Research Into Zombies

Despite the fact that we have already filmed our zombie film opening, we did a lot of pre research so that we could achieve the most professional looking blog we could.

MAKE UP RESEARCH BY TAS

By doing several Google searches on How To Do Homemade Zombie Make Up. Alot of the materials that are not essential are expensive, however the essential stuff can be found at home or at a cheap costume shop or pharmacy.

Tas researched about the zombie looks that are most popular, most of them take a lot of work and are very very detailed. Thankfully it is also a comedy alot like "Shawn of the dead" so although we want the zombies to look as real as possible, it can be done in a cliche tongue-in-cheek sort of style.

Materials: toilet paper, A basic multi-color make-up kit ( grey eye shadow and red lipstick ), and of coarse white face cream this is going to be the base of almost any movie make-up. It's like primer for effect. White face paint.

How we will apply the face makeup for our Zombies:  first we will put toilet paper and paint it down with white face paint but leave some loose bits to create a ripped-skin effect which we will colour in with reds and black makeup powder, and put darker effect of powder around the mouth and eyes then put the red, grey and black around teh eyes and lips.

I also came up with the idea of using plastic bags that we can stick on to the face that can then be ripped to look like ripping skin. We will have to make a trip to the costume shop we will need hair spray or grease and some old clothes that can be ripped up and have paint and baked beans on them to create a lobbdy, gutsy effect.

HOW WE DID IT ON THE DAY:

In actual fact, we did the make up slightly differently on the day of filming. One of our actors had in fact done a stage make up course and showed us the best way to achieve a zombie effect using minimal make up.

First, we used the white face paint as a thin, patchy base layer, forgetting the tissue entirely. We then added lots of black make up in the eye sockets and under the cheek bones to hollow out the zombies faces.

Ernie was in charge of hair and he used a combination of back combing and hair wax to give the zombies an unkempt and messy look. He then sprayed green and grey hair spray in patches to make it look dirty.

We then applied minimal fake blood on the face so that there was a definite difference when it came to them eating the human. We had lots of red poster paint and a can of baked beans that we threw at them in various amounts so that they each had a unique, bloody costume.

By doing the make up, hair and costumes in this way we managed to achieve a very effective, obvious zombie using minimal materials.