Storyline/ Storyboard part 2

After shots panning through the ghost towns and wilderness, I will then continue with similar scenes although this time they will depict a lone survivor walking to an unknown destination, similar to this screenshot from the film adaptation of 'I am legend', although he will not be accompanied by a dog, and I may shoot this footage at night time to give a more eerie feel to the scene.
This wandering man will be the protagonist of my film, and at this point of the film the audience may begin to believe he is the only person left alive.

At this moment i had not decided if I myself well play the role of this character or one of my friends. Furthermore, this character will be carrying a shotgun (for this prop I will use one my old toy guns) and will have a rugged and war torn look to him, as I want the audience to get the impression that he has struggled to survive this long. All this time the calm piano music will still be continuing, so emotion is now felt for the vulnerability of this character and I will be using long shots to make him look even more exposed.

I will then use medium and close up shots of both the behind and front of this character as he treks onwards still in awe at the state of the world around him, relating to what that viewers first impressions were of my films opening minutes. I will also use many other dramatic camera effects such as single shots spiralling around this lone man, which will appear similar to this image of lone man in the desert here to the right. I am again capturing the barren background behind him again to emphasise the sheer lack of life apart from him whilst using different shots.

The mellow background music will then die down and sound effects such as the wind blowing will become louder as such an echoic mood will give a greater sense of emptiness in the scene. However this will soon be broken as in the distance a lone motionless figure will be seen, similar to this image of a woman dressed as a zombie I found on google to the right here.

Shocked by seeing what appears to be another person, my main male character will raise his shotgun and cautiously approach this figure (who will be dressed in white like in the above image) calling to the person to see if it is a human or a zombie. I will be continuously switching between close up shots of my main character and long shots of the mysterious white figure, which will get more frequent as the film roles on the build up tension.

Storyline/ Storyboard part 1

As I have already mentioned the film we be set after what seems to be the entire collapse of civilisation, with only pockets of human resistance left around post apocalyptic wasteland. Again as I previously mentioned, during the opening credits there will be integrated scenes depicting the outbreak and how the world has got into the current situation. I will use short scenes of news reports, people evacuating or rioting, law enforcement or soldiers fighting with the infected and shot of a person searching for survivors.

Although the scene is switching between depicting chaos and opening credits, I will back it up calm piano music. I will do so to break the audience in gently into the havoc of the film rather than have the shock of the busy and striking shots with fast paste music. I also feel that this kind of music will make it more dramatc and make the audience feel more emotional for the victims featured.

As my film continues on I will feature shots of abandoned settlements, piles of rubble and dead bodies littered around the wasteland. For these shots I will film various Brownfield sites around Telford. I will also make simple dead bodies from old clothes and newspapers as well as some actors to play dead people scattered around scene or simply splash fake blood on walls to emphasise the idea of mass human death.
Many of the shots for this scene will be panning ones and some zooming through the background, giving the audience a sense of scale of the chaos with the calm piano music continuing on.

I would also like to point out these are not my images but those found off google, as they resemble what my scenes will actually look like, rather than me drawing my own storyboard.

Planning of the plot and zombie depiction in my film

Setting and locations

I have decided to choose the zombie apocalypse scenario, and like in 'I am Legend' my film will begin during the apocalypse rather than depict the beginning and spread of the outbreak. However I will include hints to explain how the world got into the current situation, such as newspaper articles as well as short scenes depicting mass evacuation and skirmishes between the law enforcement and the infected during the opening credits.
This, therefore means that I will have to find several derelict urban areas for my locations, again like in the abandoned New York in the film adaptation of 'I am Legend' to show how the outbreak has led to the breakdown of society.
However, I also want to make my locations to show signs of conflict and destruction, as if the military have bombed some areas in order to kill off the zombies, so I will have to find buildings that are derelict, or heaps of rubble for some scenes.
For example, an abandoned park with various litter and overgrown vegetation would be ideal, as I will also be applying splashes of fake blood and fake body parts to give an impression of wide-scale death.

