Joseph Tomkins - Evaluation of "ZOMG"

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Shaun of the Dead (Cert. 15) Fifteen Minute Analysis
Shaun of the Dead opens to a long conversation in “the Winchester”, a pub, where a vast amount of the film actually takes place, Shaun, Liz, Ed, Diane and David are talking –Mainly Shaun and Liz – about their lives together, how they want to spend them, Shaun starts the scene, he looks lost and gormless – Zombie Like – in appearance until Liz interrupts his train of though. His behaviour repeats at the end of the scene and is the first of many recurring motifs/images in the film. During the afore mentioned conversation Shaun is denying that they live repetitive lives, but promises to start doing things and they decide, for all intents and purposes, to “live tomorrow” and Shaun says “Things will change – I promise”, which they do as Zombie infection spreads across the nation and they enter the film.
When the title sequence starts they show images of normal people, who all are seen as zombies later in the film, doing menial tasks, for example the Zombie which attacks Shaun initially in their garden is seen working in a small shop on the till and are crossed with quite clever transitions involving images passing the shots – as with the transitional shot used in some Bond films when the camera focuses out to the distance and the Austin martin passes, the shot changes to a different scene with the transitional wipe following the car. At the end of these images we see Shaun staggering into the room and the camera pans up to see Shaun Yawning, this repetition of behaviour – similar to a zombies- is the only hint of a zombie attack yet to happen in the film.
The following scene consist of Shaun and Ed, he sits then gets back up and an “action” sequence of fast editing techniques shows his routine getting ready for work. This same editing is used later in the film during the action scenes later in the film. Shortly after Shaun sits with Ed and trys to have an adult conversation but is distracted, talking to Ed about the game – more specifically the locations of enemies – in a military style, similar to that used in the later Pub scene when they are under assault, their defence of the Winchester.
After this short interlude, Ed is prompted into apologising to Shaun, though not for what Shaun is telling him off for, he says “I’m sorry Shaun”, Shaun begins to laugh and holds his nose and Ed says “I’ll stop doing them when you stop laughing!” – This is then another repeated motif in the film as they are also Eds last words as he tries to make light of his death so he can save his friends as he lays, infected by the Zombie – This is similar to the end of our full film in which Harry gives his Life to Save Joey and the Child.
Shaun Leaves the house and begins his normal journey through the street to the corner shop, This is nothing out of the ordinary, it is just used for a reference when the characters have all become infected later in the film and he makes the same journey without realising the difference as blood is covering the fridge and the sides, he is even approached by the same beggar and he doesn’t realise the difference between his asking for money and assault. He also slips on the floor in the shop on a pool of blood and doesn’t notice.
When Shaun leaves the house he goes to work, there is only one character here who is relevant to the rest of the plot. His red pen leaks prompting someone to say “you got red on you” which is then repeated by Ed, and his step-father Phillip, later in the film.
After this he leaves to go to the shops to buy flowers for his mother and through the window he sees a man – obviously, to the audience, a zombie – and he looks at him puzzled until his attention is then recollected by the shop attendant. This is the only Solid reference so far to a zombie infection in the film.
Shaun bumps into Yvonne, one of his friends whom he hasn’t seen for a while and responds to “how’re you doing?” with “surviving” which is repeated twice later in the film – when he bumps into her during the zombie assault and then again during the containment of them. Also when asked about his and Liz’s relationship she says “we’ll I’m glad someone made it” which she repeats when they survive at the end of the film. Of course this phrase having connotations to both their relationship and their actual survival.
In conclusion, Shaun of the Dead is a very clever, not so contemporary, upbeat zombie film. Classically it has the same idiotic zombies, devoid of human intelligence, however it adds the more “human” side to it by showing a normal mans’ life before and after the attack, it also makes the character relatable like other zombie films such as dawn of the dead. Unlike, for instance, Dawn of the Dead though, the Zombie infection is not as obvious to the characters as they are oblivious to the situation. This is how we envisioned our film; however we added the flashback effect to the concept. Similarly again to other zombie films, Shaun of the Dead focuses on a male and female character and their romance, however Shaun’s brotherly love for Ed is also a focus point for the film, perhaps making it more of a male bonding zombie experience.  

Zomg: The First 2 Minutes:

Audience Review:

Zombie make up, contacts and costumes.

For our film we're going to need to make, at least our main Zombie "Mikey", LOOK like a Zombie, White contact lenses, lots of fake blood, ripped clothes and cuts. If you look at some of our posts from the beginning of the blog that relate to makeup and you'll see some of the other ideas we want to try and use in our films.

