The movie making experience is one that I will definitely remember from the Rhetoric of the Moving Image. It was my first attempt at creating a movie replete with filming techniques and make up. A zombie apocalypse genre was chosen mainly because we all enjoyed some violence in movies and personally, zombie apocalypses are one of my favorite genres. However, because zombie apocalypses are generally all the same, with the humans struggling to fight mindless hordes of zombies, we decided to alter our movie so that it would stand out. Instead of having the humans as the main characters, the emphasis was on the zombies. The zombies were the ones to launch the coordinated strikes that overwhelm the human forces. The zombies employed in the movie are fast moving zombies, mainly inspired from such movies as 28 weeks later or Dawn of the Dead. Zombies from Resident Evil, which are extremely slow-moving, would make the movie drag on and lack excitement.
However, I found firsthand that just because you have a great idea for a movie doesn’t mean the movie is going to turn out nearly as planned. The pre-production stages started off very well and we had conceived of a plan well ahead of other groups. However, during the production process, our excitement was put on hold through the laborious process of actually shooting the scenes. Overall, the members of my group assumed many different roles since we all started with relatively little experience. Also, scene discussion was tedious and it was much harder to film the scenes that we imagined using outdated camcorders from the school. I learned that scenes had to be carefully set up and many takes are required. Being in the audience for my whole life made me take for granted the tedious efforts movie directors and actors must go through to shoot the perfect scene. During production, the film took a much longer time than any of us had ever anticipated, due to failures in the devices and other distractions. However, the process of movie making entailed enjoyable distractions such as video gaming and ordering dominos pizza. We finished the movie with a sigh of relief and the editing process went smoothly again. Simply adding sounds and music was nothing compared to the shooting of the film.
However, with more experience after this film production, many of the mistakes we’ve made can be corrected. Before scene shoots, a well defined plan should be developed. At times during the film, we ended up improvising. Furthermore, a better location should have been chosen. During many of the shoots, family members were everywhere and disruptions of the scenes caused some errors of continuity. Finally, better camera equipment and software are needed. A lot of time was wasted figuring out which of the camcorders to use.
The film does have a plethora of cinematic techniques. One of the effects done was the distortion of time. Since the planning scene is tedious, we decided to put in the actual plan being carried out as the zombies are saying it. This way, the audience would be able to hear the plan and watch it unfold immediately. Also, in the opening, we unanimously chose a close up shot of pieces on a map which represented human forces and zombie forces. The following montage of the map along with the menacing music is meant to display the deadly sophistication of the zombie forces. Another cinematic technique used is a low angle shot of the zombie commander (me). The low angle shot portrays feelings of power and firm control expected of a zombie commander, especially one leading a force of highly intelligent and scheming zombies. Our movie also utilizes a jump cut. As a zombie is about to assault the secret training center, the audience will see him enter the room of the unprepared humans playing video games. The zombie opens the door and enters. Then the following shot shows the zombie limping out of the training center. It is only in the next scene that the audience is able to see what has happened to the three humans inside the training center. They were killed in the time between the two shots. The zombie attack scenes were also filmed carefully. In the first attack scene, the unsuspecting human is totally overwhelmed by ambushing zombies. For this scene, we deemed it appropriate that a high angle shot be taken to emphasize the helplessness of the human. During this scene, the zombies ambush and snap his neck. In the second attack scene, the scheming zombies struck again and this time the camera was at a canted angle. The flanking maneuver and the bloody outcome warrant another cinematic technique and we chose the canted angle so as not to be repetitive. Actually, this canted angle shot arose accidentally, due to the carelessness of setting up the tripod. However, we realized that a canted angle could definitely be used.
Overall, this movie making experience was enjoyable. We might have fallen short of conveying our imaginations in this film but it was an experience nonetheless. Being rookies at filmmaking, our mistakes are understandable and many times, the mistakes were hilarious to watch over again in the camera. This experience allowed many of us, including myself to get a level of comfort in front of the camera and laugh at ourselves during the editing process. Now, next time filming, this movie making experience will definitely result in a more refined film with a clearer plot.
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