I will therefore title my short film as 'Deadscape' as it is a relatively unused name by any other productions and I came up with the name by combining the words 'Dead' and 'Landscape' as the majority of my film will focus on the wide scale death and the deserted landscape of a 'dead' urban landscape.

Zombie Depiction

The zombies in my film will be the result of an infection like in modern films as opposed to the traditional voodoo zombie, allowing my film to be a zombie apocalypse scenario as the virus has been passed on to thousands of people.
For their speed and agility they will be somewhere between Romero's shambling monsters and running zombies like in the 'Dawn of the Dead' remake, so they are fast enough to pose a threat yet incapable to flat-out sprinting. The zombies will be acted out by some of my friends so they will have to perform a sort of shambling jog or speed-walk, as I personally do not think that dead people capable of sprinting is believable for my target audience.
As for appearance, I will make my zombies have some degree of mutation like in recent computer games, however this will have to be limited as I do not have access to professional prosthetics. Instead I will have to do what I can to my actors with make up, liquid latex and useful equipment from costume shops.
Finally my actors will have to wear old, torn and dirty clothes, as zombies in films are barely conscious of their appearance and only seem to care about eating and infecting humans. I will have to dress my actors in a range of different clothes to show what occupations the infected people may have had when bit, such as soldiers, doctor or office workers.

Modern Representations

Although to this day almost all zombies featured in western culture since “Night of the Living Dead” have kept to Romero's stereotype, recent films have altered the stereotype to appeal to a 21^st century audience.

Productions such as the films “28 Days Later”, the remake of “Dawn of the Dead”, 2007’s remake of “I am Legend” as well as the mini series “Dead set” all depict their zombies as being as physically strong and fast as they were in their previous life, in some cases even more stronger and agile than normal humans as aposed to Romero’s shambling monsters.

Zombies in these films and telivision programs still retain traits from the Romero stereotype such as moving in hordes, a desire for human flesh, being able to pass on their condition to other hosts and retaining concious control over their own bodies.

However the infected in “28 Days Later” and “I am Legend” are merely infected hosts rather than re-animated corpses and therefore do not posses a resistance to physical damage beyond that prior to their infection. This ofcoarse increases their difference from traditional Voodoo zombies even more, which makes me question wether these films should even be classed as zombie films.

On the other hand I believe these two signifgant diiferences make them even more terrifying and believable to the modern audience, as a faster zombie is a bigger threat than one that can be outrun which give the audience a greater feeling of suspense.

Zombies featured in video games sometimes adapt these new adaptations such as increased agility to make more of a challenge for players. However in games such as “Left 4 Dead”, have emphasised the idia of infection and plague to the point where the zombies in these games are difigured due to mutations aswell as decay (such as the grotesque bulges on this zombie from the game pictured right here).

In the Halo and Half Life game series and the game “Dead Space” zombies are created from alien parasite species that infest either live hosts or re-animate dead bodies (in the same way as the “I am Legend” infection).

However in all of these games the hosts become mutated to the point where even tenticles protrude from the bodies, to give a greater emphasis of the alien parasite.

Influence of 'Night of the Living Dead'

By the 1960s, “I Am Legend” further impressed itself to the zombie genre by way of director George A. Romero, who acknowledged its influence when directing the 1964 adaptation, “The Last Man on Earth”, upon his film “Night of the Living Dead”.

The story of 'Night of the Living Dead' begins with two people named Barbra and Jonny driving to a cemetery visiting their father's grave. A pale-faced man approaches them and after a sudden brawl with them, the man kills Jonny. Horrified Barbra escapes to an abandoned cottage still being followed by the pale zombie. A man named Ben also arrives at the cottage in a pickup truck. They soon realize the house is being surrounded by a mob of zombies so Ben boards up the house and retreats to the cellar, discovering other people already in the cellar, one of whom is a young girl who has been bitten and fallen ill.

During the film the survivors die one by one in failed attempts to escape in Ben's pickup truck, as well as the sick young girl reanimating as a zombie herself and killing her own parents. Towards the end of the film the zombie break into the house with Ben as the only remaining survivor who retreats into the cellar, locking the door behind him.

