Making a zombie movie, need help/ideas

[MaxVeers]

Welp, we've been working on this movie for a few months. We have all the makeup, the scenes plotted out, the majority of the script, the entire cast and crew...

We just need some pointers and advice.

Majorly, we need some ideas on good-looking, CHEAP special effects. The bloodgun we've seen (made from a pressurized insect sprayer) seems to work for gunshots, but we're having trouble with it. We have made enough fake blood to drown a humback whale, but we need to effective ways to make fake guns look like they're making real shots, and that actors and recieving them. Basically, cheap, effective, convincing gore from gunshot wounds, bludgeoning, etc.

We also need lights. We have access to all of my campus' audio and visual department's cameras and lights, etc, but the big worry is powering lights inside unlit places (mainly inside cars and an old, abandoned house without power). The lights we have blew car inverters, and a generator makes too much noise on set.

Ideas?

[MaxVeers]

Bump... We could really use some help here.

[chrissy j]

well describe an event and I'm sure people will do their best to help you ie. what is used to bludgeon a zombie/person etc.

[MaxVeers]

Individual scenes and concepts?

Alright, well...

There's a house that needs lighting indoors at night, doesn't have any. A generator would produce too much noise, and flashlights don't create enough lighting for any usable scenes. We have stage lights, but we need a quiet, effective way to power them in an unpowered old house.

From watching other indie films, I've always noticed a lot of echo and general reverberating room noise when indoors. How do we reduce this? I know on film sets, they're usually in huge rooms made to look like small ones... We don't have that luxury.

We need to rig up some squibs. I know, metal plate, firework in a condom, blood in a condom around that, and a detonator. Any more specific directions?

We also need to rig up a blood pump. Basically...

We have a shot where someone is attacked by a zombie (generally, gorey attack) and ripped apart. We're pretty open-ended on that one. Then...

The survivors escape that situation, and use a rifle to get out. We can buy reenactment blanks, but how do we do headshots? There's nowhere to hide a squib unless it's on the BACK of their head, and we'd still need an entry wound there.

Then, we have a girl who is scratched, and it continues to get more and more infected. How should we make a zombie scratch that continually gets convincingly worse?

Once everyone is upstairs, the most dramatic and action-packed scene is:

Girls open the closet, a zombie comes out. One girl is scratched, a male pushes the zombie out the window. The other male sees the girl is scratched and shoots her in the head (from the front, so squib in the back, and entry wound in the front) and then realises it was a terrible idea and turns it on himself (shot of the wall getting splattered). Then, the main protagonist comes in, sees two dead bodies and the male who pushed the zombie out the window, and he shoots him and tosses his body out. So, mainly, headshots, from front and back, entry wounds and squibs mainly.

Then, we've got your usual zombies coming from the door and the person with the rifle shooting them from a window, and body shots from a distance. Squibs, or should be construct one of those blood pumps?

We have a cheap insecticide pump, but it doesn't shoot water from inside very convincingly. I assume we'll just have to add a hose, pump it heavily, and fill the HOSE (not the sprayer) with blood and sponge chunks, and then release the pressure for the shot?

We've also got a handgun that we'll need to shoot blanks from and use squibs on zombies.

Any other tips?

[DawnOfTheDuke]

Individual scenes and concepts?

Alright, well...

There's a house that needs lighting indoors at night, doesn't have any. A generator would produce too much noise, and flashlights don't create enough lighting for any usable scenes. We have stage lights, but we need a quiet, effective way to power them in an unpowered old house.

How crucial is it that you shoot inside this location? My recommendation to you would be that you shoot exterior shots to establish location, but make the interior of another powered location look abandoned. In a recent film I crewed on, our lead escapes her captors in a hideout, runs through metal doors into an alley, where they continue to chase her on foot through the city. We used an abandoned brewery in Cincinnati as the hideout, but all of the chase sequence was shot across the river in Kentucky. Our editor did a good job at making the disconnected locations flow together.

From watching other indie films, I've always noticed a lot of echo and general reverberating room noise when indoors. How do we reduce this? I know on film sets, they're usually in huge rooms made to look like small ones... We don't have that luxury.

