.

Q2: What sex are you?

For this, half of the 20 asked responded with male, and 8 said they were female. This is quite an even number, so it means we should consider making sure that the trailer can appeal to both. Also, for some strange reason, 2 people said they were 'Other' or 'Prefer not to say'. Incase they were being serious, we shall consider them too, though there is likely no validity in these responses and they were merely jokes.

Q3: Do you consider yourself to watch a lot of films?

This one was a tie between 'Yes, I watch films frequently' and 'I watch some films', both receiving 8 each. For this reason, it can be presumed our viewers watch a fairly decent amount of films and will therefore be likely to watch this film too. Thankfully, no-one said that they never watch films, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Q4: Are you generally a thriller fan?

Simple yes or no answer for this one, and luckily over half responded with 'Yes'. 12 people asked said that they consider themselves a thriller fan, meaning our target audience should enjoy the genre they are watching.

Q5: If not, what other genres do you prefer?

The next most popular genre was comedy, which is no surprise really. Then there was horror and romance, which were both tied, and the third most popular was musicals. Every other option got one vote or none.

Q6: What conventions of these are particularly attractive?

For this, one person put that there would needs to be 'edge of your seat' action to make it interesting. This is a good point for most genres, including the thriller genre. Another convention people thought was attractive was love, feelings and emotion. This may be true for other genres, but not for the thriller genre so cannot be used. Other things said were all pretty relevant- Plot, direction, mystery- could all be used effectively in our final piece.

Q7: What is your favourite title in the thriller genre? (i.e. Taken, Die Hard, Eden Lake, Batman etc.)

For this, most people said the movie Taken was their favourite thriller film, and it got half of the votes. Batman got 4, and Die Hard, Usual Suspects and the Raid all got 2. For this reason, the filming style could be based on that of the Taken movie.

Q8: What conventions of a trailer influence your decision in watching the film?

Most people (oddly) said that the use of sound is what influenced their decision the most, meaning we would have to take care in making sure the sound used is attractive to the audience. Use of light and the mise-en-scene also influenced people's decision, so this will need to be taken into account too.

Q9: What is an important element to a thriller genre?

Suspense was the unanimous winner here, winning well over half of the votes. For this reason, suspense needs to be a key element in the trailer, which shouldn't be a problem as it is a zombie film and suspense is therefore easy to create.

Q10: Do you prefer a Thriller to adhere to or oppose the typical convention? (Such as stereotypes etc, please detail your preference)

Most people said that they preferred it to oppose normal conventions of the Thriller genre. This actually opposes what people said about suspense, as suspense is a typical convention in the Thriller genre, yet most said they want to oppose these conventions. However, I think suspense will still be used as it is a good thing to use in a zombie-themed movie and could be used for a chepa scare at least once. We'll have to oppose the typical conventions in some other way. 

'Filming in progress' sign

This was the sign me and Dan made after we had some people (seen in the outtakes of the KIDNAPPED Media Prelim) enter our room during filming. The sign is pretty simple, it states that filming is in progress and to not enter.

Prelim storyboard

This was the prelim storyboard for our prelimiary task. As you can see, the storyboard more or less follows the end video, albeit a couple of scenes that are absent from the final piece. For example, a scene showing our protoganist (me) stumble to the floor, before a passer-by asks "What was that about?" and the protagonist replies, shrugging his shoulders, "Stuff happens.". The scene was only removed due to a time-restraint, as we didn't have time to film and add this scene as well as edit the video.

Some scenes were also added, for example the scene where the protagonist works his way through guards down a corridor before returning down the same corridor moments later because he "went the wrong way". This scene was added because me and Dan both liked the corridor and thought it would make a good location for a fight. Another scene added was the scene where the protagonist is speaking to the camera after escaping his kidnapping. We added the scene because we thought it would a bit more mystery to the background of our Protagonist and hopefully make people wonder about why this person was kidnapped in the first place and what he may know.

Another smaller change was the fact that in the storyboard the baddy knocks out the protagonist with a weapon (looks like a kitchen roll), but in the final version he is briefly choked before being thrown into a locker. This change simply happened because we were unable to find some form of blunt intsrument to be used, so it was decided being thrown into the locker would suffice. Originally we had planned for it to be more of a fight scene, but decided against it as we were already planning other fight scenes and we didn;t feel another would be neccesary.

Final Storyboard Analyzation

This is the storyboard for our final piece. The idea begins with a bunch of kids in the woods drinking and having fun (the entire scene is shot from the perspective of someone's camera), when one suddenly becomes very ill and turns into a zombie, killing the cameraman and rushing the other survivors. The scene then goes blank, where someone's voice can be heard saying "The end of the world, as we know it." The scene then switches again to a anchorman at a desk, informing the viewer that there has been an outbreak of what seems to be zombies, and that the military have been overrun. Finally, a scene shows a zombie emerging from a lake, before 115 is displayed across the screen. 

What I like in the storyboard the most is the start. I like it because it gives a good introduction to the characters in the film (as they are all at the party in the start), and an introduction to the zombie plague which is beginning to spread. It is also revealed that the zombies have been around for a while, this is just the teenagers first experience with zombies. 

 

I think some scenes outlined in the storyboard would be hard to film, especially the zombie submerging from the lake one. This is simply because of the difficulty of finding someone willing to do it and then makig sure they stay under the water and perfectly walk out, however it would be a good idea if it can be pulled off.