In the morning, a posse approaches the house and proceeds to kill the remaining zombies. Hearing the commotion, Ben ambles up the cellar stairs into the living room and is shot in the head by a posse member who mistakes him for a zombie, ending the film.

Romero revolutionized the horror film genre with “Night of the Living Dead” and the modern Zombie stereotype came from the ghouls (as they were actually referred to in the film rather than zombies) featured in the movie (pictured left).

Similar to the infected from “I am Legend” Romero depicted his ghouls as both re-animated corpses and infected hosts who moved in mobs and waves, seeking either flesh to eat or people to kill as well as being capable of passing whatever syndrome that caused their condition onto others. Also like the infected in “I am legend” the ghouls had conscious minds and control over their own movement, unlike traditional zombies from Voodoo folklore or older films as “White Zombie”.

However Romero introduced more striking features which would later become zombie stereotypes such as the exhibit of physical decomposition (such as rotting flesh), discolored eyes, open wounds, and moving with a slow, shambling gait. Although they were generally incapable of communication and showed no signs of personality or rationality they could sustain damage far beyond that of a normal, living human.

I will use the majority of these stereotypes for the zombies, although they had already been repeated thousands of times in other media it therefore means that viewers will recognize the monsters in my film as zombies.

Impacts on common Depiction (pre-1960s)

A zombie is traditionally an undead person in the Caribbean spiritual belief system of voodoo, where they are essentially a dead body re-animated by unnatural means.

1932’s “White Zombie” was the first film to feature Zombies, typically of pre 1950s, zombies in films, the one zombie was presented as a mindless thrall controlled by a mystical master (in this case a voodoo priest), they were never independently malevolent.

The modern conception of the zombie owes itself almost entirely to both George A. Romero's 1968 film “Night of the Living Dead” and again the 1954 novel “I Am Legend”.

The novel is actually classed as "the first modern vampire novel" with the infected showings signs of vampirism such as blood sucking and sever sensistivty to sunlight. However it was the first major form of media to depict a disease capable of re-animating dead bodies and infecting live hosts to both transform into a race with a hunger for human flesh, leading to the breakdown of human civilization.

This explanation of monsters like vampires through science rather than supernatural legends is a concept which has been repeated relentlessly ever since as well as these monsters causing the downfall of civilization forming the basis of the apocalypse sub-genre.

Zombies in Culture and Zombie apocalypse sub genre

Zombies are regularly encountered in horror and fantasy themed fiction and entertainment. They are typically depicted as mindless, shambling, decaying corpses with a hunger for human flesh, and in some cases, human brains in particular.
They have become increasingly popular in western culture during the 20th century thanks to hit horror films like "Night of The Living Dead" which set the standard for the Zombie Stereotype and Michael Jackson's music video, "Thriller" which featured choreographed Zombie dancers, is still to this day the most successful music video of all time.
While zombie films generally fall into the horror genre, some cross over into other genres, such as comedy, science fiction, thriller, or romance and even animated films. There have even been developments in zombie-specific sub-genres, such as the "zombie comedy" (for films such as “Shaun of the Dead”) or the "zombie apocalypse".

The zombie apocalypse is a particular scenario of apocalyptic fiction that has become a contemporary sub-genre of horror and science fiction films.

In such sitations (as focused upon in films like “28 Days Later” or “I Am Legend”) a widespread (usually global) rise of zombies hostile to human life engages in a general assault on civilization. Victims of zombies either perish or become zombies themselves. This causes the outbreak to become an exponentially growing crisis: the spreading "zombie plague" swamps normal military and law enforcement organizations, leading to the panicked collapse of civilian society until only isolated pockets of survivors remain, scavenging for food and supplies in a world reduced to a pre-industrial hostile wilderness.

The scenario was first used in the original novel of “I am Legend” where it is taken to the extreme that the protagonist character has became the only man left on Earth.

Michael Jackson's Thriller

Michael Jackson's Thriller is a 14-minute feature-length movie and a music video for the song of the same name. It is often referred to as the greatest music video ever, Thriller proved to have a profound effect on popular culture, and was named "a watershed moment for the music industry" for its unprecedented merging of filmmaking and music.

