During the course of filming we had a variety of experiences. I was primarily the director but at the same time I dabbled in everything else. Everyone else fulfilled the role that needed to be filled at the moment. Everyone helped out with everything and this made things a lot easier considering we had such a small number of people working on the project. However I did see one person put in more time than anyone else: Esther. Everyone in the group worked intensely when we met up but Esther took it one step further and worked on it on her own time as well. If she hadn’t done this I don’t think our film would have been ready on time.
For the most part we worked seamlessly as a group. During the pre-production stage everyone had ideas to pitch in for the filming and post production effects. When we were finally ready to film we encountered a problem. The school camera we borrowed wasn’t working properly and the camera that supplied by one of the group members had no way of being connected to a computer to retrieve the video. We spent a few days trying to figure out a solution and we finally found one 5 days before the due date of the project. We re-filmed the scenes that were too poor in quality and we sat down on the computer ready to edit. Esther’s iMac came in handy for this as we were basically lost with windows movie maker. We did the majority of the editing as a group but Esther finished it up and put the finishing touches on the film.
Our group decided on a reverse role film. Everyone has seen enough films in which humans are being attacked by zombies but not many films have been shot from the zombie perspective. We thought it would be interesting to watch zombies plotting an attack on the human race and it was definitely interesting trying to film it. Our film is about a group of zombies planning an assault on the human race. At first they are discussing plans while the camera cuts to scenes of the actual attacks and later the zombie leader delivers a morale boosting speech to the rest of the zombies before they deliver the final blow to the humans.
Our film is more successful than we thought it would be but it still has many weaknesses. The editing was done very well and most of the filming was done without mistakes. The weakness of the film comes in when one tries to make sense of the film after watching it. Most of the scenes are cut together in a fashion that makes it hard to understand; we are leaving too much for the viewer to infer.
There were many great scenes in the film but my favorite was the establishing shot. It incorporated many difference cinematic techniques such as close ups and open form filming. The angle at which I filmed made for a very interesting outcome of the shot. The other parts of the film were good but not as I expected. I wish that the sound had turned out better but due to the lack of professional equipment and audio editing we weren’t able to achieve that studio work sound quality. I also would have liked it if we had proper lighting for filming because some of the scenes came out blurry and dark.
The next time I film I’ll make sure that we have ample time to film and edit. I would get everything ready beforehand so we do not have the camera fiasco that we had this time. I would spend more time storyboarding and scripting so we actually have something to go on. When we filmed, we had a script and storyboard, but that went in the garbage when it came to actually filming it. If we had a solid script to go on, it would be much easier and more streamlined of a process.
The first thing we encounter when we started was storyboarding. This made our lives 10 times easier because we had a general idea of what we wanted to do when we got our hands on a camera. We also used several shots we learned about in class such as camera angles and the camera distance from the subject. We tried to utilize everything we learned in class but we were not able to do so due to editing and filming equipment limitations.
The cinematic techniques that we used were basic but they did exactly what they were supposed to do. In the establishing shot we have a close up shot of the planning board for the Zombies. This is meant to show the intricacies of the plan that the zombies have and that they are in fact not mindless undead. We incorporate a low angle shot when filming the zombie leader to show a sense of authority but we use a high angle shot when filming the officers to show their lower rank compared to the officer. Inter-titles are used to tell the audience that there is a change in scenery and something else is being filmed. A jump cut is also utilized to show that the zombie went into the human training and some time had passed and during this time the humans were killed by the aggressing zombie.
Overall I had a wonderful time working with my group trying to film this project. I usually don’t have this much freedom in assignments but this allowed the students to fulfill their artistic desires. It’s definitely a skill that will be useful, as well as entertaining, in the future.
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