1. When does the story start?
2. What is the goal of my character?
3. What keeps my character from his goal?
4. What is keeping my character from giving up?
5. What is the last straw?
6. Does the character or audience know what the last straw is?
7. When does the story end?

These are some pretty basic questions, and one’s that I’m sure I know deep down inside. But for the sake of exercising my mind, and also solidifying my mind, I shall answer them all out.

1.  When does the story start?

The story start 4 weeks after the zombie outbreak happens. No one knows what has caused the outbreak. Be it virus, spell, curse, etc. All that the main character knows is that he doesn’t remember hearing about any zombies on the news. It happened very quickly while he was out shopping with his wife and parents. He has lost touch of everyone and has decided to go back to his shed in his backyard and wait for his loved ones.

2.  What is the goal of the main character?

The main character has lost his wife and parents, not to mention countless friends and other family members. He feels a strong urge to find the ones that he lost touch with on the day of the attack. He is scared to die alone.

3.  What keeps the character from his goal?

The entire city is infested with zombies. The main character hasn’t had much contact at all with living people since just after the outbreak. The sheer size of the city, the lack of help and potential that the loved one’s he is looking for are in fact dead.

4.  What keeps the character from giving up?

The main character is very determined, very stubborn, and also very scared. He really does not want to die alone, or even be alone. He will fight every day if he has to just for the chance of finding his loved ones. In the process of fighting for his life and his family’s, his mind is stilled and occupied with the task at hand.

5.  What is the last straw for the character?

If he found his loved one’s dead, or in zombie form he would be extremely distraught. Enough to probably give up on surviving.

6.  Does the character or the audience know about the last straw?

The character and audience do not know what the last straw is. It will become evident at the moment that it happens for shock value.

7.  When does the story end?

The story will end when he finds his family. Or perhaps it will end after he has found his family and then met some other people that are alive.

This exercise has proven to be quite difficult. It has taken me several days to lock down these answers, and in all honesty they might not be as locked down as they are. PLUS! I don’t even know if they are all correct. It’s more about laying it down in full and seeing what needs to be changed to make it better.

I am currently working on a questions to some answer post, it’s taking me a long time. I keep second quesing myself because it is forcing me to set some things in stone.  I can’t really continue with unknown variables. For now though, here are some common themes. I got this from here. It’s giving me a lot to think about.

The Great Journey

This follows a character or characters through a series of episodic adventures as they travel.  It may be a sad story or a happy story, or it may even be comedic.  Huckleberry Finn, Heart of Darkness, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and The Odyssey are good examples.  In film, this theme can be seen in Apocalypse Now and National Lampoon’s Vacation.

Loss of Innocence

Sometimes called the “coming of age story,” this most commonly introduces an “innocent” character to the evil or complexity of the real/adult world.  In literature, we might look at David Copperfied or most of the Nick Adams stories by Ernest Hemingway, like “Indian Camp” and “The End of Something.”  In film, we might look at Stand by Me.

The Noble Sacrifice

The sacrifice can be for any reason except self–a loved one, an enemy, a group of people, the whole of humanity, a dog–but the bottom line is that the protagonist sacrifices himself or herself in an effort to save others.  In literature, this is demonstrated in the story of Jesus in the New Testament and King Arthur in Mallory’s Morte d’Artur.  This theme is used is used in the films Glory, Armageddon, The Green Mile, and in just about any war movie where the hero dies gloriously.

The Great Battle

The Iliad and A Tale of Two Cities are classic examples of this theme.  It is about people or groups of people in conflict.  It is sometimes a good vs. evil story like 1984 by George Orwell, but not always. The film The War of the Roses, starring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas, is an example of a battle in which neither character is wholly good or evil.  In theatre, we see this theme at work in Westside Story and Les Miserables.  We often see this theme in horror or science fiction, like in Alien and Terminator,  where the antagonist–a monster/creature/human/alien/computer/etc.– is trying to kill the protagonist, who must fight to stay alive and/or defeat the antagonist.   Sub-categories would be person vs. person, person vs. nature, person vs. society, person vs. technology and etc.

The Fall From Grace

This theme shows us people going where only God should go, doing what only God is meant to do, or attempting to do something that human beings should never do.  This is always followed by misfortune, whether it is the direct result of their action or an act of God.  We see this in the tales of Coyote’s theft of fire in the Native American tradition, or in the story of the Tower of Babel and the Garden of Eden in The Old Testament. Other examples would be the Prometheus myth, Pandora’s Box, and the story of Icarus.  Frankenstein by Mary Shelly is another work exploring this theme, and we have seen it at work in the films Jurassic Park and Westworld.