Possible film distributors

These are Film companies which release Horror Films and look at Indie movies, perfect for a film made by student, unknown to the world of Film. Information was taken from the Distributors pages and "Dead Harvey".

Brain Damage Films - http://www.braindamagefilms.com/
"Brain Damage Films is a full service film label and production company dedicated to selling and creating the best indie horror films in the industry. We distribute films world-wide and domestically via all formats which includes, but not limited to: DVD/Broadcast/VOD/Internet/Retail/Rental. Please inquire via the email link below if you have a film in search of distribution. Send contact information, trailer and press kit and if we are interested we will reply with an address in which to send your film. At this time we are not accepting screenplays, unfinished films or assisting with finishing funds. Thank you for your continued support of independent film."

Darclight (division of Arclight) - http://www.imdb.com/company/co0129196/
"Darclight is a division of Arclight and they're devoted to showcasing the best in the horror, thriller and action genres from around the world. Formed in 2004, the Darclight banner encompasses a wide variety of genres including horror, thriller and action feature films, with recent successes being the horror films "Wolf Creek", "Perfect Creature" and "Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror". They tend to deal with bigger budget films that have run or will run the festival circuit, but you never know. If you go to their site there, they have all the contact information you'll need to get in touch with their head of acquisitions."

Unearthed Films - http://www.unearthedfilms.com/
"Unearthed Films is a little tougher to get distributed through, as they're also into securing rights to Asian films and old, forgotten horror movies, but they will look at your film. They've released some indie films, such as: "Bone Sickness", "Nails" and "City of Rott". It's "the brainchild of a group of hard-core cult film enthusiasts who intend to blow the lid off of the DVD industry as we know it. Setting their sights on rare underground horror films, lost animated gems and psychotic action films, Unearthed Films is making a dramatic impact in the North American DVD market." They can be contacted at heneverdies@aol.com"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LUzJAsa-gg - Dawn of The Dead
Dawn of the dead is a zombie film where everything is literally changed over night. The virus hits and classically no one knows why, how, etc. This is similar to our film in that out central protagonists don't know of the virus or how its infection spreads until they encounter it.
Reviews: "When the announcement was made that Universal were "re-envisioning" George A. Romero's zombie horror classic Dawn of the Dead, it seemed ill-advised (and faintly sacrilegious). After all, remakes quite frankly suck, right? Well, not always. In fact, against all the odds, this gruesome, dark, relentless flick can take its place alongside the likes of John Carpenter's The Thing and Scorsese's Cape Fear in the remakes hall of fame." - Rotten Tomatoes
Ratings 6.7/10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=071KqJu7WVo&feature=related - Zombie Land
This film is a brilliant Zom-Com, the "Best Zom-Com since Shaun Of the Dead" as stated by reviews for the DVD release. This film is set in a post zombie apocalyptic world where Zombies still reside and hunt down the living and the four Protagonists are doing their best to survive in Zombie Land.
Rating: 7.4/10
Review: "Very funny, often thrilling and full of neat little touches that should make it entirely rewatchable, Zombieland sees Fleischer join the ranks of directors - Romero, Wright, Raimi, Snyder - whose first films aren't just zombie films, but great films." - Chris Hewitt


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUFjHjU0bK8 - Zombies Of Mass Destruction
Zom-Com based in a stereotypically racist suburb of America, The community turn against each other, the Church blames the Gays, the protestants blame the Muslims and they all think the Iranian is the cause. Good fun comedy where all the guys you want to die, cop it.
Rating: 6.1/10
Review: "Certainly not on the scale of a Romero, but at least these filmmakers paid some attention in zombie class." - Scott Weinberg

Treatment FULL FILM

Treatment (Updated 11/04/11)

Whole film: ZOMG

Target audience: 15 – 20 year olds, males.

The certificate of the film is a 15, so that is the age and upwards of people we are trying to appeal to. Males will watch this film more than females because males like Zombie films more.
The film appeals to Young males but over the age of 15. Other films like this one:
28 days later...
dawn of the dead ...



The film opens to a small group of characters inside a woods looking for a missing person.

The characters find the missing person has become a zombie, which then attacks them and the numbers, obviously, multiply as others are infected. The film then goes to the opening sequence.

