What you are about to read is a piece of coursework that I wrote for University. To give you some context: I had just completed work on my final Film Studies project “The Dead Walk” The film had not yet been screened for the public, but when it was it received a standing ovation and helped start me on the path to film and video making. This diary was a requirement for my final grade. Although “The Dead Walk” was successful when screened, it did not receive a particularly high mark (I believe it was given a low 2:1) and our form tutor didn't bother to come to her students' film screening at the end of the year. Thankfully the diary received a high 1 st and helped my overall mark. I recently rediscovered this diary and found it a fascinating and nostalgic read, hopefully you will too. Please excuse the hyperbolic/dramatic language here and there, I was a 21 year old pouring his heart into something a little silly. Nevertheless, since I've deleted or otherwise lost almost every piece of work from my student days, I felt like sharing this. I hope you enjoy it. - Jacob 2022 Student Film Screenings, June 2011 – Left to right; Rob Weavers, Jacob Sherwood, FR Vince Mirams, BR Toby Mitchell, FR James Connor, BR Josh Swaby, FR Dale Page, BR Ben Darby, Aisha Cummings Jacob Stanley Sherwood FI567 Moving Image Production Portfolio Diary Sarah Turner CRAZY DREAMS AND THE UNCONTROLLABLE The Making of The Dead Walk FOREWORD Collaboration is a turbulent process for any artist. Its ups and downs range from the frustration of opposing visions and being overruled, to the feeling of joy when things come together and the group achieves something that the individual could not have hoped to. In a student environment, artists rarely collaborate out of mutual respect or a common vision, instead they either work with their friends or the group they have been assigned to. In this instance there is bound to be conflict and massive obstacles to overcome before pre-production has even begun. This was the challenge facing James, Dale and myself when we were assigned to each others as collaborators. A challenge, I'm glad to say, that we met headlong. In the face of creative arguments, seemingly opposing personalities and unprecedented technical difficulties, I'm sure at some time we all felt like the character of Nathan; desperately fighting against the odds to avoid destruction. Over the course of this “diary” you will learn, in great detail, every aspect of my part in bringing the convoluted vision of three very different filmmakers to life and making it work. PRE-PRODUCTION FORMING AN IDEA ASSIGNING ROLES SCREENPLAY CRAFTING A SOUNDTRACK CASTING THE PICTURE MAKING PROPS FORMING AN IDEA Having missed the first lesson (for reasons I can't even remember now) I was thrown in at the deep end somewhat and asked to work with two men I'd never even met before – James Connor and Dale Page. Naturally the first thing we did (after introducing ourselves) was discuss influences and aspirations. Predictably, all three said “writer/director” putting us in a situation which would have to be resolved sooner rather than later. When discussing influences; a lot of names were thrown around by each of us. Dale and James seemed to have a lot of common ground in their love of old horror films ranging from the Universal Studios days to the early work of Tobe Hooper and Sam Raimi. While I too am a fan of these old films, I had zero interest in trying to replicate them or their style. THE EVIL DEAD – Sam Raimi 1981 FRANKENSTEIN – James Whale 1931 In terms of what I wanted to make, I was definitely more influenced by the dreamlike, expressionistic qualities of a lot of “art films” specifically the work of Terry Gilliam, Michel Gondry and David Lynch. BRAZIL – Terry Gilliam 1985 THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP – Michel Gondry 2006 After a time though, some common ground was reached in terms of the films and filmmakers we not only loved, but could be useful in informing our project. Stanley Kubrick was, of course, someone we all agreed on. The work of Ray Harryhausen is beloved by the three of us and I am huge fan of the Quay Brothers, so stop motion was something we had in common too. THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD - STREET OF CROCODILES – Quay Brothers Gordon Hessler 1974 1987 We discussed genre a great deal, I had generally worked with comedy and had something of a “knack for it” in terms of writing and directing. James was mostly focussed on the idea of making a science fiction piece and Dale was interested in making a horror. So, at this point we were looking at trying to make 2001 meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Eagle Vs Shark. We were in trouble.... When we had our first meeting we pitched ideas back and forth to one another. I was very keen on bringing my 2009 screenplay I am The Knight to life. I got 75% for it and my teacher Lawrence Jackson described it as “The best screenplay of the year” and “a riotous combination of quirky humour, breathtaking attention to detail and LOVE for your characters.” I showed Dale and James the script under the assumption that I was a shoe-in to have my idea chosen. Naturally they hated it and we were no closer to a solution. James' ideas were all hugely ambitious including a time travelling Frankenstein monster and this weird existentialist thing set on a spaceship we would have had to somehow build. James and I talked for a while about doing a story about 'false-awakenings' from dreams, which is something we