Love and Friendship

Romeo and Juliet is a classic love story, as is the story of Lancelot and Guenivere.  The films You’ve Got Mail and Message in a Bottle are also love stories.  The ending may be be happy, sad, or bittersweet, but the main them is romantic love.  Also included in this theme is platonic love–friendship–like in the movies Wrestling Ernest Hemingway and Midnight Cowboy.  All Romance novels, whether straight or gay, fit into this category.   All “buddy films” like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Thelma and Louise fit into this category.

The Capriciousness of Fate

Greek tragedies fit this category.  Often, there is a major reversal of fortune.  It could be from good-to-bad or from bad-to-good.  Oedipus Rex is a classic work that explores the concept of fate and destiny, having an unhappy ending. Cinderella is also a reversal of fortune story, but has a happy ending.  In film, we have seen this theme at work in Pretty Woman.  The common element is that there is some force guiding the person’s life over which he or she has no control.

Revenge

The subject is obvious, but the outcome differs.  Sometimes the outcome is good, like in the movies Revenge of the Nerds or Animal House.  Sometimes the outcome is bad, as in Macbeth and Moby Dick.  Other movies based on this them are Revenge, staring Anthony Quinn and Kevin Costner, and Payback, starring Mel Gibson.

The Big Trick

In this one, someone or some group of people intentionally trick someone else.  Rumplestiltskin and Little Red Ridinghood are in this category.  Stone Soup is an old story in which several men trick the inhabitants of a village into providing them with food.  This theme was evident in Snatch, starring Brad Pitt, and The Sting, staring Robert Redford and Paul Newman.

The Big Mystery

Something unexplained happened and it is the protagonist’s job to find an explanation for it.  The story of Sherlock Holmes are good examples, as are the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries.  In film, we have seen it Silence of the Lambs and The Maltese Falcon, and it took a comedic turn in Clue and The Pink Panther. Almost all police and detective dramas work within this form, as do most espionage and spy thrillers.  Agatha Christy and Tom Clancy work within this form.
I’m playing with “the great journey”, “loss of innocence”, “the noble sacrifice”, “the fall from grace”, “the great battle” and “love and friendship”. I think if I apply myself I can fit all of these into the story. Not that it really needs to, but I think they all apply in some small way. I just really don’t want the story to seem under worked, or even over worked for that matter. It’s a delicate balance and it’s something I’ll need to play with.

Found a great, sort of mock, article on the 6 basic archetypes that are in most zombie movies. Satire or not, it is very accurate. They’re pretty self explanatory, so I’ll just list them:

1. The Betrayer
2. The Dictator
3. The Sacrifice
4. The Expert
5. The Innocent
6. The You (Average Joe)

Some interesting idea’s on all of these guys. I agree with it almost 100%. And I also agree that these very basic and typical characters should be left out of zombie screen plays. Also omit any thoughts like this:

“…every summer, it seems more directors think the key to giving their zombie flick deeper meaning is to cap the hero in the final scene.”

I disagree with that, especially if it’s just for a twist or shock. Unless it really is what needs to happen, then avoid it entirely.

My two characters don’t really fit in these archetypes, which is quite relieving. My main character in this story would be a new type of character. I would say he is “The Lone Survivor”. But not like, last guy alone, lone survivor. More like the only way to survive is by being alone.

The other secondary character is something I can’t think of. He’s not the Sacrifice. Maybe he’s the “The Last Hope” character. I mean, maybe this story will make it’s own archetypes that may only exist correctly in this universe. Maybe I’m giving myself too much credit. The thing is that I’m new to this stuff so I don’t know what I’m creating. I just know that I want it to be different, thought provoking and unquenchable. Big importance on difference.

I really need some collaboration on this one. I feel like I’m stumbling around in the dark. Oh how not fun it is.

I just found some questions online about what to ask yourself about your story/ character. I’m going to think about these, then post the questions and responses later. I think this will help a lot.

So I figure I have everything I need to start. I have a lame script, some storyboards, animatic, jury rigged lights. Everything but a camera and actors.  I am, for some reason, not really concerned about actors. I think it is because I want to do a guerrilla type shoot with maybe just me and a friend. I guess sort of make a live action animatic.