After the sequence the plot turns to a character in York twenty four hours earlier, before z-day. The film will quickly play over the day with interruptions every so often of “breaking news” screens, interrupting the actual film until this characters plot is revealed and the story focus transfers to Joey. The opening ten to fifteen minutes will show the normal lives of the characters before they ultimately are separated. After a while trying to encourage help from the police who are all “busy” and the other emergency services (where the lines are busy). Giving up on the authorities they decide to search for their friends themselves, finding much of the city to be “quiet”  they decide to go to the river near Mikeys house where they used to play as children where the story first started and the owner of the land (the farmer) helps them search.

After the story is resumed from the opening sequence the characters are seen fighting the zombies, where it is assumed they were eaten and became zombies. The characters are seen searching the streets to find someone to tell, to spread the news to the authorities and the armed forces, finding no one on the streets they enhance further into the town and focus on searching for their relatives.

Roaming the streets they begin to hear sirens coming from the centre of town, as they near the fire engine they see it is wrecked and the sound has gathered surrounding zombies, who upon hearing Joey and Harry behind them begin to turn and chase them, some running at great speed to assault them. After escaping the characters realise loud noises attract the creatures and decide to travel the back alleys to reach their separate destinations, as they travel together through the alleys they hear a woman crying for help, they find her and try to quiet her before the zombies arrive, upon finding her they realise its too late as she’s surrounded and they stand helpless as they watch her pulled apart by the zombies, a child found crying hiding behind a bin near the woman is found by the characters, Joey lifts the girl and carries her on his back.

As the three characters find their houses they realise their families are dead, the houses are burning and zombies are screaming and groaning from inside. They proceed to the police station which is barricaded and riot shields are nailed with wood to the windows. The police are taking in survivors and using the helicopter to transport them to the hospital and “secure facilities” as they are told by the superintendant who lets them in, however after entering the four policeman (inc. The superintendant) are the only survivors, they have been driven mad by the zombies, ensuring their own survival by slaughtering the other policemen and eating their flesh (the irony being they are avoiding becoming zombies, by acting as them).

Joey and the child escape on the helicopter used by the “police” to “bring in” their next meal but Harry is shot and killed by the policemen and Joey is shot and severely wounded, hiding his wound from the child as they take the helicopter away to a hospital further south where the infection has yet to spread. He manages to fly her there and ensure her safety before succumbing to blood loss and collapsing as the hospital staff try to save him. The camera cranes up from the shot of his body to reveal the carnage spreading slowly from the north to the south of England. The credits roll. 

Shot list

SHOT LIST
The film opens to a long low angled shot of Joey, Harry and the Farmer walking
medium shot of Harry in the foreground with Joey visible over his left shoulder as they talk to the farmer
shot over Harry’s left shoulder from behind him
close up of the farmers face
medium long shot of Harry,Farmer and Joey
low angled shot of the characters faces as they stare into the blood
zooms in on them then changes to the image of the blood on the floor and zooms into it, following the trail to mikey and pausing for a second.
The shot reverses over Mikeys shoulder, showing the blood from his mouth and the blood stain on his shirt
low angled shot of mikeys face over harrys right shoulder.
long shot from behind the zombies showing the characters are surrounded by them.
close up of the farmer
medium shot from waist of farmer
shot from the end of the barrel of his gun as he aims at the zombies.
shot changes to show the zombies running to assault him
It then changes to a shot from their sides as they are running
the camera follows Joeys movement
long shot over his shoulder of the zombies approaching..


Scene Change:
Upwards diagonal panning medium close up tracing the characters movement as he goes to the table
medium close up of character at table
Extreme Close up of character sat at the table with drink

Ideas for our soundtrack

This is the song Square Enix denied our use of. And the songs below we wont be using either, these are just songs were using as inspiration for our film soundtrack which we will be recording soon.

Music problems

After getting into contact with Square Enix. They've told us we aren't allowed to use the song "Black Water" In our film, they were very insistent...
So we're going to record our own music for the film in Toms home studio and then add it in later after recording.

Relocation, Relocation, Zombies

The location may be moved to Hesley wood Scout Activity centre with their permission as it is larger and much better for our purpose as you cant hear any motorway noise or excess from anywhere else.

Z-Day opening Sequence

This opening uses music which is not our own, we're going to replace this with our own recorded music when possible.
This sequence was made on Live type and Final cut pro using inbuilt animations and combining them, tweaking them a bit to fit the style I was influenced by S7even, very noticeable in the font and affects.

Text opening credits example

Title video's and links

Dawn Of The Dead:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwBigliX1Bo&feature=player_detailpage

Zombie Land:


Shaun Of The Dead:


Zombie's Of Mass Destruction: (trailer)

FACE MELTER!

Impale effect

Cheap Zombie Effects