both extensively suffer from. But Dale was certainly not keen. The meeting quickly degenerated into the three of us drinking whiskey, eating pizza and throwing out ideas that were just plain stupid - including one from myself about door to door conmen who wind up getting murdered by a pair of psychotic pensioners. Finally, Dale suggested a story about a bunch of horror nerds who play a trick on one of their friends and convince him, by messing with his radio, that zombies have run amok and started eating people left, right and centre. The man boards himself in his house until, in his need to leave for food, he mistakes one of his friends for a zombie and kills him. I thought the idea was funny but not inventive enough for a final year film and that It was far too derivative of an episode of South Park I had seen where Cartman convinces Butters that there has been a nuclear apocalypse in order to take his place on a friend's birthday trip to a theme park. James felt similarly and the idea was dismissed. It was time for me to head back to Ramsgate feeling a little defeated. We would have to face the class the next day without any viable film ideas. Early next morning before college, I was doing something totally arbitrary like making food or taking a shower, when suddenly the idea came to me that if we used Dale's idea we could encompass a large chunk of everyone's obsessions if we just thought a little more creatively about it. The notion that someone is entirely deluded and surrounded by stories of a specific type is not a new one. In 1605 Miguel de Cervantes wrote The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha in which a man surrounds himself with tales of knights, chivalry and damsels and decides to make his own suit of armour and ride out on a half-dead steed looking for daring deeds to do. This has always been one of my favourite stories and I bloodily ripped it off in I Am The Knight , I simply modernised it; making it about comic books and superheroes rather than novels and knights. I thought to myself that if we make a film about a man who is obsessed with zombie films and thinks they're real, then why couldn't we go all the way into his mind and see him 'charging at windmills'? James had really wanted to work with stop motion, this way he could; he could bring the zombies of the protagonist's imagination to life with clay, toys or whatever he wanted to use. I'd been longing to use rotoscope animation in a project but hadn't previously had the opportunity. With this new variation on Dale's original concept, we had comedy, animation and horror. I knew it was an ambitious project, but I also knew I was right! We arrived on campus with an hour to come up with an idea that wasn't wholly dreadful. James showed me pages of indecipherable coded notes on some surreal film that I can only describe as Se7en via The Butterfly Effect. It didn't matter that I didn't understand his idea. I was determined to make “Dale's film Sherwood-ised” Unfortunately James REALLY didn't want to make a film about zombies nor did he want to make a film about films. Thankfully he didn't have time to argue, it was time to present an idea to the class and he was outvoted. I felt bad overruling him like this, but we had a film to make. ASSIGNING ROLES Now that we had decided on an idea (sort of) we had to decide who was going to do what. I was happy not directing as long as I got to write the screenplay, luckily for me there was no opposition to this. Dale and James showed me their work and we had to come to a decision as a trio (which is something we weren't very good at yet) as to who was going to direct the piece. James seemed to have the craziest imagination but Dale had the greatest understanding of visual storytelling and the influence of some of his favourite directors such as Kubrick was apparent. PAKT LIKE SARDINES IN A CRUSHED EXAM OF DEATH – James Connor 2006 TIN BOX – Dale Page 2007 I found that both of them had a great vision but I felt that Dale was better at giving shots 'meaning' and should direct because it was his original concept in the first place. Dale's love of old horror movies would be instrumental in creating the appropriate atmosphere for the film. I felt that if James directed it would be “too weird” and if I directed it would be “too goofy” James did not contest this and Dale was more than happy to take up the role. This left James with the job of cinematography and editing, which he was very pleased to have. At last some real progress! WRITING THE SCREENPLAY It was around this time that my personal life fell apart almost completely. I won't dwell on the irrelevant parts but due to having nowhere to stay, getting access to a computer became very difficult. Couple that with the fact that my mental state was closer to that of a baked potato than a rational human being at the time, writing a script was not going to be easy. While Dale had given me a really interesting concept to work with, there were no real characters and there wasn't an actual narrative yet. What I did have, however, was a very clear vision of the 'tone' of the film. This really helped me develop the other elements. Although I didn't research the characters, I knew in the back of my mind exactly who the characters were. Put simply, instead of drawing inspiration from all different places like I had done previously, I just based the three central characters on people I knew in real life. I scribbled every scene idea I had down on paper and borrowed the money for train fair so that I could