Abjection 2FX2016
Science Fiction Zombie short film or web series shot in the studio using the green screen and on location. Zombie short films are a very well-travelled route saturating the festivals and online social media. For this reason, it is extremely difficult to add some new dimension to this genre. The concept for the film was based on the design and manufacture of an armoured suit, body sculpted to the physical features of the actress. From this starting point, a script was developed, which transported the suit into the world of the Zombie genre. For my own influences for this film I looked to the television series The Walking Dead and the series of films starring Milla Jovovich, Resident Evil franchise. I felt the Resident Evil films had the most influence on the look I was aiming for, but at the same time, some elements for the Walking Dead visuals were also subconsciously featured in this production. wanted a strong look for this film and prepared a range of filters to gel the led lights to enhance the natural light coming through windows and open doorways of the location. I set the lights into the open doorways of the long corridor for the opening scenes, each light fitted with a different colour to add perspective to the length of the corridor with the darker colours closest to the camera position set low to the floor at one end of the corridor. Although this did present some problems towards the latter half of the day with natural light gradually overwhelming the low-wattage light output, but the colours were still visible after stopping down on the camera aperture. At the beginning of the sequence, I used a 14mm wide-angle lens, switching to a long lens to control the depth of field at the midway point, as it was important to the Director that the protagonists should not be revealed until they were close to the camera. Unless impossible to do so I used the jib and dolly to create as much movement as possible, following actors or tracking backwards to reveal the entire scene. This did create several issues mainly with increased setup times and difficulty in operation due to the close confines of the interior scenes. Some locations were so confined I was forced to walk between the rails with the camera slightly offset on the jib arm to compensate for the lack of centrality of the arm going forward.
I working with the Director agreed that whenever possible the camera would move and follow the action either as a full Jib and combined dolly movement or separately that is a dolly or jib movement. The idea behind this was to keep the action moving forward continuously whenever possible. There was also consideration taken in filming for special effects, for example, framing for some scenes required space to allow for text to be added or graphics from a heads-up display to frame a centralized actor on screen.
Production values were also considered by making the most of a very small budget by filming and establishing shots on location that would transport the viewer to a higher value location than where the actual filming took place. For example, I shot a time-lapse opening sequence with the C300 fitted with a 0.6 neutral density gradient filter over an hour capturing cloud and sun movements across a dramatic landscape, which sets the scene for the action that follows in a much less dramatic location but with visual indicators that tie these two locations together. I also shot sunsets and storm clouds to use as sky replacements in postproduction as actual shooting took place on cloudless days, which are much less interesting to look at.
There was a lot of pressure to make this film as visually attractive as possible by this I mean cinematic, that hard-to-define look that has several elements to it that seem to appeal to an audience. The look includes shooting in widescreen with a shallow depth of focus; generally with a softer focus, with soft skin tones and with a frame rate typically at 24fps. Then there is the addition of colour grading in postproduction, which can change the whole look and style of the film, with the latest software able to add additional light sources and even target specific areas of the composition for enhancement. This is an area that cinematographers will have to have a greater degree of involvement in in the future, if not total control if they are to preserve their work in the final edit. There is a precedence for this, looking back into the age of film production Wheeler says…It is quite common to find in a DP’s contract either for a cinema film or a major television drama a clause stating that, subject to their availability, they will be asked to attend, indeed usually supervise, the grading at the laboratory. This is the moment for the cinematographer to add the final polish to the film… (Wheeler. P. 90)