Friday, 9 December 2011

Planning: Plot Idea

*Set in the day. Starts on a hill (probably on pit top). The main character is walking around scanning his area while looking down the sight on his gun (probably a pistol). There’s no music or voice acting. Just the sound of the character walking (if picked up by the camera).

*He stops when he thinks there’s no one around and it zooms from a shot from the front to a close up shot of his head and shoulders. The actors voice will be heard (will be his thoughts) as he describes briefly what has happened and how the virus spreads.

*Then he hears zombie’s chanting. The zombies in this film will have an unusual take on traditional belief. They are intelligent and have groups and colonies. They still need to eat human and animal flesh but they aren’t massively smart so they will not negotiate with the humans and don’t understand some human inventions (guns, cars, elevators). The virus destroys the brain capacity of the human but it keeps intact the natural human instinct to stick together and hunt in packs.

*He sneaks over and crawls to look over the edge of the hill and see’s about 6 zombies with one on a clear hill as the dominant zombie. He hears them talking about the lack of food.

*The main character accidentally nudges a rock that rolls down the hill and hits a zombie in the leg. (This will take place in many shots (start shot of the character, then one of him nudging the rock. Then one of the rock rolling down the hill, then it hitting the leg of the zombie).

*The camera will be a low angle close up of the leg. The zombie hand will reach down and picks up the rock. The camera follows the hand up until it reaches the head and shoulders of the zombie, he looks at the rock and looks where it came from.

*He spots the main character (over the shoulder shot. Then a fast zoom onto the main character) and shouts ‘HUMAN!’.

*All the zombies turn and begin to groan, and the dominant zombie raises his arm in a Hitler fashion and shouts ‘ATTACK!’ just for his arm to fall to the floor before the zombies charge at the main character. (Again this will take place over a few shots, different angles of the whole group of zombies and one of the main zombie with his arm falling off and the arm hitting the floor).

*He realizes this and turns to run (runs away from the camera, the zombies overtake the camera and keep running after the main character. 1 zombie trips and falls as he’s chasing the main character).

*He run into a wooded shrub area and hides behind a shrub while the zombies run past.

*The main character is panting and gasping for breath but trying to keep his voice down. It cuts to another thought by the main character saying how it didn’t use to be like this and then fades into the cinematic titles. (possibly zooms in to the character and the camera hits him before fading)

Key Company Case Study

Key Company Case Study:

Relativity Media:

An American independent motion picture production and investment company based in West Hollywood, California.

It is a next-generation studio engaged in multiple aspects of entertainment, including full-scale film and television production and distribution, the co-financing of major studio film slates, music publishing, sports management and digital media.

I have decided to research this company because this is the company that made the film ‘Zombie Land’, which is a big inspiration for the film I want to make, also with the same genre and theme (zombie film but a comedy).

‘Zombie Land’ was a film made in 2009. An American zombie comedy film. The film is about how a the main character join up with someone, who he wouldn’t normally be seen with, to stick together while the zombie apocalypse is invading the ‘United States of Zombie Land’. They meet 2 girls who at first steel from them, but at the end join up with them to help defend and survive. It features something unique to zombie films, the main character states about the ‘rules’ to surviving a zombie attack (such as double tap, shoot a zombie after you think he’s dead to make sure). This unique aspect is something I believe films need to stand out otherwise films would basically be the same. The unique twist I plan to put into my film is that the zombies are actually organized and form groupings. They still require the flesh of humans and animals to survive but they lack the brainpower to side with the humans and just live among them. They only know how to survive and look after their own.

‘Zombie Land’ received positive critical reviews and was a big success; it grossed over $60.8 million in 17 days. The money budget for the film was $23.6 million and made $102,391,542 and growing. The company was able to produce a film this good because of the budget, the writers, the directors and the effects in production, I will be making the film by myself, with the only help by friend I get to play the characters. The costumes are up to them and the filming and I will do editing. It is going to be extremely hard to get a film to the standard that zombie land was done just with no money budget and myself.