A shotgun mic pointed at the actors mouths is a good start. If the room is a live room though, you'll still pick up reflecting waves. Work with a boom operator that will point the mic at the sound source and not just mess around. You'll hear the sweet spot in the headphones. Ask yourself if the room should sound like that though. Each room has its own characteristic sound and the audience may feel uneasy if there's no reverb where there should be (ie caves, auditoriums, large halls, etc).

We need to rig up some squibs. I know, metal plate, firework in a condom, blood in a condom around that, and a detonator. Any more specific directions?

Does your film have insurance? Do you have a professional in charge of those effects? I can't stress enough how dangerous this is.

We also need to rig up a blood pump. Basically...

We have a shot where someone is attacked by a zombie (generally, gorey attack) and ripped apart. We're pretty open-ended on that one. Then...

The survivors escape that situation, and use a rifle to get out. We can buy reenactment blanks, but how do we do headshots? There's nowhere to hide a squib unless it's on the BACK of their head, and we'd still need an entry wound there.

Then, we have a girl who is scratched, and it continues to get more and more infected. How should we make a zombie scratch that continually gets convincingly worse?

Once everyone is upstairs, the most dramatic and action-packed scene is:

Girls open the closet, a zombie comes out. One girl is scratched, a male pushes the zombie out the window. The other male sees the girl is scratched and shoots her in the head (from the front, so squib in the back, and entry wound in the front) and then realises it was a terrible idea and turns it on himself (shot of the wall getting splattered). Then, the main protagonist comes in, sees two dead bodies and the male who pushed the zombie out the window, and he shoots him and tosses his body out. So, mainly, headshots, from front and back, entry wounds and squibs mainly.

Then, we've got your usual zombies coming from the door and the person with the rifle shooting them from a window, and body shots from a distance. Squibs, or should be construct one of those blood pumps?

We have a cheap insecticide pump, but it doesn't shoot water from inside very convincingly. I assume we'll just have to add a hose, pump it heavily, and fill the HOSE (not the sprayer) with blood and sponge chunks, and then release the pressure for the shot?

We've also got a handgun that we'll need to shoot blanks from and use squibs on zombies.

Any other tips?

Ok. Like I said before, is the film insured? Do you have professionals in charge of effects involving explosives, even blanks? If not, I would recommend that you look at other methods. There are several ways to add a convincing muzzle flash in post. Keyframing may be tedious, but it's much safer and much cheaper.

For the bullet hits, buy a new insecticide sprayer with the money that you'd spend on explosives and blanks. Run some test shoots and tweak your effects safely. http://www.exposure.co.uk/eejit/blood/index.html is a great tutorial and some of the test footage we've shot was very convincing after we slugged in the gun sound effects.

[MaxVeers]

How crucial is it that you shoot inside this location? My recommendation to you would be that you shoot exterior shots to establish location, but make the interior of another powered location look abandoned. In a recent film I crewed on, our lead escapes her captors in a hideout, runs through metal doors into an alley, where they continue to chase her on foot through the city. We used an abandoned brewery in Cincinnati as the hideout, but all of the chase sequence was shot across the river in Kentucky. Our editor did a good job at making the disconnected locations flow together.

It's pretty important. We're all college students (or college aged). I live in a trailer (hey, it's cheap and bigger than any apartment anyone else around here boasts about), and it's used for a certain scene anyway, deemed "unsafe" by the lead character. Everyone else I know lives in dorms or dinky little apartments... Besides, we can't exactly squirt fake blood all over the place and tote around fake/inactive guns anywhere other people live, either.


A shotgun mic pointed at the actors mouths is a good start. If the room is a live room though, you'll still pick up reflecting waves. Work with a boom operator that will point the mic at the sound source and not just mess around. You'll hear the sweet spot in the headphones. Ask yourself if the room should sound like that though. Each room has its own characteristic sound and the audience may feel uneasy if there's no reverb where there should be (ie caves, auditoriums, large halls, etc).

Good advice, thanks. Most equipment we don't have, we can borrow from the mass comm department (film, journalism, sound design, radio, etc).


Does your film have insurance? Do you have a professional in charge of those effects? I can't stress enough how dangerous this is.