Thriller was less a conventional music video and more a full-fledged short film, and a horror film homage, which is why I using it as inspiration for my own short film.

The plot begins in a 1950s setting with Michael and his girlfriend driving though a forest at night time and run out of gas, forcing them to walk home.

After Michael proposes to his girlfriend he states to her that he is 'different' from other guys, as shortly afterwards the full moon emerges and Michael begins convulsing in pain, and transforms into some kind of horrifying werewolf or were-cat.

As the transformed Michael lunges for his girlfriend the scene breaks away to a modern day theatre where Michael and his date are watching this film unfold. Michael's girlfriend is terrified and ends up leaving the cinema, with Michael catching her up outside and agrees to walk her home.

They then walk down a foggy street, and he teases her with the opening verses of "Thriller". They pass a graveyard, where corpses begin to rise from their graves as Vincent Price performs his rap. Michael and his date then find themselves surrounded by the zombies, and suddenly, Michael becomes a zombie himself. Michael and the undead perform an elaborate song and dance number together, followed by the chorus of "Thriller".

Frightened Michael's girlfriend runs to cover in an abandoned house followed by the swarm of zombies led by michael, reminiscing climaxes from traditional zombie films, like 'Night of the Living Dead'.

Again like these films, the zombies break through the boarded windows and doors with Michael's girlfriend corned. As the Zombie Michael slowly reaches for her throat, she lets out with a blood-curdling scream, only to awake and realize it was all a dream, with a human michael waking her up. As the two depart, Michael glances back at the camera, grinning and reveals his yellow cat-like eyes (accompanied by Vincent Price's one last haunting laugh).

Thriller is my one of my all time favourite music video and short film, so it therefore encourages and motivates me to feature my short film on zombies. Although this is not a unique and motivating theme as in most modern short films and art house movies, I will still try to present it unique way from conventional feature length films.

Short Films

As I have chosen the short film task I need to look at the history, distribution and notable short film so I can grasp what target audience I need to aim my feature at. The term was coined by the indian and American film industries in the early period of cinema. In America it usually refers to any film between 15 and 40 minutes in length yet in Europe and Australasia in can be used to describe a film with a duration longer than one minute and shorter than 20 minutes. This fits in with my task specification, for me to make my film last between 5 and 7 minutes.

By the 1910s in North America, a typical film program at the cinema would be composed of a main feature proceeded by a short film, which would usually be animated or live action comedy. Well-known comedians such as Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chapman, Buster Keaton and others rose to fame in these comedy short films as well as their features. Animated cartoons also rose to public awareness as short films, such the first ever animated feature 'Gertie the Dinosaur' or Walt Disney's first production 'Steamboat Willy'.

By 1955, thanks to double features, the ban on block booking and the rise of television, the commercial live-action short was virtually dead, and the cartoon short was fading. Since the 1960s, short films have been largely reserved for independent filmmakers and special major-studio projects.

As short films are no longer distributed at cinemas modern short film focus on difficult topics which are usually avoided by commercial main features, which inspires me to focus my own film more extreme than usual feature movies. Although it allows these film makers larger freedoms and let them take higher risks, but they must rely on festival and art house exhibition to achieve public display.

However in more recent times, popular websites like Youtube encourage the submission of user-created short films, where they can get thousands or even up to millions of views, allowing some of these film makers to be noticed by film companies. Also there are many short film competitions across the Internet with the winners being awarded contracts with film companies.

Coursework Choices

From options such as a music video, a short film and a childrens television programme I have chosen to make a short film for my A2 media project as this provides an opportunity to make my own Zombie Apocalypse film which has been one of my recent ambitions.
The Zombie genre is my favourite horror sub genre and modern films such as '28 Days Later' and 'Shaun of the Dead' are some of my all time favourite classic movies, as well as being impressed by the more recent TV show 'Dead Set'.
Obviously, I do not have the budget, time and equipment to make my own feature length Zombie production, so a short five minutes film (which is the coursework guideline) is an excellent opportunity for me to make my zombie production.