Main Exercise Evaluation

The filming of our main excursive was scheduled for the 17th of March 2010 on Grove Field at about 2:00pm. Prior to filming I met up with some of the people who were to be involved and pointed them towards the bus stop at Debenhams to meet with the rest of the production group and actors whilst I went to collect my brother from school as he was also to be involved.

We re-grouped with a couple of the others at Grove field and waited for Ash and Phil to arrive from Weymouth with the people they were bringing, lead by Deanna as the others weren’t familiar with Portland. Our initial reaction when seeing the weather conditions was of surprise as the whole field was covered in fog which really aided us in the filming of the main exercise. The fog allowed us to create more of an eerie atmosphere within the film and contrasted the Mise-en-Scene of the area. It also correlated with the conventions of a Zombie movie, which was really helpful. The fog also acted as a screen against people walking their dogs or crossing the field, so it seemed more deserted and we didn’t have to worry so much about continuity errors such as these.

Prior to the filming, myself and Deanna had gone into Weymouth town centre to get props, such as pale foundation and applicators for the zombies’ make up – so we could make them look as realistic as possible, red food colouring for the fake blood and ‘guts’ - again to add realism to our props.

Also before we began filming, Ash had created a tub of quite realistic ‘guts’ to be used in the short ‘gore’ scene we had intended to do using mince meat, syrup, water and the red food colouring that me and Deanna had bought. Following the BBFC Classifications we learned that for an audience of aged 15, the scene had to be quite short and there was to be no prolonged emphasis on the pain the character was in, as this is classed as torture and would have bumped our film up to an 18.

This is what the ‘guts' looked like in the end:

We encountered a couple of issues with this prop, as the mince was not completely cooked, so we ensured all of the people who would be handling it were aware of this and explicitly warned them not to get it in their mouths. This however did happen, but we had previously risk assessed this issue as a precaution and plenty of water was on site so they could wash their mouths out straight away to prevent anything going wrong. The other issue was that because we used food colouring, skin and clothes were stained. However, this wasn’t a particularly bad issue as the actors were told to wear old clothes and warned about the food colouring. I also researched effective ways to remove food colouring from skin, such as Fairy liquid and hot water, so this information was passed on and luckily it worked.

After all of the preparation work on the field, such as applying the zombies’ make up/fake blood etc, we began filming. We started with a test shot of the first frame on our storyboard, but when we went to watch it back the camera wouldn’t allow us to and the screen was just blank. We were confused by this as when the ‘record’ button was pressed the numbers on the screen ran as normal, which represents that the camera is filming. However, as we were unsure we decided to carry on recording because we felt it would have been a waste of the weather and people that were involved.

After attempting to upload the film from the camera and finding the tape completely blank, we rearranged filming for the 24th of March. Although we were very disappointed by the blank tape, we decided to look at the positives; we now knew the camera positions, shots, movement etc so filming would be quicker and more efficient and we could make it better than our previous attempt. (Filming however had to commence later than the previous session as I had to collect my brother from school, but had to wait until he had finished as oppose to taking him out at lunch like I had for the last time.)


The second attempt of filming went quite well, although I personally thought our first attempt was better. This was partly down to the weather conditions. As I mentioned before the weather was foggy and perfect for a zombie themed film, whereas this time the field was clear so we had to be extra careful of the public getting in the frames and have extra consideration of continuity errors. As the day went on, the weather also became quite dark and wet, so we had to also consider the equipment getting damaged so I ended up wrapping my scarf around the camera for the duration of the filming to prevent it getting wet. Also, where it was getting wetter the ground became slippier so hazards increased and we had to pre-warn people on each shot about the ground being uneven and potentially dangerous.


This said, the wet weather having an effect of the actors added to the pathetic fallacy theory of zombie films – bad weather = something bad is happening.

We also lost a couple of the original actors as they were unavailable for this date, so we had to quickly find replacements, who, as a side note were very good and co-operative.

Below are a few production stills from the filming day.

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1. Preparing the camera for the second shot in the wooded area. People and zombies would be running past and through a gate onto the field.

2. Preparing for opening shot. In front, people who would run on first command. Behind, zombies who would run after the people on a second command, about 3 second gap between.


3. Third Shot, zombies running onto the field after the people. This shot was repeated a couple of times because of the slippy ground and people falling over.

4. Fourth Shot, zombies chasing humans across the field, with myself using hand held to film this.

5. Kayliegh Jarvis preparing for 'Gore' scene. To her left is the pot of ‘guts’ that the zombies will be ‘ripping out’ of her and ‘eating’. This shot had to go well because we could only have one take of it, so before hand we had a couple of run throughs.

6. Zombies have caught up with Kayliegh Jarvis who has fallen. She is then ‘ripped to pieces’. I film this at a canted angle to represent she has fallen.

7. This scene went as planned, the actors had fun doing this, and we ensured any meat or food colouring was washed off with water afterwards.

8. This is me preparing the camera for the ‘Low Shot Reverse Shot’ where the actors run past the camera. The scarf on the floor was wrapped around the camera when filming to prevent water damage.

All in all I thought this time round the filming went very well. Everyone worked well together even though spirits were dampened by the bad weather and coldness. The actors co-operated very well and were an extremely big help. We met all of the deadlines and the production team kept their roles well. I think it has been very successful and will be very good after we have edited it.