Film Openings

ERNIE -->  Typography and Research

EDITH -->  Music and Storyboarding

TAS     --> Casting (inc. props/set/costume/makeup) and Narrative

We have decided to create a comedic zombie film opening. This is because it is much easier to show zombies in a funny light and all zombies movies, no matter how serious they are, are presented in a tongue-in-cheek way.

We will require several extras to act as zombies and several actors to act as victims. 

I have started looking at pieces to be the soundtrack to our opening and after watching the opening of Shaun Of The Dead I have understood how this piece of music (Blue Wrath by I Monster) creates comedy. It is completely unrelated to the horror and suspense filled genre that we know and love and instead tames it and makes it something to laugh at. So with this in mind, I looked first on http://www.jamendo.com/en/ before then looking in my own iTunes library to see what I resources I already had and which tracks i could envisage backing a zombie scene of sorts. 

I have found three pieces of music that I believe may all fit and have listed them below. 

SUNDAY DRIVER - THE LIMP TWINS

This is very much like the track used on Shaun Of The Dead. It creates a laid back tone, as if zombies are nothing to worry about really. If we were to use this, I'd imagine that our opening would consist of zombies doing more normal things, like sitting in front of the television or going to the shops of something. However, despite the fact that they would be actual zombies as opposed to soulless consumers, there may be too many parallels with Shaun Of The Dead.

So after thinking this, I went for something completely different so that we could have a range of things to choose from and decided I would include something orchestral.

SLEEPING BEAUTY WALTZ - TCHAIKOVSKY

When I heard this I could immediatly imagine a choreographed Zombie Vs Human fight scene going on so that it looked somewhat like a dance. Whereas the option above was weird music to normal footage, this is the other way around; weird footage to normal music as it were. Because it builds up and up, I felt that it would make for a very dramatic backing track. However, as far as classical music goes, many young people of today may not understand my reasoning and find it doesn't fit.

Because of this, I decided that if I were to choose a classical piece, it would have to be one that everyone knows with a definite comedy touch to it, this way nearly everyone could relate to it and those who couldn't, would understand the reasons behind choosing it. 

IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING - GREIG

Everyone would recognise this tune and it also possesses a beautiful bouncy touch to it that would set the tone for the piece as light-hearted while keeping the choreographed dance element should we choose to go with this idea. Moreover, it goes very quickly from quiet to very loud and dramatic which would allow us to play around with the pace of it in case we decide to start with ambling zombies and then go into the fight or not to have a fight at all. For this reason I think that this is the most suited piece of music to what we are trying to do however, it is up to the rest of the group to decide on which piece we shall use.

While I was mulling how we can introduce to film in this opening, I had an idea that I have yet to run by my group. Whereas in Shaun Of The Dead zombies are likened to people, I though that perhaps in our film, they could be likened to animals. 

• The way we would do this would be to start off with a shot of a television that is playing a clip of wolves on a hunt or something of the like, narrated by David Attenborough. He would be describing the wolves strategy for hunting and commentating it. 
• After a few seconds, the camera would pan around to look out onto the street where a group of zombies were gearing up to attack a group of humans.
• They would be acting out what Attenborough was saying about the wolves, as if it were them that he was commentating. 
• For instance, if he were to say something along the lines of 'And, as one, they leap into action,' then the zombies would do just that. 
• Meanwhile, you have Greig building up behind the narration to add to the drama and to keep up the pace. 

I started to search clips of such wildlife shows that I could edit together and show my group at our next meeting however, I soon learnt that all of these clips have their own backing tracks and I do not have the means for splitting it up and removing them. So I came to the conclusion that we would have to write out our own narration and have someone read it out into a microphone and use this instead of the man himself.

The advantages of this is that we can still create a parallel between the zombies and the wolves at the same time as controlling exactly what is said so that it can also narrate the zombies exactly.

A disadvantage of this is that we won't have David Attenborough's iconic voice that the audience can relate to. This means that the audience will not feel the excitement and personal link when they recognise the reference which I know I feel if I understand a reference put in a film by the directors. 

However, I shall pitch this idea to our next group at our next meeting and shall document our decisions afterwards.