Less Gore

Part budget. Part preference. But I plan on limited gore. I feel that at best gore is a special effect and at worst a costly distraction.  The shower scene in Hitchcock’s Psycho is scary. Gore wouldn’t improve it, but it can certainly turn viewers off. Expect more “gun fires” & “feet fall over” shots and less “rip open torso” & “bite head” shots!

Also gore is easy to get wrong and I can’t expect to get it right with budget and skills I’m aiming for. For me it makes sense to not rely upon it. I can probably do a decent story, I probably can’t do decent splat-stick.

 No Stupidity

Absolutely none!  This is my biggest pet peeve in horror films. When characters do  dumb things like leaving doors open, traveling alone, or back stabbing, I start rooting for the dead team. Survivors often find defensible areas — movies can’t be all action — the real trick is to get them going again in a way that won’t leave the audience groaning.

Character Driven

Again partly budget, my cast is 4 characters.  Action and violence are expensive and, for someone as inexperienced as I, come with no guarantee that the results will look good.  What I can do is many script rewrites to cut plot holes and make sure that all scenes are tense and meaningful and do-able on a budget.

As an indie filmmaker this is really my ace in the hole. My only ace.  Big budget films often have scripts reworked to suit participating actors. This sometimes can break a script.

Meanwhile I can rely on my script being carried out to the best of my budgets ability.  As long as the script is written with budget in mind, I have a hope of getting character to come through in the product.

So that’s the plan:  A not-so-gory, character driven zombie flick with no stupid mistakes.  Meanwhile the script is coming along slowly.  I’ll be sure to post rough drafts and outlines as I complete them.  Because, after all, it doesn’t matter who spots a plot-hole so long as it gets spotted!

It’s brilliant! It doesn’t cost a lot, it’s useful to the bars, its targeted to the right market and it’s adorable.

People must know where your product is found. And you need to find the right place for your product

Marketing is a key to getting your ‘product/film/whatever’ to the market.  People can’t line up to watch a movie they haven’t heard about.  It’s so crucial I’ve heard a good metric is to spend $2 on marketing for every $1 you -pend on production.

It’s not a chore, it’s the heart of your project (and the script is the brain… production the body).  Marketing is how you persuade good actors to sign on.  Marketing is how you get theatres to carry your project.  Marketing is how you get enough attention to get your film picked up by a distributor for a good price. Good marketing reveals the market and how you’ll get into it.  People want your project to be going somewhere before committing time/money too it.  A large fan base early on is a great way to prove you have a handle on this.

Put it this way:  Marketing is your dialog with the world.  Through marketing you learn who loves you, what they love about you, what they want from you, and how you can best get it too them.  Don’t neglect it:  Lack of marketing  killed my tech startup! Don’t let it happen to you!

Here are some very basic ideas to get started with.

1. Articles in your ‘home market’.   If you are a university graduate write an article for the alumni magazine. Write an article for your newspaper. Etc.Also, you have several home towns.  Every actor in the film has a home town.  The director has a hometown. The movie itself has a hometown. Syndicate your article everywhere.
2. Target a market. Who would want to see your film (in my case, maybe people who attend zombie-walks).  If you can’t think of ways to reach your market… you’ll have the same problem when the film is in the can.
3. Market the film online (but don’t depend on it!)

Indie marketing needs to be localized. You need fan density to make screenings possible.  Internet marketing is too spread out; it can’t be your only marketing effort.

It’s hard to give value over the internet, and useless things don’t see daylight long. The beer-coasters are great because they’re useful, business cards would get trashed by the pub owner.  In the real-world you can more easily be useful.  Here are some quick ideas, hopefully not too expensive.

•  a romance movie could have a postcard that lists romantic ideas, and given out in the weeks before valentines day.
• A zombie movie could put lemonade stands throughout a zombie walk course. With branded cups, and an amply supply of marketing material.
• A detective film could put ‘clues/bookmarks’ inside all the detective and mystery novels in the libraries. The clues, when solved invite them to your website.

Anyway, that’s the idea. Find your market and get a dialog going with them.  This article is also pretty decent.

Bruce Lee

Before I learned martial arts, a punch was just a punch and a kick was just a kick. When I studied martial arts, a punch was no longer just a punch and a kick was no longer just a kick. Now I understand martial arts, and a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick.

Bruce Lee

How do you write a story?  You could start at the beginning, add words, and close with “the end”.  I did this   throughout school and again while writing scripts for some short 5-10 minute films. Writing this way mimics how stories play out in our heads.  We picture our hero, then imagine some great struggle and finally visualize their final triumph. But this isn’t a great way to approach storytelling.

It’s inconsistent. Sometimes it come together, but often the second act is dull, or you can’t figure out how to connect the second and third acts.  Maybe characters are behaving incongruously, because the plot needs it.

It’s also inflexible.  Part of production is getting people, equipment, locations and a market.  Often you can’t get what you want.   If you’ve written the story as a gestalt you’ll rework the script holistically.  The longer the script, the harder this is.

The solution is a ‘theory’ of story.  The three act structure is an example: Act 1 – characters & initial incident, Act 2 – developing conflict, Act 3 – highest excitement and dénouement.  The theory isn’t there to constrain you, or mold you into a certain type of writer.   It’s for dividing a complex whole into manageable chunks.

Put another way, when you first learn to throw a punch, your instructor will have you slowly ape their movements.  Turn hips into the punch, keep your heel up, rotate your fist, fire your arm straight out.    Many details, but you focus on each part in turn.  Pretty soon it’s all internal.

A theory of story is like this. Your don’t follow it, you apply it so you can understand stories in a measurable/repeatable way.

Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.

Galileo

Some Theories

Here are some theories than I use to measure stories.  I’ve found the eight part story structure, character idioms, and scene-sequel methods most useful for the stories I’m writing.

• Eight Part Story Structure (plot structure)
• Character Idioms and Flaws (character structure)
• Three Act Structure (plot structure)
• Scene-Sequel Method for writing Scenes (scene structure)
• The Monomyth (plot structure)
• The Snowflake Method (approach to writing/rewriting)

I’m certain this isn’t every theory. If you know of any more please mention it in the comments!

… make a good zombie movie.  And this isn’t easy.  Like any good movie it means the script is tight, the actors believable, the locations appropriate, great sound and good visuals.

… and I want to make a profit when I’m done.  This adds difficulty but is also liberating.  For profit is a much bolder intention than just trying to make a movie.  People take for-profit ventures more seriously.  I’m hoping this will help me attract talent (both in front and behind the camera) when the time comes (in about 2 years).  Plus I’m certain attempting a profitable, good zombie movie will be more fulfilling than setting sights lower; who wants to settle upon making a tanking bad movie?  But that’s the default: failing to plan is planning to fail.

To this end I’ve created this blog, it’s part of the marketing plan.  2-3 years seems like forever but isn’t that long for a green film maker.  More important than the movie is the marketing. I don’t want to have the film in can without a market to present it too.  I know this from experience.

Plus maybe I’ll find help?  I’m a Calgary (Alberta, Canada) native. So if you like zombie movies then email me and we’ll shoot the breeze.

Future posts will cover topics such as marketing, script writing, production, budgeting, accounting and zombies (of course).  This blog will probably be most appreciated by indie film makers and zombie fanatics.