Makin a Movie

[What Mafia]

So, I'm making my own looow budget movie. tons of blood, gore, and etc.
it's gonna be a zombie/beast flick.
Any recommendations?

[MoonHunter]

So, I'm making my own looow budget movie. tons of blood, gore, and etc.
it's gonna be a zombie/beast flick.
Any recommendations?

What do you mean by zombie/beast?

[Fenrir]

*shudders* zombies i hate zombies, I recomend an twist killing, like oh thank god were safe *piano falls from ceiling* that sorta thing

[psiguy]

.. or better yet...
gravity reverses and they go "SPLAT!!!" on a verry high cieling.

or to be more serious...
Just have a whole town of zombified werewolves after 1 person in the middle of nowhere.

[MoonKit]

Zombies are sad. Sure, they're scary...but what if you run into a long dead relative who is trying to attack you?

[Miragh]

well, you follow the rules of the hollywood zombie productions and blast/cut/chop his head apart

but seriously, zombies are GREAT! Beside the Voodoo origin, I especially like that Romero choice a mall for the 1978 Dawn of the Dead movie, sweet side blow at our materialistic / consumer society.

FLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESH!

[Fang]

well, you follow the rules of the hollywood zombie productions and blast/cut/chop his head apart

but seriously, zombies are GREAT! Beside the Voodoo origin, I especially like that Romero choice a mall for the 1978 Dawn of the Dead movie, sweet side blow at our materialistic / consumer society.

FLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESH!

The consumer zombie: Flesh, must.... buy.... flesh *moans*

[Fenrir]

I never got zombies, wouldn't they eventually starve or decompose.....

[Ashkin-Tyr]

Good luck with your project, What Mafia.

I never got zombies, wouldn't they eventually starve or decompose.....

What I never got is how Romero can keep making only zombie flicks. I mean, you can only have so many versions of the same plot, right?

Therefore, I plan to pitch this idea to Romero:

"Zombies in Space".



Pretty catchy, eh?

-“If they’re mindless then how can they operate complex interstellar vessels?”

-"Bah! Do not bother me with such trivial questions! It’s a movie... nobody is going to obsess over such details!"

[Terastas]

Zombies are heavily overdone in today's low-budget Hollywood scene. If you're that sure about making a movie, I'd make it more centric to the characters and less about the monsters. Heck, if it's low budget, you might be better off never showing the monsters on camera; leave out the cheesy Halloween makeup and focus on the characters and the acting. Like for the zombies, never show them close up -- either have them groaning off camera, or when they do appear on camera, put them more in the background. That way the focus will be more on the setting and the emotions of the characters instead of what zombies look like, plus if zombies never appear up close to the camera, you can save on Halloween makeup and just have the actors playing the zombies wearing old clothes.

Same thing for the monsters, especially if you're considering werewolves. I've toyed with the idea of turning one of my book ideas into a screenplay and having characters identify themselves as werewolves but make a point of never showing their human counterparts their were forms; one time he refuses to show them because he's "not some circus animal" and another time after he beats the living crap out of three juvenile vampires, comments "You're pathetic. And I haven't even shifted yet."

So really, I'd recommend avoiding the B-movie low-budget gore and trying to develop characters the audience will give half a crap about.

[Ashkin-Tyr]

Terastas certainly has some great pointers. It would undoubtedly save on the budget of the film. Like Terastas said, not showing the creatures up close would not necessarily harm the film. If the story, acting and atmosphere are done right, it could work beautifully.

[Terastas]

Hate to beat a dead horse, but if done right, it might actually improve the horror elements. Ever played Silent Hill. Most of the time that game was scary because you could not see the monsters.

Same thing worked for The Blair Witch Project. You never actually saw what was stalking them at night. You just heard the rocks shifting all around them.

[What Mafia]

So really, I'd recommend avoiding the B-movie low-budget gore and trying to develop characters the audience will give half a crap about.

i actually want to mix the two i want a movie with good characters...AND a b-movie plot. ;D

Same thing worked for The Blair Witch Project. You never actually saw what was stalking them at night. You just heard the rocks shifting all around them.

but that movie royally sucked IMHO. :0

[Scott Gardener]

I've learned from independent film directors (including, hmm... anybody we know around here?) that horror in general is a good and easy way to get into film-making. Even the lowest budget pieces generally turn a profit, so they're easier to sell to distributors than, say, highly intellectual dramas of self-discovery.

Zombies are good, because you can be as cheap or as expensive as you care to be, and you can be as serious or as humorous as you wish. Yes, they're heavily over-used, but they're so heavily overused that you can get away with it. Zombies are the bread and butter of horror these days. I would venture to guess that they're also great for writer's block--if you're not sure what to do next, have zombies show up. Wouldn't work in my novel, but it's not strictly horror. Zombies have certainly made some PC game designers rich.

[What Mafia]

The way ya type it's as if there weren't any zombie flicks until now. X3 there were maaany in the 80's.
many i really enjoy over todays movies.

[Terastas]

I've learned from independent film directors (including, hmm... anybody we know around here?) that horror in general is a good and easy way to get into film-making. Even the lowest budget pieces generally turn a profit, so they're easier to sell to distributors than, say, highly intellectual dramas of self-discovery.

Horror is a good way to make an easy buck, but it's also widely regarded as Hollywood's rectum. There are a lot of people out there that not only like any kind of horror, but may actually prefer their movies to be campy and crappy because bad scripting + bad effects + bad acting = hilarity (the Springtime for Hitler phenomenon, if you will).

The problem is that most companies that produce cheap B-horror films try to profit by producing them for as little as possible. So while it's theoretically possible to profit from a movie that cost you $500 to make, chances are you're not going to get payed much more than that. You can profit, yes, but unless you put some effort into it, you shouldn't quit your day job just yet.

There's two ways, I figure, to make a cheap horror film successful enough to get the attention you deserve. The first is the Blair Witch method, which is to use what little you have in such a way that it adds to the setting (instead of having a bad cameraman, it was a movie about students making a documentary) and use the unknown to your advantage. The other is (no offense Anthony), the Red Victoria method, which is to market the movie less as a horror and more as a sick comedy.

So anyway, let me know what method you're considering before I throw out any more pointers that may or may not apply, mmkay?