MEDP 160 Blog Post #3

For Mark Simakovsky and I, the zombie movie we created for our video project was quite an adventure, both creatively and logistically. With a shared interest in all things undead, the creative process flowed furiously, with Mark and I jumping, gesticulating, storyboarding, and faux-acting all over the place. The logistical side, however, was more of a challenge.

First came location scouting, which lead us to the Hunter Library. The location was great, but it had an innate problem...in that it was a library. How would we film a movie full of moaning and groaning zombies in a place where silence was the rule? By making a silent film, of course! Here, it was interesting to see how a logistical problem actually fed into the creative process. Since the movie would now be silent, it would also - of course - have to have film grain, contain a cheesy 1920s-esque horror movie score, and be in black and white.

Next, we focused on people, i.e. a make-up artist, zombie extras, and our sole main actor. In addition to in-person badgering, I created a Facebook event, made lots of calls, and sent lots of texts. All-in-all, this organizing stage took more time than the actual creative brainstorming.

Finally, the day of the shoot came. We arrived in the library before our lab period with 10+ zombie extras, Jessica Olsen (our make-up go-t0-girl), and Eli Cohent (our lead actor and Hunter's lone zombie plague survivor). Though Mark and I - particularly Mark - had spent considerable time planning out our shots, I had no idea how hectic things would become. Looking back, it would have been nice if I'd made a shot order and schedule; we sort of just haphazardly came up with such on the spot.

Overall, the most important thing I took away was the clearing up of a misconception about the filmmaking process. I learned that creating a film is as much of a process of organization as it is ideation.