As the editor for our film, I had been asked by the director from the very beginning of the filming process to integrate themes from such films as 28 days later, 28 weeks later and Dawn of the Dead. Together this created a collaboration of ideas from previously successful zombie movies. We as a group were going for themes of Horror that were strongly influenced by film noir, doing so this resulted in the creation of dark scenes and a very monotonous sequence of events which is characteristic of film noir. During the editing procedure I reduced the lighting of our film to impose the eary mise en scene we required.
We decided on the narrative by throwing in ideas from the known zombie movies (quoted above) and also using our own initiative we knew from very early on that we wanted only one character in the film itself to add the extra emotional state of isolation. This helped build upon the mind state that we sought the audience to be at by the beginning, middle and the end of our film. The feeling and emotion we wanted the audience to be victimised by was a sense of uneasy darkness from the scenes and unsettling diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. The aim was to involve the viewer by making them believe that it was a normal night that they may experience when the sun goes down, they were not only meant to witness the images and sounds going across the screen but also live it and feel it.
Some of the scenes in the beginning of our film are very slow paced and build up to a moment when the audience is disturbed by the sound of a female screaming. Naturally for a zombie film I needed to create suspense for the audience and I achieved this by using cuts and making them much more frequent in a smaller amount of time. The quick cutting technique I used was meant to drag the viewer into the screen to really look closely therefore mounting tension and concentration. For example I attempted to emphasize the P.O.V shots for Martin and also the Zombie by making the shots very short and snappy by cutting back and forth between them. This made the sequence very distracting but worked well for the sake of the plot. The editing style I used was very naturalistic and worked well with the narrative and was intended to be somewhat disturbing for the viewer.
One main aspect of the film that I am especially proud of is the fluidity and smoothness of the cuts between shots that make the film a masterpiece in its own right for the way the sequences have been simultaneously put together. The feedback on this was obviously very positive and that is where I’ve gathered my confidence regarding the continuity for our movie. I would say there was a lack of technical skill and knowledge with the computers we were using (Macs) and this may of caused the final cut to be a little less successful than I had wished it to be but with the little time we had to get use to the programs I would regard it in general an achievement.
On the whole, I consider our final cut to be successful in the sense that the story board went exactly to plan and even the editing was just as we had intended it be like. Perhaps with just a little more financial support and opportunity we would have created something even better.
As director of our film, I had to incorporate effective themes and relevant Mise en Scène to convey a certain feel to the scene to ultimately create a captivating zombie film extract. Using influences from various zombie horror films I had previously seen such as 28 Days Later, Dawn of The Dead and R.E.C, I tried to design and shoot effectively a collaboration of existing zombie films. We also attempted to involve elements of film Noir in our scene to represent the psychological battle our main character is going through.
We decided to shoot the scene at my home because we felt that as a house built in the Georgian period, it had the right style to offer a dark, eerie setting that would evoke the desired emotion of our audience. Throughout the scene, we tried to convey a Noir style to represent the panic and despair our character is experiencing. Film Noirs such as Double Indemnity and Brighton Rock were our main influence in regard to the use of darkness as a tool of emotion.
Our scene begins with the main character Martin, ably performed by ArisSahin asleep in his bed whilst a critical alert message is audible from the television in the background. In this first shot, Aris is wearing all of his clothes in bed, so our suspicions are initially raised as to why this could be. At this point, the audience cannot see the television, but is aware of the root of the sound because the flashing images from the television are reflected on Aris' face. This effect was chosen in an attempt to familiarize itself with a scene from Robert Siodmak’s The Killers where Burt Lancaster is stooped against a window whilst raindrops running down the glass are reflected on his face and resemble tears. Although our version is evidently less poetic, the concept stands.
In our scene, we wanted to involve the idea of character psychology, similarly to Jim’s mental battle in Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later. In our scene, the girl Martin loves has miraculously vanished and when he wakes he is understandably in a state of confusion. If the scene had been well lit with daylight pouring through the curtains, the audience would naturally feel differently about the character’s lurid predicament. It was important to shoot the scene at night because not only does the darkness evoke more fear towards the threat of the undead, it helps the audience understand the character’s psychological instability.
The segment of the scene of which I am most proud is the reverse P.O.V of Aris whilst he runs frantically downstairs in an attempt to rescue the girl. Instead of using a relatively mundane long shot of our character running through the house, we chose a slightly more adrenaline rushed sequence that boosts the audience’s excitement and strengthens the overall suspense. Accompanying the segment is a powerful piece of music we composed on Garage Band that conveys Aris’ sudden surge of adrenaline and expectation of potential danger. When our character hurriedly exits the house the music ceases; nothing but silence is heard. The camera then cuts from reverse P.O.V to Aris’ P.O.V as he studies the streets in search of the girl.
Due to our lack of professional make-up artists, we decided not to have any zombies traipsing around outside unconvincingly groaning in search of human flesh. Instead we decided to use a P.O.V shot of the zombie outside the house, with only its hands visible in hope of suspending the illusion that the undead had in fact risen.
Overall, I believe that we designed and shot a relatively impressive zombie horror scene using various re-occurring themes from a variety of classic horror and Noir style films. A considerable lack of budget restricted us to a lower scale version of what we had previously story-boarded, but the lighting and visual representation we used were hopefully as effective as originally intended.
