Zombiefest Official Entry Page

Once we have all the films submitted, and we've previewed them all for eligibility, we'll have a special viewing and rating page. It should be up within a few days of the submission deadline which is September 15.


Cinemassacre said:
Just wondering....

Where can we view the finished films?

Is anyone done already?
Click to expand...
 
D'oh

D'oh

Barry_S said:
Once we have all the films submitted, and we've previewed them all for eligibility, we'll have a special viewing and rating page. It should be up within a few days of the submission deadline which is September 15.
Click to expand...
Woa Sept 15th? I thought it was moved back from 7/31 to 8/31, now 9/15. I need to subscribe to that thread!
 
anyone in new york area still shooting?

anyone in new york area still shooting?

almost another month left,

also, are most people using make up artists doing it themselves or telling talent to drink and smoke crack to get that gothic zombie look?
 
lebroz said:
almost another month left,

also, are most people using make up artists doing it themselves or telling talent to drink and smoke crack to get that gothic zombie look?
Click to expand...


I start shooting Saturday.

I have a makeup artist.

I have Zombie Contacts.

All is right with the world.
 
How about another months extension? And possibly extending the film length to 10 mins... This is THE coolest theme..!

Just got a DVX100 and Avid .. but doubt I can learn how to use it, shoot and edit a film before the deadline runs out...

DRACCAN

PS. Yes I know the deadline wont be extended, just sad I cant participate...
 
There is no reason why you can't participate. There have been several people here who have shot in one long day... For our project, which by no means will win or contend, we shot in several hours working only off a shot list we made, and then got the rough cut done that night. Final cut was done within a week with the music added...
Don't give up, just grind the sucker out, because you will learn more about filmmaking and technique on this project than a month of reading posts. I think most people will agree with that blanket statement.
 
TheYankee said:
There is no reason why you can't participate. There have been several people here who have shot in one long day... For our project, which by no means will win or contend, we shot in several hours working only off a shot list we made, and then got the rough cut done that night. Final cut was done within a week with the music added...
Don't give up, just grind the sucker out, because you will learn more about filmmaking and technique on this project than a month of reading posts. I think most people will agree with that blanket statement.
Click to expand...
I will try - but I know nothing about filming or editing yet... + have full time job.. But I will see if I can make it.. Thanks!
 
Draccan said:
I will try - but I know nothing about filming or editing yet... + have full time job.. But I will see if I can make it.. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Shoot this weekend. Keep it simple. Use available light if this is your first time.

I also say shoot this weekend so you will have two weeks to figure out your editing software and -- often overlooked -- compression, i.e., getting it on the web without it looking like a piece of cack.

Pick a simple idea. Short films are like jokes structurally. All you have time for is a set up and a payoff. Usually to set up an expectation, and then defy it (hence joke structure). Of course you can set up an expectation and fulfill it, but in this short form its usually not as fulfilling to do so as in a longer form: "The lovers get together" ... yes and? In a long form we'd get a chance to know the lovers and follow them on their ups and downs and would be more invested in their success, but in a short form... you get the idea.
Example: Saw a short film at Sundance in 98 -- anyone know the name of it or the filmmaker, chime in. Basically a group of friends are out to dinner. One guy plays the lottery religiously and has purchased a ticket but hasn't had a chance to check the numbers. While he's in the can his friends decide to play a joke on him and ask the waiter to pretend to read the numbers on their friends lotto ticket as if they were the winning numbers in the newspaper. Guy gets back, table asks waiter if he could check in the kitchen and see if they have a paper with the winning lottery numbers.
OK, our expectations probably range from guy will jump up and down excited then friends will laugh and say gotcha and the guy will laugh and say you guys, or once the friends laugh the guy is really pissed an storms off or something. What happens is the waiter reads off the numbers, guy gets very still and quiet, asks him to read again. Others at the table exchange stifled smirks. Once the guy has verified the numbers, he slowly takes out his keys, removes two of them and places them on the table and without making eye contact with anyone says to his wife "I've been having an affair for six months. You can have rge house and the dog, all I want is the jag". And walks out of the restuarant leaving the table agog.

OK so this is a perfect example of the form, IMO don't be intimidated by how clean it is -- its very hard to come up with something this clean and impactful, my short will not be an example as concise and precisely impactful as the above, but I cite it just to give you an idea.

Think single location. Single climactic event.
-The pizza guys a zombie
-Honeymoon night and the grooms been in denial about the fact that he's been bit (but what's the twist -- unbeknownst to us, she's been bit and turns into a Zombie while waiting in the bed in her lengerie while he's been in the bathroom fighting the transformation off -- but when he comes out they exchange meaningful "we were truly meant for each other" glances and eat the bellboy's brains)

But make it simple and get your filming done ASAP, because there are lots of things that can happen in post if you've never done a complete workthtrough before. My first short score in the top three in a national 72 hour film festival, but could not officialy be recognized as we got it off a day late due to render and compression issues.

Also this forum will be here to support you with questions as you go. You will learn so much more by just doing it. Accept negative (hopefully consructive) feedback as a forgone conclusion as this will be your first time around. It won't get you down soo much that way and if you turn out to be Orson Wells on your first go, then you will feel all the more llike pattinng yourself on the back.

Simple idea. One day of shooting. Small cast.

Good luck.
 
Very nice helpful post, jdanstan. Good advice and I'll add one thing. Make sure the setup is a fun ride, because the payoff is always short. Four minutes and fifty seconds of plodding setup for a ten second payoff is painful. I've seen too many shorts where the filmmaker thinks it's all about the (very often weak) payoff at the end. The payoff is the cherry on the cake, not the whole dessert.
 
Barry_S said:
Very nice helpful post, jdanstan. Good advice and I'll add one thing. Make sure the setup is a fun ride, because the payoff is always short. Four minutes and fifty seconds of plodding setup for a ten second payoff is painful. I've seen too many shorts where the filmmaker thinks it's all about the (very often weak) payoff at the end. The payoff is the cherry on the cake, not the whole dessert.
Click to expand...

Thanks and absolutely. 4:50 seconds of unpacking firearms, for example, is not suddenly made interstesting by the fact that one plops out the "bang" banner at the end. Although it could be made intersting I suppose. The Bruce willis choosing the right weapon scene in Pulp Fiction is pretty good.

But you bring up another point: how to make those 4:50 seconds intersting.
2 thoughts
1. If it doesn't warrant 4:50 of interest, cut it down to 30 second or whatever -- there's not a minimum time is there?
2. Set up a question that your viewer will want to watch - feels they must watch your film to get the answer to -- a hook that holds the audience's interest through the thing. We don't have time to invest much in the characters or situation, so the trick IMO, is to give just enough information so the viewer feels like they are in competent hands that are guiding them through the film according to a plan, but withold enough information so that they are hooked into getting their questions answered. Off the top of my head, it seems like their are two main categories of hook questions -- will they get to the bomb in time (standard Dramatic Question, will they succeed) and the second is: "Why is this guy going around capturing squirells, shaving them and then releasing them into department stores" (a WTF is going on, or puzzle hook, that leads to a hopefully unexpected answer -- different than a mystery where the hook is who will solve the case first, me or the Detective, and is rather "can i figure out the rules to this world / story before the punchline"). The latter, puzzle hook, is harder to pull off (must have that "I don't get it yet but the filmmaker is confidently giving me information as I need it" feeling), and while it may not work as well in long form, or at least certainly not as the only hook, I think it has the potential forf greater impact in the short.

I think pizazz and flashy filmaking can go along way towards holding a viewers attention for the duration of a short up until the payoff, but that done in tandem with a dramatic question setup early on can really rivit you to the thing.

It's the old English 101 trick of ending your first paragraph with a question. Perhaps hokey in an essay. But the quintessence of story telling, especially short form, IMHO.
 
I completely agree with all the above posts, but I think the most important thing that we're skating around is this: JUST DO IT (I'm not paying Nike for saying that, BTW).

Filmmaking is all about practice, perfecting an art (if it even can be perfected), and learning more. One issue is that you have to actually get up and do it though. With a five minute short film you're telling a joke, showing a scene, or just a snippet of something. Pick a moment, something that appeals to you and run with that.

For me, I hope my film gets ripped, because those are the things that are going to help me the most. I think part of my edit is weird, and I have such a stagnant camera in the final cut because that's all I had time for. I know these things, but I'm happy with the project. You just need to run with it. I've said this before and I will say it until I'm blue in the face, but any day of filming is better than a day of working (as I write this from work). The only exception to that could be filming old fat people humping, but there is always a market for that...

Actually there's something you could film, old fat people humping and one of them is a zombie. You'll get my vote.
 
.

.

For me, I hope my film gets ripped, because those are the things that are going to help me the most. I think part of my edit is weird, and I have such a stagnant camera in the final cut because that's all I had time for. I know these things, but I'm happy with the project. You just need to run with it. I've said this before and I will say it until I'm blue in the face, but any day of filming is better than a day of working (as I write this from work). The only exception to that could be filming old fat people humping, but there is always a market for that...
Click to expand...

Amen to that! I said over and over to my cast and crew, we have one night to shoot this sucker, and What We Get Is What We Got. When I first captured the video from the shoot, I was appalled by the darkness of it, but I worked with it, and now have something completely different than what I was envisioning, but it works well with the plot, so I am going to pretend like I meant to do that the whole time.
 
I guess with this fest we all are going to learn a lot of how-to-fix-bad-shots-in-post.
When I first saw my footage I was sooo dissapointed that, for a moment, I thought of giving up. Now, after too many hours in front of the screen (Mmmh, I'm gonna install an airbag on my keyboard), at least I can show it and, just like "speedbump", shots apparently wrong turned out to be a new approach.
Hey, this is going to be a Great Festival. Congrats to everybody!
Pablo
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top