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!