I want to test my abilities with the camera, lighting and lenses firstly. I really have no experience with exposure, frame rate, aperture. I played around a little bit with some SLR’s in grade 10 photography. I can’t say that I learned too much about film. I recently bought a Sony A350. It’s really nice, and came with a decent lens. But I have problem figuring out how to get a decent picture without the flash and not very much light without it being a 2 second exposure. Perhaps I should just take this camera and just shoot some test shots in the sun in the backyard and in the shed in the dark. I could set up some lights and try to mimic the imagery I’m looking for. I just came up with that idea, and I think it’s smashing! WOOT!

So since we’re in the rainy season the Lower Mainland, I guess I’ll be forced to shoot overcast. I’ll concentrate on the interior of the shed shots, good thing my camera has a 10 second timer. I’ll have to set the shot up and click it and run to the door. I’ll have to look up some lighting techniques. Perhaps that’s what I’ll do today while I work.

I bet I can even take some of those pics and throw them in After Effects and play with their colours a bit too. I really want the look of this flick to look a little more pro than most indie films out there.

I really don’t know what kind of camera to use when I do start filming. Obviously I don’t want to use a cheaper handy cam. I want some control, mainly on lenses, but also with shutter speed. I think that’s an important one that is overlooked too often. I remember this awesome short Doc that was shot with the Canon 7D. It looked great. Maybe something like that would be a good choice. As long as I have the lens options and frame shutter speed options.

Just checked the D7 out, it looks like it’ll do everything that I’d want…for $2500 that’s a lot of money. Gorsh! Ah well, at least I have an idea of what I’m looking for.

Well, until next time, here goes for learning some lighting stuff(s).

I was sitting on the throne (where most of the thinking is done) and thought about the difference between my flick and the numerous other zombie flicks out there and I settled on: “A zombie film with brains”. It seems obvious, because zombies like BRAAAAIIIIINNNNNSSSSSS. But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my main character. All of this thought and direction in this character is going to add actual BRAAAIIIIII….sorry, brains. Ah-hem.

The past couple of weeks I’ve been boggling about what my character is about. Not necessarily what his back story is, or his fore-story, but what is his crutch, what is his fear, what is his sacrifice. These are some important questions that I didn’t think about before.

My first instinct is to make the character a loner, to be cold and calculating. That works for a survival in an apocalyptic future. However it’s not as deep as a like. This character will be deathly scared of being alone, especially dying alone. This is what drives him to search the ruins and survive. However, he knows deep down that alone is the only way to survive. It’s a dangerous circle, and potentially an awesome ending. Searching for someone to die with. I think this will add a lot of depth to the story and to the character. It will definitely dictate some decisions during writing which I believe is a good thing. I have such trouble settling on things. Probably because I don’t have anyone to really bounce idea’s off of. I never know if anything is ‘good enough’.

I think I have all the dialogue worked out. I finished it a week or so ago. But I’ll probably need to sit down with it again now that I have some of the character figured out. I want to give him something, then rip it out of his hands till he realized he can’t have it. It’s kind of mean, but can be damn powerful.

Think that’s all for now, should get back to the REAL work.

I got the entire animatic done. That is, only the images in order and timed out suitably. I’ve written out all the dialogue and I’m pretty happy with it. Next up I will do a temp monologue track to further hammer out the timing. I have put in some sound effects for the first half of the first act. It adds a wonderful sense of atmosphere. All in all, it’s looking good. Here’s some snipets!

Opening with sound:

Fight sequence, no sound:

The boards are all done, scanned and cut up into individual JPEG’s. When I started at Nerd Corps, I had the luxurious position of PA (Production Assistant). If you know anything about the entertainment business you’d know that the PA is a versitile tool. My main job besides phones, food and dishes was scanning story boards. It was a quite a monotonous job. You scan in 50 or 60 pages, cut out a single panel, size it, rotate it, crop it and save it. Then you grab another panel, place it over top, rinse and repeat several thousand times a day. I chose to do this method for my boards. It turns out that I haven’t lost my groove of dooing that, why not? It’s only been about 4 years since I’ve done anything like that It’s great, I have my full pages scanned in for reference and screen directions, I have individual named panel JPEG’s for the animatic AND I have a larger PSD file with every panel on it’s own layer that is sized, rotated and touched up.

I placed all the first act in a time line in Final Cut Pro and timed them up pretty good so there is some sort of flow. I think my next job will be to do the last two acts and time them up similarily, then I’ll add some sounds. Eventually I would like to record all or at least most of my own folly. I’m tired of the same wind and door creaks that are all over the internet. However I did find a few interesting sites that have some good, fairly original sounds.

