Back in December I decided I really wanted to make a zombie short film. I thought the best way to do it would actually be to create a series and put them on YouTube. Each episode is about 10 minutes, and this memorial day weekend I finished filming the first episode.
Because I'm a 15 year old, many people consider me inexperienced. Even back in December all I had was a little consumer camcorder that is only good for disney world. I didn't know anything about sound, lighting, color correction, etc.
Between December and April I read a few short film books and decided I needed to get new equipment (new camera, external sound, etc.) All of my questions eventually brought me to this forum, where I was given advice on what equipment to buy and I even got some feedback on my script.
The first episode took all 3 days of memorial day weekend to film, and it was my first film that included over 10 people. I always thought it'd be better having more actors, but I learned that it's hard to keep people interested and happy
. Also, since it was memorial day weekend it was hard to get people, and over 4 people that I was planning to have in the video ended up not showing because they had family commitments.
The most important thing I learned was to be prepared. This film was already more prepared than any other film I had done because it was the first one I actually scripted. However, it lacked a storyboard and shot list which really hurt. I realized on set that although I had a script, I was still unprepared. This was because while I was there I had to think of each shot and angle I wanted to film, which caused stress. Plus it wasn't consistent because I kept moving back and forth and if I had created a shot list I could've done it more efficiently, which would have been good because we would have finished earlier and the actors wouldn't have lost their interest by the end.
Anyway, I don't want to go on and on about this because you have probably stopped reading all of this by now, but I just thought I'd share it. Below are a few pics I took of the cast, I'll try to keep everyone updated as I go through post-production.
Because I'm a 15 year old, many people consider me inexperienced. Even back in December all I had was a little consumer camcorder that is only good for disney world. I didn't know anything about sound, lighting, color correction, etc.
Between December and April I read a few short film books and decided I needed to get new equipment (new camera, external sound, etc.) All of my questions eventually brought me to this forum, where I was given advice on what equipment to buy and I even got some feedback on my script.
The first episode took all 3 days of memorial day weekend to film, and it was my first film that included over 10 people. I always thought it'd be better having more actors, but I learned that it's hard to keep people interested and happy
. Also, since it was memorial day weekend it was hard to get people, and over 4 people that I was planning to have in the video ended up not showing because they had family commitments. The most important thing I learned was to be prepared. This film was already more prepared than any other film I had done because it was the first one I actually scripted. However, it lacked a storyboard and shot list which really hurt. I realized on set that although I had a script, I was still unprepared. This was because while I was there I had to think of each shot and angle I wanted to film, which caused stress. Plus it wasn't consistent because I kept moving back and forth and if I had created a shot list I could've done it more efficiently, which would have been good because we would have finished earlier and the actors wouldn't have lost their interest by the end.
Anyway, I don't want to go on and on about this because you have probably stopped reading all of this by now, but I just thought I'd share it. Below are a few pics I took of the cast, I'll try to keep everyone updated as I go through post-production.
Last edited:
