Ciaran the lifesaver....

So today is the day that Ciaran is coming... i got up early to setup the kitchen get the fans ready the hairdryers ready and obviously all my tools ready to go to work ive got scissor and a lighter to cut and fray his clothes... that hes allowed me to cut up and fray...

Ive got a new technique ive been perfecting as it seems the toilet paper no matter how thin the ply is still shows up on film... now with out a professional i had no idea how i would correct this... earlier this week i started applying layers and layers of liquid latex over the top of each other and drying inbetween i read that this would work the same as if it had toilet paper underneath it but its untracable to the camera...

so i did this trick and it worked really well... up until the part where i accidently forgot to pad down the liquic latex with talcan powder... and i had to tear a whole in the liquid latex luckily this smudging effects worked and created really deep craters... almost displaying that withered and decayed skin look.

So i will practice this more before he comes and do a quick colour build up on my hand so i can see what kind of colours would look good on Ciaran's skin... because Ciaran is IRISH he has quite a light skin tone with ginger hair... so i wont have to go to heavy on the light colours as his skin pigment in itself is quite a layered look... so this will work to my benefit hopefully :P

Hes coming in 2 hours and then its time to get going...


WISH ME LUCK!

Test with JJ and Jamie

Okay so i just got in contact with my good friend Ciaran... who's luckily finished his masters early and was on board with this idea since the beginning of the year when i told him about it and he wanted me to go full out set a side a day for me to use ... meaning id have ALOT of time with ONE PERSON to go full out...

SO for this i was shooting in the day just like the end of my post said so i wanted to see if it was a good idea to test the camera in the day and fine tune the settings for the sunny days we was having in mid may...


I ASKED MY FLATMATES... i actually bribed them with a ben and jerrys each so i could use them and not waste ciarans time so naturally from going from having a MASSIVE idea at the start of the year using multiple bodies and clubs... etc to shoot in to going to a 1 man shoot with a zombie... i new i had to really sell the idea and work out my shots in advanvce...

my flatmates caved... and said okay you have 2 hours... use and abuse me... but i want that ben and jerrys...

so i DID I USED AND ABUSED and had them in all angles in a park trying to get the contrast of the green grass and the pale skin working with colours in post and adding blood in pre production... and basically having more time to perfect my artistic nature... with the makeup...

With jamie i put him in a park and played with the shutter speed creating this dramatic depth of field focusing on his eyes... as well as giving the whole shot an ND filter that felt quite soft.... with a frontal shot i wanted to focus really on the eyes.... as i thought that would show the best ability to capture emotion.

i wanted to colour grade the blood a little better but as it was a tester for camera quality i didnt.

Now with JJ i really went to town on the editing side of it... ND filter was pretty much all the wya up... depth of field wasnt played with i focused on his teeth and altered a little so i kept that just out of focus then his eye began to come really in focus... which i liked... so i took a still took it into after effects masked out some areas darkend them off  and croped some areas and added highlights just so i had something to work off...


I HAD ABOUT 16gb of footage of this... and thought if Ciaran doesnt come... i could salvage a mediocre version of my work to show off... but that didnt sit with me... so i pestered CIaran and he just told me to relax he will be there all day and will let me do what ever i want to him...

Sounded wrong... but so right... i was going to take my skills at creating visual pieces and take it to a whole new level... considering hand in DATE is 4th of May... i had less than a month to get on board with this project and DO the written stuff...

ERGHHHH head is on EXPLODE MODE!

Group shots...

So yet again another trial and error shoot i thought this one would of been good... but it just crashed and burned like the rest...

The BIGGEST problem i face is getting actors/actresses who are dedicated and can act on command... even if theres no lines for them to say...

i also came down to the problem of TIME! theres only a distinct time in a day that i could shoot due to people being busy with other modules etc... and then to top it... i had no lights to use externally BECAUSE some geeza decideds to rent all 12 battery lights out for the canon xf100's for 3 weeks for some underwater photography project hes working on so... yet again had to wing it and see what kind of result i came out with....

ALSO the makeup i jsut want happy with it looked alot better than previous... more realistic on camera in the dark... but i KNOW i can do better im a perfectionist... noting but the best...

and yet again the actors/actress only had time for 2 hours... so thats like 20mins per person makeup... RUSHED would be the word....

so as you can tell the realism is starting to come... but because of the timing that the actors/actress gave me... i could only apply facial makeup.... THIS is not what i wanted... but i went with it.... maybe i could of used some for crowd shots...

who knows it might come together....

So i dedcided to go abit more blacker around the eyes and use the outside of my thumb to blend into the skin... fake blood to cover any inperfections...

Together... they look really good... individually they look okay... but as you can see from the group shot the lighting outside was gone past repair... since i got them all makeup'd up i thought i should go outside and atleast try and get some salvage able shots... by this time i had a splitting migraine i had people complaining at me from all fronts saying we should of done it earlier...  or is it nearly done ive got work to do...

THIS REALLY GOT MY ANNOYED...

but i thought right maybe i can turn up the colours and boost it in post... even if i have to rotoscope... it had to be done was coming down to D DAY... and i needed strong work to produce...

so im thinking yeh we can work with this....