Ha. We're five college kids with two Super8s and two MiniDVs. I wouldn't be asking how to do them if we had a professional... anything... on our side.


Ok. Like I said before, is the film insured? Do you have professionals in charge of effects involving explosives, even blanks? If not, I would recommend that you look at other methods. There are several ways to add a convincing muzzle flash in post. Keyframing may be tedious, but it's much safer and much cheaper.

Blanks are only dangerous if they use paper or plastic wadding, or anything to help create smoke and flash. Fully hollow blanks don't even eject until you force them out.


For the bullet hits, buy a new insecticide sprayer with the money that you'd spend on explosives and blanks. Run some test shoots and tweak your effects safely. http://www.exposure.co.uk/eejit/blood/index.html is a great tutorial and some of the test footage we've shot was very convincing after we slugged in the gun sound effects.

We have an insecticide sprayer, but if we're actually filling it with fake blood, it won't work very well. If we're just running it down the hose and ejecting it with air alone, it might, but we could only do one shot at a time, and only on close frames. That limits us a good bit. If that's your site, I actually sent you a question about this very thing a while back.

[DawnOfTheDuke]

It's pretty important. We're all college students (or college aged). I live in a trailer (hey, it's cheap and bigger than any apartment anyone else around here boasts about), and it's used for a certain scene anyway, deemed "unsafe" by the lead character. Everyone else I know lives in dorms or dinky little apartments... Besides, we can't exactly squirt fake blood all over the place and tote around fake/inactive guns anywhere other people live, either.




Good advice, thanks. Most equipment we don't have, we can borrow from the mass comm department (film, journalism, sound design, radio, etc).




Ha. We're five college kids with two Super8s and two MiniDVs. I wouldn't be asking how to do them if we had a professional... anything... on our side.




Blanks are only dangerous if they use paper or plastic wadding, or anything to help create smoke and flash. Fully hollow blanks don't even eject until you force them out.




We have an insecticide sprayer, but if we're actually filling it with fake blood, it won't work very well. If we're just running it down the hose and ejecting it with air alone, it might, but we could only do one shot at a time, and only on close frames. That limits us a good bit. If that's your site, I actually sent you a question about this very thing a while back.


Not my site, just a great resource for no-budget filmmakers. Do you have releases signed for the building you're shooting at? Even if no one occupies it anymore, it's likely to be in someone's name. You'll need that if you plan on screening the film anywhere, otherwise you're opening yourself up to one hell of a lawsuit.

Is the building near other powered buildings? Extension cords and gaffer's tape are your friends. If a generator is too loud near the set, could you put it at a distance and run lines from it?

I'm in your demographic, so I know what it's like trying to produce something from seemingly nothing.

[MaxVeers]

As far as our research can tell us about this house, the owner passed away years ago, mid-80s, and has no relatives or anyone they are in dept to to take ownership/auction off the property.

It's a short distance through the woods from my place, but probably far too long for extention cords, and I'd be fearful of blowing a circuit with that much length and that powerful of lights running through it.

[Propaganda13]

Power - you could try the generator with long extension cords and heavy blankets to muffle the sound, but you'll be amazed at what a mic can pick up.You could see how well you can film in low light, maybe get some setup shots then maybe strip a room bare in a powered location.

Squibs - use a board behind the head so the squib is not on a person. Another less dangerous way is a large tube of blood and jello and good old lung power.

Bludgeoning - camera angles mostly. One scene, we had a decapitation and even after some video speed changes, you can still sorta tell the person was pulling back to prevent an actual decapitation. To prevent that, try to do most shots with only the bludgeoner otherwise film from behind one of the two for better angles. We did a great test splatter with a baseball bat. We took a ziploc bag full of blood and jello and heavily duct taped the entire thing except the bottom. We poked holes in the bottom and taped it to a tree. Hit it hard with the bat and chunks went flying.

[MaxVeers]

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess we could always put the generator on the floor we're NOT using, or in the basement, and say (in the script) it was " probably installed back when it was still a farm house, when electricity was unreliable" or something.

[Propaganda13]

I wouldn't run a generator in the basement. Back side of the house with doors and windows closed if possible. Depending on the level picked up by the mic, you could try to filter it post production. Test that before full shooting.