go onto campus the day the first draft had to be in and type everything up on one of the computers. As a result the script was far from perfect, although it had a certain realistic charm in the dialogue. I wound up with a genre pairing that made a lot of sense to me - “slacker comedy” about people who drone on and barely do anything and “zombie horror” about monsters who drone on and barely do anything. I named the script The Joke after the novel by Milan Kundera which I love. Amazingly, Dale and James were really pleased with the first draft and only gave the criticism that it was too short. Similarly Sarah was fond of the script but felt I needed to be more explicit with the subtext and contextual meaning behind the narrative as well as establishing that Nathan was already in a strange psychological state. To try and meet these requirements I added some key scenes. I didn't rewrite anything because everyone seemed to like the characters and story. Here are some of the extra things that were added: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ NATHAN Look, I don't wanna play Resident Evil anymore. I want the real thing. Give me a fucking zombie to shoot man. I wanna fend off dangerous animals. I wanna swim the atlantic ocean and have sex with barack Obama's wife. I am prepared for amazing things to happen! NATHAN calms down and his voice becomes more sombre. NATHAN Something desperately needs to happen in my life.(Beat)or I'm just gonna lose my shit. INT – NATHAN'S BATHROOM NATHAN splashes his face with cold water and attempts to reassure himself in front of the mirror. NATHAN you're O.K mate, you're O.K He starts to calm down until his REFLECTION speaks back to him. REFLECTION No you're not. (pause) you're going mad! NATHAN you can't talk to me that way! (beat) what the fuck do you know!? You're just a load of glass and light. NATHAN starts to lose the plot a little NATHAN glassy bastard, trying to tell me what's going on in my own head. (beat) and where the hell did you get that Snickers!? The REFLECTION takes a bite of a Snickers REFLECTION Costcutter. NATHAN I need an Aspirin! NATHAN goes to the medicine cabinet for an aspirin but finds only herbs inside. NATHAN What the...? a “health meter” appears next to NATHAN'S head. He turns to face his reflection. NATHAN and what the hell is this? Huh!? REFLECTION I told you The REFLECTION turns into a zombie like creature REFLECTION You're going mad! INT – BEANO CAFE JAKE and MATT are sat at a table in a greasy-spoon cafe. Their plates are empty save for a few baked beans and a little bacon rind. JAKE is eating some stodgy pudding. MATT I had a dream last night (beat) it was kinda weird. JAKE Yeah? I had a dream about your mum last night. (pause) that was pretty weird MATT I dreamt that I was at your house. And I went up to your DVD shelves. And I went to grab Sgt. Kabuki man cos I wanted to watch it. (pause) but as I grabbed the DVD, the whole load of them fell on me (beat) and made this whole...DVD water. You know? (beat) and I was swimming...and it was kinda fun at first, but eventually it overwhelmed me. (pause) and I could feel myself drowning. Feel my lungs fill up with (beat) bad Troma movies. (pause) then you came across on a paper boat with Condolisa Rice and a typewriter saying that you were gonna order direct pizza.... MATT rambles for a while until he realises he's talking nonsense. An awkward silence falls that JAKE eventually breaks. JAKE I love pudding! MATT Love Pudding.. (beat) I wish I had a fat girlfriend JAKE you just wish you had a girlfriend. MATT Then I could call her Love Pudding. JAKE yeah but (beat) love pudding sounds like something you'd call your splooge. (pause) like man gravy CRAFTING THE SOUNDTRACK As the only musician in the group, the task of scoring the film fell on my shoulders. Although writing a soundtrack is usually done in post production, I knew it would be time consuming and it was important to me to make sure that James and Dale were 100% satisfied with my soundtrack while I still had time to bin it and start again. The music was made by editing samples captured by myself. For example the track Zombie Chorus was made by slowing down, layering and reversing samples of my own voice. I knew Dale wanted to pay homage to Stanley Kubrick. I tried to make this piece sound like the Overture from 2001 A Space Odyssey as performed by zombies. The track What is This Place? was made by playing Brahms Waltz in A Flat Major on piano, recording it, reversing it, adding reverb, playing it forward, adding more reverb, reversing it again, layering it several times and making it pan from left to right. Attached is a CD copy of the complete soundtrack. CASTING THE PICTURE After Dale and James saw some of my directing work, they agreed that I was the best person at choosing appropriate 'actors' for roles. So I was tasked with the job of casting the film. It was important to me that the three main characters be friends in real life. Dale and I had discussed the dynamic of the group and the relationship between these characters and had concluded that we really needed the audience to believe that these three guys knew each other intimately and had been hanging out together for years. Most of my friends in Ramsgate are close to one another so it was obvious to me that my friends were the people to ask. So four questions remained. 'Who looked the part?' 'Who was reliable?' 