So far I feel very good about this project. I’ve gotten it farther than anything in the past (not saying I’m lazy). I think it’s because so many of my previous projects have been to large in scope and I’ve always been unsure, mainly because I don’t have anyone to really bounce idea’s off of. It’s pretty hard to mess up a zombie movie, and I’m not trying to scare people to death. I just want to tell a realistic story of a guy trying to survive.

Oh, I got a title too. I’m going to try to tie it in with some other story’s I have.

Hope B.C.

Because it will take place in a little town in British Columbia (made famous by RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD) called Hope. It’s an awesome quaint little town. The quaint little town you pass through when you go camping in the summer. They have good ice cream and stuff.

Here’s some of my awesome boards, I’ll post a silent scene of my animatic soon:

(Click to biggenate)

So obviously the GB idea’s are a little too much for me to handle. I figure I would truly need a budget and a crew. That I have neither. A while back Jay and I were throwing around a zombie movie idea. I planned out the hole thing, drew a few boards, scribbled parts of scripts together but again it’s a little too big. But I think I have it finally figured out.

I had a convo with Rich at work from. He’s an editor here at the Corps and, as it turns out, a fantastic improv actor (let alone writer, director, camera guy, etc, etc). But we were chatting about how to get idea’s off the ground and such and he gave me some good advice that I’ll share now: “You just have to go for it”.

I am always concerned with making sure that all my story is straight, all the characters have their purpose and so forth. Rich says not to worry too much about that at first. Just get an idea, work out a single episode and just do it, get your feet wet, change it as you go along. That advice, along with Bruce Campbells “If Chin’s Could Kill” autobiography, have led me to re-think my zombie idea. Slasher flicks are generally fun to watch and somewhat fun to make so why not. My spin, so far though, is a more thought provoking zombie flick. So we’re not delving too much into the kills, except this one awesome scene I boarded out the other day.

I think I’ve even been able to tie it into my other story with Jay for a later purpose. I’ve completed the first draft of boards, and probably won’t redo them (for my lack of drawing talent). I’ll just add my insert shots here and there, or redo a scene if it isn’t working out. I’ve decided against a formal script. That’s right, I’m doing it 50’s Disney style. Boards first, right in some dial at the bottom, then spruce up the dial for the actors right before shoot. That’s not to say I’m not thinking too much about the story, or even the dialogue. Those things are ever so important to me. I did this for two reasons. The first is because I’ve never done it this way before, at least not an entire story in boards only. Second, I really want to concentrate on the flow of the visual story.

I think I’ve got it all nailed out. I’ll post my primitive boards soon and hopefully run out an animatic within the next month…Just in time for HALLOWEEN!

Of course production continues, slow as ever. I’ve employed a very talented, professional to do my storyboards (in exchange for guitar lessons!). That happened just recently, so hopefully with the next month or so, I’ll be able to start posting some panels. The big news, really, with a the storyboard artist (Scott) is that I can work out the story elements with him. He has many years in the TV industry as a classical animator and until now as a 3D animator. The things that will come out of this union are unforeseeable.

I am still pushing for the Tucker proton pack. That’s more of a motivation on his part, but it will come, if not I have a fall back guy (which in all honesty isn’t a fall back, I would rather have friends help me out). As for myself, at the moment I’ve been hammering out pathetic excuses for ghost designs and working out ways of creating this particular effect for the films. I’ve decided that I really want to keep this very true to the original and not change things where I don’t have to (original cast is obviously a given) so I’m going to create and shoot a puppet on a green screen and Comp it into the flick. This has some obvious challenges, however it was done for many many years, and there are volumes of do’s and do not’s out there. Especially with the technology we have in our living rooms this technique will look best. I’ve decided to take what poor drawings I have and some advice (and possibly nice sketches) from Scott and dive into building the puppet  so that we can get ready to shoot it and do some tests.

The puppet will built with a wire armature so that one or two people can operate in front of a green screen while the camera is rolling. This obviously limits many aspects of the film making process. One of the major challenges is that many (if not all) of the shots with this effect will have to have completely still camera’s. That is, we will have to find all the angles that work good for the shot and lock the camera off. No dolly’s, no pans, no cranes. This is a major limit. However, there are two Ghostbuster films that work very well with locked off camera’s. As a plus, this can really have a lot of character, I remember reading something from Guillermo del Toro about his Hellboy II experience. The gist of it was that he kept having to send the CG shots of the monsters back because they lacked character and performance. CG just has too many perfect moments. It is so easy to make a perfect performance, do exactly what the director wants you to do. What is difficult is adding in those subtleties that give you character, and naturalistic qualities. Things like twitches, a line slur, a stumble or misstep, you don’t get this in CG unless the directors ask for them and in those cases they look rather unnatural. Puppets bring back that human quality, if a wire gets stuck and creates an odd sneer for a couple of lines, or the puppeteers arms get tired and the character favours one side. This all comes back with puppets.

