Saturday, July 28, 2007

Location Scout

The process of finding a suitable location for Zombie Undead started in earnest earlier this year. As i'm sure all directors do i had an ideal location in my head, an old Victorian style building with high ceilings and long wide corridors. Think turn of the century school, country hospital or sanitarium. Again the drawn out nature of the project and its low budget presented some problems. Firstly we needed a building that would be around for at least a year. The type of property we wanted seem to all be currently being chopped up into flats or demolished. As producer the first 6 months of the year were extremely frustrating for this reason. Secondly it needed to be in good condition, we needed to shoot in all weathers and have electricity. These reasons and more meant finding a location would be hard.

Of the many locations i scouted two stand out so far. This is Princess Marina in Northants:











A more modern build than is ideal for the project but a viable choice nether the less. The second option is the Derbyshire Miners Home. This is a great location which matches my ideas pretty damn close.











Well all good so far but ....A major downfall of each is where each location is. Northampton is not too far from Leicester but the mechanics and costs of getting cast and crew there on odd days over a drawn out period of shooting where too high. The Derbyshire Miners looked ideal but is based in ... Skegness. Go figure. Thanks must go to Em-Media who suggested these locations. Its just frustrating that each remainded just out of reach due to financial limitations.

After this initial round of scouting i turned closer to home. The ideal location came up after consultations with Leicester Regeneration and Claire Hudson at Creative Leicestershire. After a visit to the old Police station on Charles Street, Leicester i thought we'd got our location. Complete with safe, cells, lift and wood paneled superintendent office this was cool. However time was against us - as we speak the station is being made into flats.

Well all we can do is plough on. I'm a firm believer that these things happen to make way for a better option and our dream location will arrive.

The things which i found out thoughout this process which with hindsight would have come in handy were: Needs to be close to home, have electricity as generators cost to hire then you have ADR costs afterwoods, have cheap or no security costs.

info@zombieundead.com

Friday, July 20, 2007

Script Developments

Running at over 120 pages the first draft was a very different beast to later drafts both in content, style and length. Currently on the fourth draft its interesting to take time out and see the main ways the script has developed.

i) Characters merged and cut. This was particularly relevant to our film as it is low/no budget fare. Lack of budget necessitated a small cast.

ii) Setting Change - the setting for the film was altered fairly early on from a hospital setting to an evacuation center. The primary reason for this was budget. How to get props, costumes and a location which would look like a hospital ? This change forced upon us led to a tighter faster paced script with a greater social commentary angle- a happenstance of serendipity which seems to happen a lot around this film!

iii)
Ruling out any extravagances - Kris wrote to what we thought we could get and if we couldnt then ditched it.

iii) Shorter - over 40 pages have been cut in the script. This was something we knew would always happen and was achieved largely by the above. Dialog read through's also helped to get rid of any passages of dialog that were unnecessary to moving the film along.

So as we reach the fourth draft the script is leaner, faster and gorier.


info@zombieundead.com

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Casting Process

Well before the script neared completion we had an idea of the main roles for Zombie Undead. The three leads of Jay, Sarah and Steve were present throughout all drafts with each changing relatively little during script amendments. Therefore earlier in the year it was these three roles that we wanted to cast first. They would carry the film and casting needed to be spot on.

One way a low/no budget film can create a buzz is to cast a known name. However from the start this was something I didn’t want to do. The nature of how we were to film Zombie Undead meant that it was over a protracted period of time. We figured that this may be problematic with cost and availability of known actors. Also as as my first feature I wanted the film to stand on its own merits. For it to be shot and edited to the highest standard, to have the best makeup and sound, and to stand out for these reasons not the fact that we h
ave a known name in the cast. The budget restrictions also meant their fee could be spent elsewhere. But hey Brad if you're available then contact us via the email below.

Therefore we needed to cast ‘unknowns’ - hey it worked for Peter Jackson. Shooting People was the obvious choice ( www.shootingpeople.com ) so we registered and had a look around. Saw a couple of possible choices and placed an ad. We also used the local talent from around Leicester. Luckily we have within the DWE team Kris Tearse. Its almost as if the role of Jay was written for him – in fact it was as Kris is also the screenwriter.

Second to be cast was Barry Thomas as Steve. Barry appeared in my first short film Prime Cut and has an awesome screen presence. Everyone who watched that film loved his understated yet powerful performance. Barry’s a big guy and generally gets offered roles of the gangster/bouncer/heavy types so he jumped at the chance to play Steve the paramedic in Zombie Undead, a role that imbues the film with dark humour.

Well that’s bought you up to date on the casting front. Of the main three two down and one to go.

info@zombieundead.com

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

The Script

Work began on the script for the feature length version of Zombie Undead early in 2007. From an original concept -working title of 'Zombie Hospital' - by Rhys Davies and Blake Goddard, screenwriter Kris Tearse of Dark Waters Entertainment wrote a first draft over a 5 week period. After this the process we adopted was for Kris to write a portion of the script which i would then read, annotate and give back. Discussions would ensue, agreements reached and changes made if necessary. This piecemeal approach allowed us a pretty quick turnaround from first draft to being close to a shooting script.

As i am both Director and Producer i found the needs of these two roles sometimes necessitated myself asking for honest opinions from others. For example as a Director there may be a scene which i think vital but as a Producer see it as beyond the budget. In these cases its allways good to get a second opinion - and be brutally honest about decisions that have to be made as to what is good for the film.

As the script developed we found that it was best to write full on. We know about
character and conflict, the three acts and dramatic structure paradigm but the important thing was to get the words on paper. Once that was done the changes could start and the project took on its own life. Procrastination definitly has no place in film making! If the first draft was never complete the film would never get made - simple as that.

info@zombieundead.com

Sunday, July 8, 2007

3 Stage Process

Heres the plan :

Stage 1 - Self fund and shoot to 10-20 minutes.
Stage 2 - Access completion funding
Stage 3 - Complete film to 50 minutes and edit into series format
Stage 4 - Complete to 70 minutes for theatrical/dvd release

Let's see how this goes !

info@zombieundead.com

Friday, July 6, 2007

The Film Making Journey Begins

This blog follows the making of an independent low/no budget feature film. Part shooting diary, part how-to, part reference the Zombie Undead team will document the problems we encounter and the solutions we find. The highs and the lows. What worked and what didn't.

Script development, storyboarding, rehersals, make up, sfx, casting, crewing, lighting -its al gonna be here from pre-production through to distribution.

The Zombie Undead team will give as much back to the reader as possible with SFX Tutorials, Web Links Of Interest, Book Recommendations and Make Up Guides. We'll be honest and document our mistakes so you can hopefuly avoid them! Any comments and suggestions are welcome - use the link below to let us know.

So sign up and check back for updates and be part of the journey!

info@zombieundead.com