Biotoxic evaluation

I have recently completed the filming, and editing, of my two minute introduction to my film, Bio Toxic. The first thing that had to be done on the lead up to the filming was the pre production. This involved deciding on a genre, a plot line, a script and finally a story board. I quickly decided that my film would have to be a horror/action flick, with a B-movie style too it, in the form of a classic zombie movie.

I watched a great deal of zombie movie introduction to research and understand the codes and conventions of this genre. Many of these films fitted certain conventions, which I decided would be best if I excluded them from my film, to make it separate from other codes. In both Dawn of the Dead and 28 days later, there is a long intro, showing a perfect society, such as the suburbs in Dawn of Dead, this is used to contrast the harsh and violent zombie outbreak. I believed this was no longer necessary, as people understand what the world is like now, they want to see what it would be like if the un-dead did invade, as a form as escapism. This is why I decided to cut straight to the action, with only a little back-story and very little information about the characters.

After deciding on a basic plotline, similar to 28 days later, with a virus that turns people into savage zombies, I begun to write the first script, under the title Z-Day. Once I was happy with the script I drew up a storyboard and begun to plan the filming. Unfortunately, our script required to be filmed in abandoned buildings, a classic location for zombie horrors used in many films, such as the abandoned mansion in Resident Evil. The buildings we planned upon using had been demolished before the filming was due to commence.

This led to us having to re write the script and storyboard. The second day of attempted filming was cut short due to a quickly depleting camera battery due to the cold weather conditions. When we returned to do the very last section of filming, rain had flooded the area that our last scene was meant to be taking place. We quickly found a new location, an industrial estate, bordering the fields that we were filming in. This led to some minor adjustment to the script and storyboard resulting on our 3rd and final script. This was not a problem for the filming as an industrial estate is perfect for a zombie movie, giving a lot of opportunities for surprise attacks and grisly deaths. The industrial setting is excellent for horror and many action horrors, such as Aliens and Doom, use it to great affect at making you feel claustrophobic and add to the tension and fear.

Editing was the last step in perfecting our new film, named Bio Toxic in the second script after discovering a book named z-day, also with a zombie theme. Firstly we had to fit all the shots together, yet upon closer inspection into the shots we discovered that in some parts of shots you can see characters that where not yet supposed to be in shot yet that where standing by idly. These scenes where cut short, or split into 2 sections, to prevent these unwanted people invading the shots.

Once I had got the shots in the correct order, sound and music my next top priority. Firstly I put in a soundtrack, non-diagetic music that complements that theme and mood of the film. For Bio Toxic we used ‘With a Heavy Heart (I regretfully inform you)’ by ‘Does It Offend You, Yeah?’ This music greatly suits the film as there is a great tension building section which leads into a high tempo, loud and distorted melody. Other films use the same style of music, such as Resident Evil 3: Extinction, to exaggerate the action. This is similar to the confused and afraid theme I was attempting to capture in the filming, shown by using the shaky hand camera shots and the use of a lot of moving shots. However, the tension building section starts in the middle of the song, and the melody itself was too short to fit into the chase section of the 2 minute section. To help solve this problem we used a sound editing program to cut the song and fade it into the beginning of the tension building section, while cutting the melody and forming a loop that doubled the length the music lasted, increasing the time we could allocate to the chase scene. However, the loop did not did not quite match up, with a small skip in tempo. This was not noticeable, yet we thought it would be best to cover this up. To do this we re recorded some growls and moans from the zombies. We turned this up to an audible level but it didn’t seem to quite work with the film, sounding clearly like it was recorded after the film. We turned it down far enough so it is not noticeable, yet load enough to cover up the loop as background sound.

When we uploaded the video onto youtube, a popular video sharing site, we noticed a problem with the soundtrack. When the video was uploaded the sound track had moved slightly backwards, the reason for this is unsure. However, this slight problem led to large repercussions. The crescendo, intended to underline the building tension appears too late and does not fit with the climatic first appearance of the zombies. The sound track moving back had a second effect as well. The loop in the track, previously covered by a zombie howl, has changed, leaving it undisguised and easily audible if you know what to look for. However if you are not listening out for it, you can not really tell that the track skips.

Biotoxic has a mainly teenage cast, meaning that there is very little or no representation of other age groups to compare it with. However, the fact that there is a lone survivor, being chased by this group of monsters can be a metaphor for a common occurrence in our society. The lone girl represents the minority in society, discriminated by the majority, as shown by the horde of zombies.

The final outcome of Bio Toxic was, in my opinion, quite good. We made the best of what was capable on such a small budget. I am particularly proud of the make up of the zombies. The blood was cut price due to it being out of date, and the pale skin helped to create the dead look. Considering our limited timeframe; budget; access to acting talent; and experience, the filming came together well. It shows clearly the confusion and fear I was attempting to show and works well at creating an entertaining story. The introduction is quick into the action and draws the audience in, making them want more. I believe this is the most important use of the first 2 minutes of a film. Bio Toxic is in many ways a typical zombie film. Story is not an important section; instead the action is the main focus. However, Bio Toxic is a lot rougher than other films, shown using the static and white noise. This separated the film slightly, yet it is still easily identifiable.

It would be best marketed via a viral advertising campaign on the internet, such as the campaigns for ‘Cloverfield’ or the ‘Blair Witch Project’. This underground style of advertising is best for drawing in the myspace generations, teens and young adults, who consume much of their media via the internet. These campaigns are proven to give the film a cult following, which is what many zombie movies, such as the Evil Dead series, rely upon.

Comparing Biotoxic to the preliminary piece showed a clear progression of talents. The editing was obvious and uninspired in the preliminary, with the same shots used repeatedly and the use of a dissolve particularly made the film loose its naturalistic look. This piece was not taken particularly seriously and the sound track contradicts the mise en scene. The sad music does not match with the strangely comical dialogue and although this was designed to be a parody of the traditional dramas, the music just ends up looking quite childish. However the sound track for Biotoxic fits the happening of the film perfectly. A wide variety of shots are used and many original shots were used, such as the point of view, or P.E.Z, shot from one of the zombies (which came to be known as Z.E.V.) This shows how it has become easier for me to match a shot to the emotions I was attempting to portray to the audience.