Our unpredictable hero Andy is stumbling along the road in
his zombie like manner, he walks toward a feasting zombie who looks up at him,
mouth covered in blood, and groans violently at him. He is starved but against
his will he moves on from the dead body looking for food. As he walks around
aimlessly he comes to the back of the shopping centre, on a raised loading bay
Sarah, whom he has become attached to, and Mark, the “leader” of the survivors
that the shopping centre protects from the likes of Andy appear.
Mark waves the loaded gun at Sarah shouting, his authority
has been questioned, she is as dangerous to him as the monsters outside the
walls. Tears stream down Sarah’s face as Andy moves closer, quietly and
carefully. Sarah turns side on and stares at Andy “I’m not keeping quiet about
what you did to that girl.” Andy shouts, supporting Sarah, threatening Mark.
Mark has two problems, the first he shoots in the chest, Andy recoils and falls
to the ground. The second problem is no different, he puts his gun to the side
of Sarah head. The force of the blast knocks her off the loading bay. Andy
lurches forward to get revenge for Sarah. Mark pistol whips Andy, he isn’t
worth a bullet. Looking down from the loading bay Mark spits on Andy and
retreats into the shopping centre.
Andy attempts to climb up to the loading bay after Mark, a fresh
meal and revenge for the fallen but after just a few seconds he gives up, or
forgets. Starving, Andy looks at the dead body of Sarah laid on the floor next
to him. He looks. He blinks. Blood pools around her head. He groans at her and
moves her hand with his foot. He drops to his knees and groans again. He places
his hands on her shoulder and arm and groans, loudly and for a long time, it is
the zombie equivalent of a heartbreaking cry. He rolls her over and forcefully,
angrily cries again before leaning over her body. Blood from the cut on his
head drips down to his eye and onto Sarah’s lifeless body. He leans all the way
down and takes a bite from Sarah’s side, as he comes up he looks upwards and
cries again, his mouth filled with blood. We see his back as he sits over the
body trying to resist his hunger as the picture fades to black.
I have a lot of clear visual inspiration, as far as zombies go there is a massive wealth of material for me to look at, emulate and adapt. The main visual influence is Colin (Marc Price 2008) whilst a lot of the footage is a little overexposed and poorly light balanced the actual visual style, pacing and framing is very similar to my personal vision. Another of the great things about Colin I wish to emulate is the overall look of the zombie outbreak, the desolate streets, the gang violence and the overcast weather are all excellent features, in my film they would fit perfectly and the depressing tone they add to the film is what I am aiming for. One thing not in Colin that will feature heavily in my film will be a shopping centre, much like in Dawn of the Dead (1978 George Romero) however unlike Dawn I want to shoot it from the outside only, I want to show the shopping mall through the eyes of the zombie.
One idea I had for the visuals was to use point of view a lot, this would help achieve the goal of getting my audience to identify with Andy, my protagonist zombie, however when over used point of view can often disorientate and confuse audiences. I also want to show my audience what Andy is doing therefore I will use largely conventional camerawork to show him as a sympathetic character. One important way of doing this that I read from Colin is to show him as alone, in long, wide shots with no other zombies or people, this makes him seem separate to the rest of the zombies making him a lonely hero rather than art of the zombie evil mass.
I noticed a few things whilst compiling my moodboard that made me consider the colour in my film, the most important of which will be the amount of red and the vividness of the colour palette. I noticed a surprising lack of red in the images I gathered for my moodboard, in my film there will be bright blood and other red items bringing life to the shots everywhere, this both makes it visually interesting for the spectator and makes it a little bit different to the norm. Another thing I noticed is the tendency for film makers to think, its bleak and apocalyptic so we should drain all of the life out of the colour pallet and whilst I agree with the affect it gives there is a certain amount of beauty lost when that is done. In my film I will carefully select a few colours and shades to make vivid, red specifically, and then work on tinting the rest of the film much like Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson 2008) to give it a stylised, bright and bleak effect.
Zombies offer perfect possibilities to explore and experiment with visual effects, whilst I have explored some use of Maya and Adobe After Effects I still feel that real visual effects should be used as often as possible. A simple example of the kind of effect I will use is to cover a cooked pigs heart in fake blood and have one of my zombies eat it. I would however also like to attempt removing zombies libs with blue or green socks and keying, I think with the appropriate locked off shot this effect could be a great advantage to the realism of my film.
1. Colin (2008 Marc Price)
2. Dawn of the Dead (1978 George A Romero)
3. Let the Right One In (2008 Tomas Alfredson)
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