'Who was willing to be in it?' And 'who knew how to act?' Vince Mirams was perfect for the lead character. He has the strangest face; despite looking somewhat mad there is a real childlike innocence in his gormless expression. He has very expressive eyes that look as though they are made of glass and at the time he had a huge ill-fitting tooth cap. As well as having the right physicality for the role, he had a small amount of useful experience - He had done drama at a sixth form college and earned a distinction, he hadn't acted since, but was very keen to give it another try. I didn't find out until after I'd cast him and rehearsals began that he had played one of the central roles in a stage version of Night of the Living Dead which was a fortunate coincidence. Vince Mirams - Nathan For the role of Matt, Dale wanted someone “angelic”. He envisioned Matt as a child-like figure of innocence who should have a certain “sweetness” to his face. A very close friend of myself and Vice, Toby Mitchell, was physically perfect for the role. I approached him about it and he was very willing to give it a shot. He had appeared in a few video projects for media studies at college and boasted having a great memory for lines. Toby Mitchell – Matt I had written the role of Jake for my old friend and long time collaborator Matthew Dixon. He had appeared in three films I'd directed: as a food obsessed mobster, as a police officer and as a man poisoned by a strange virus that made disgusting blue liquid pour out of his mouth. Not only had he proven himself to be a great comedic performer with excellent timing, but his willingness to put disgusting goo in his mouth over and over again for a film suggested that he'd be willing to undergo the make up required for his death scene. Matthew Dixon – original choice for Jake Unfortunately Matthew had lost his phone around this time AND forgotten his Facebook password. Therefore I was unable to get hold of him. Time was running out and we had only two of the three principal characters cast. Dale suggested that I play the role as I had a very close friendship with the two main actors and I had proven myself to be able to play entertaining, if unsubtle, roles. (during the course of the module I appeared in several video projects.) MAKING THE PROPS Now I had only two jobs left to do before production began. 1- getting the actors together for rehearsal and 2 – creating the fake newspaper. While Dale and James were building the cardboard town of Nathan's imagination, I was working on filling Ramsgate with zombies. I now had regular access to a computer. I grabbed a picture of Ramsgate from Google and a picture of a group of zombies from the video game Oblivion. I grafted the zombies onto the image of Ramsgate and drew shadows on the floor. I also added fire to one of the buildings, darkened parts of the scenery to make it look burnt and drew some cartoon smoke. Ramsgate pre-edit Zombies and shadows added Final composite – fire, smoke and burnt bits added. PRE-PRODUCTION SUMMARY Pre-production went fairly well but it started slowly. It was a productive but frustrating time. I'd written the screenplay, written the score, cast the movie and now I was playing one of the characters, it was beginning to feel like I was doing all of the work, that I had been lumbered with a pair of idiots. At this stage I regarded Dale as someone disorganised and James as lazy. Things would have to change if the project was going to work. PRODUCTION PLAYING JAKE “SO WHO'S DIRECTING?” POM-BEAR APOCALYPSE FOOLING THE AUDIENCE – TRICKS AND EFFECTS PRODUCTION PROBLEMS PLAYING JAKE I thought a lot about how best to portray my character. The first thing that had to change was my appearance. At the time I had lank hair and hadn't shaved in weeks. I went and got a haircut and decided that Jake should look like the kind of guy you just wanted to punch. So instead of just shaving my beard off, I shaved it into this ridiculous beard that I copied from Blackadder II Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder in Blackadder II Me as Jake Dale was clear that he wanted Jake to come across as a very villainous character. I took that into account in the way I approached the physicality of Jake. I tried to copy the slovenly demeanour of a “slacker” while also taking advantage of my skinny frame to remind people of a spindly monster from any number of folk tales. The Judderman from the old Metz commercials. Jake spends a lot of his time drinking in the film. He struck me as the kind of guy that stayed up really late and wasn't ever completely sober. Every night before I had a scene, I stayed up til around 2.30am and drank a bottle of wine to myself. I also drank a little whiskey on set. Vince thought I was crazy and asked why I didn't pretend like he did. I explained that, not being an actor, I wasn't really any good at pretending so I had to make it as real as possible. In order to get into Jake's selfish mindset I did two things. 1 – I imagined myself as the star of the film. Any time I was on camera I told myself that Jake was the protagonist and the main driving force for the film. This helped me feel like I was more important than anyone else. 2 – I drew heavily on a former romantic partner who could sometimes be borderline sociopathic. The slight smiles and clapping when laughing at someone are two traits I copied straight from them. One of my favourite films is Jackie Brown (The only multi-dimensional film Quentin Tarantino EVER made) and upon re-watching it, I noticed Michael Keaton's character 'adjusting himself' in public. This simple gesture told you so much about his character, so I stole it!