These were looking like the only salvagable shots... obviously i tried to correct them in post but only made it worst... turns out the footage was interlaced... and it turns out that i knocked the settings when we went outside considering i had no light... turns out i recorded in SD so i was more than annoyed with myself... and the moaning that came from people about how they felt silly acting when people were watching them... it was just amatuerish a little so i just thought maybe its best that i render this off as a TRIAL SHOOT... and learn from my mistakes...

SO all these SD files... coming up to short of 5GB in dark lighting... were trial and a big fat ERROR....

With the weather like it was i was worried that id be shooting everyday for 6 weeks to just get some footage i could use so i thought maybe i should change it to a day shoot then i could use the lighting from the sun instead of relying on dark scenes for zombie films...

MAYBE i turn it into a following of a zombie while it searches for its last meal? or just a discovery of the life of a zombie... with emotional music to make the viewer evoke strong emotions for the zombie feeling self pity and a natural liking to the zombies?

Grace around town...

So as i said in my earlier post i went out with my friend around town not really knowing what i want to produce so working with that i thought it would be an excellent tester shot of full makeup and work out what i do want and what i dont want and play about with the colour correction to see which film look i want.

I worked out around some close shots using the blue sky as a background.

In this picture i worked with the colour balance and tried to blend it all together but in the end i just didn't like the feel of it. From this shoot i new what i needed to do with the eyes (blacken them off but make it look natural work some skin pigments into the eye sockets and blend them out using my thumb with water....)

I made a short colour correction video for youtube that i wanted to show off in the blog that shows of a shot i quite like... 

I thought id be stabilising alot of shots but for a zombie film you want it to be as raw as it can be i felt from watching alot of zombie films i noticed that you have almost like a fixed position on the zombies face that the camera would track, it resembled a very gorilla style way of shooting. That i wanted to mimic in future shoots.

Stress is becoming an issue

I have so much to do, yet so little time to do it... ive decided i hate the functionality of the xf100's and much prefer the dslr feel and have been waiting out for the 5d's to come as promised by jeremy but as the stores tell me there not going to be ready for some time now... so i had to make do with the xf100's ERGH!!!! not happy!

I used the Nikon D900's to do the tester with and that was quite easy to use might transfer back to that at full frame 25 frames per second on a 1080HD record...

while doing this project ive also got tons to do like make a website and animate a 3d model... its ridiculous how much its piling on yet i have no motivation to do it... and on top of that the prosthetic makeup... just isnt coming together like i hoped it would turns out im not that good at applying makeup.. GO FIGURE!

Arr welll i went out the other day and filmed one of my friends in the burnt down area around my flat... worked out quite nicely but i kind of winged the shots.. wasnt really sure what i wanted to do... so we had fun with it... BIG NO NO!

ALWAYS PREP ALWAYS PLAN ALWAYS GET THE SHOTS YOU WANT!!!

you only have a SMALL WINDOW OF AMPLE OPPORTUNITY WHILE FILMING!

Ive got 4 people on tuesday to film... so im going to get out the NIKON D900 and do alot of stable tripod shots... and try and use the Steadi cam rig that JOSH has from jeremy... so hopefully that will give me some good shots...

ive been looking at a few locations and getting an idea of how i want some shots to be portrayed so i have a very good idea... only downfall is im going to need some hotbox lights depending on the lighting on the scene and i really want some form of 'corpse' like bodies in the shot...

I'M ALSO TRYING TO GET THE GREEN SCREEN BOOKED! so i can green screen some 'survivors' on top of building tops etc... gives it more of a dramatic feel... no?

TO BE CONTINUED

ANSWERS!

How i want it to be shown?

I want this piece to come across as if people can connect to whats being shown... i want people to recognise sheffield... so maybe alot of early morning shoots.

What kind of emotions i want this piece to evoke?

I would love for this piece to evoke sad emotions towards the zombies... how theres nobody to take them out of there misery as if they have to keep wondering the streets till somebody can kill them... or turns somebody/finds food.

If and how... would i gain access to some of the locations i will want to shoot in?

See because its a University film... id have to show how i acquired entry to some of the locations i have in mind... otherwise my film could be compromised and the grade dramatically lowered. So im thinking more shots of outside locations that are either burnt down... or can pass as burnt down... Im even going to try to get the ok to film in the church... near town.. maybe set up a little shot of a zombie in there with its head tilted back looking through the pain glass windows... but that all depends on how hardcore religious the people are who own the church or the right to allow me to film inside the church...

I also thought of doing a shot in town... near the memorial but that would have to be a really early hour shoot possibly 4/5am after all the clubs have shut up shot... maybe even have a slow walking shot of a 1-5 zombies near the place where we would graduate or scattered through out town... walking about or lying in a puddle of blood... alot of effort is going to have to go into this and alot of people will have to be getting up early to help me... or worst not sleeping to help me.

Are friends really the best people to use for this project?

without money... this is all i can work from... so im just going to have to do alot of favours to people but in effect im giving them a chance to be in a film where they can use as a showreel or get a still from it and use as a display picture... (its not often you get the chance to be in full prosthetic makeup and made to look ugly, no matter how much time girls spend getting ready in the morning)

Thought Process

Over christmas ive been thinking about things for this project...

How i want it to be shown?

What kind of emotions i want this piece to evoke?

If and how... would i gain access to some of the locations i will want to shoot in?

Are friends really the best people to use for this project?

So many questions un-answered... that i just cant seem to figure out so hopefully in a few days i will give an update and show my progression with this project because right now its really hurting my brain!...