I’m actually quite excited to get a bunch of little tools out with some wood, wire, tubing and latex and get to work on this. I’ll post some proper pics of the design soon, hopefully

I am a working man. I work very hard at what I do, and like most everyone that works hard at what they do and actually like their job, I get paid just enough. Money is a big part of movie making. Hearing about a comedy with 200 million bucks to spare makes me sigh. If i had a hundredth of the budget, I could get shoot my most expensive script. As it turns out, I’d be lucky to get a fraction of that fraction for a budget.

With money woes hot on my heels, I’ve devised a plan that will ensure that I either create my vision with as little wasted money as possible. If at any point I do not feel like I can create my script to my satisfaction, I can pull out at any of the steps and not be at loss.

I’ll show the list and describe each part after:

1. Make packs and traps
2. Test shooting with standard camera and broomsticks
3. Test out audio recording
4. Test out editing
5. test out proton and foley FX
6. Decide on script
7. Design ghost
8. Decide how to shoot ghost
9. Test out ghost FX
10. Complete storyboards
11. 2D animatic
12. Complete props and costumes
13. Test sets and lighting with standard camera, Live action animatic (cam/light/blocking/set)
14. Write out shooting schedule
15. Get actors
16. Get cranes, dolly’s and other shooting equipment
17. Create call sheet
18. Rent camera

The first and foremost thing I want to have done is the proton packs and a trap. This is a very expensive endeavour on it’s own. However, even if I don’t make the movie(s), at least I’ll have a bitching Halloween costume, and who else do you know that has a proton pack hanging above their fireplace?

Secondly, I want to test out shooting with friends and broomsticks, just to make sure that I can handle the camera, and ultimately test out a plethora of little things, that will prove to me that when I rent an expensive camera I can handle all aspects of the movie making process.

I find sound is some of the weakest parts of home made movies. They tend to use the microphone on the camera to capture the sound for editing and even the background and footstep foley. I plan to test out an external recording device, using visual mark cues to sync up in post and also record background sound FX foley completely separately.

Testing out the editing is pretty straight forward, I just want to make sure I can make a sequence flow correctly.

While editing I will figure out the foley and proton FX. I want all of the sound in the flick to be authentic.

Decide on script. This has been done, so I can skip it.

Designing the ghost is extremely important because we need to decide if it is going to be a practical puppet or if it’s going to be CG.

After the design of the ghost, we will need to test out and decide how to film the ghost.

Directly after that we will test out shooting with the ghost, as in create the ghost and composite it into the previously shot footage.

That last step is the last of the testing shot. Now I must complete the storyboards for the full script.

2D animatic is just so I can be sure of all the assets I need. Including temp sound and music.

Complete all props and costumes, this must be done before anything else, once this is complete, all assets should be acquired and, technically, the script can be shot in a moments notice.

After we find our location, we can test out lighting it with some temp actors and create a quick live action animatic.

The shooting schedule is very important. In cahoots with the animatic, the shooting schedule lists out all the shots I need to have in the editing room. Obviously this doesn’t count the quick pick-ups or improvised shots. There is room to grow.

Getting actors will be a bit tough. I’m still undecided at who’d I want to put in the flick. I really want someone passionate about the franchise, and someone that really wants to find a new and interesting character to imbue on the screen. As of now, I’m leaning to going to the local film school’s and putting up a notice to anyone that is interested in doing a shoot. I’m sure they wont mind the pro-bono stuff, right?

The equipment for the flick will be a little complicated. I’m going to try make as much of it as I can stationary, or steady/handy cam. But it would be very nice to have a dolly and maybe a crane. We’ll see as the pre-pro goes on. Perhaps Tucker can make me most of it, he is quite talented.

Call sheets will be one of the last things to do before we actually film. I will need to make sure I have everything in the above ready, then we will set the dates and create the call sheets for all cast a crew, then hand them out.

Renting a camera will probably be one of the easiest things to do on the production. I’m just trying to decide which one at the moment. I plan on going to Matrix Video in Vancouver to rent, I’m sure whatever I choose they will have.

Now, we shoot.