When looking for a TV Series I could use for research I decoded to use the Walking Dead season 1. My reason being that this series firstly is because it is based in a zombie apocalypse, so looking for a way to have the zombies act, this was ideal research. But also, with the relationship between Shane and Rick, although by the end of the first series they aren't hugely close and they begin to develop conflict which grows in series 2. You can see the true friendship in them and I needed to use this for Shaun and Ed in my film.
Starting with the zombies. Zombies in The Walking Dead have been infected for over 3 months, the whole of America has fallen and there aren't that many survivors left still fighting back. To show the passage of time and to keep with the idea that the Zombies are 'The Living Dead' the production designers made them so that their skin has rotten, dirtied and they look very much like a corpse rather than a freshly turned corpse. As a dead body would decay after time.
This is with the skin, clothes and hair. They look like they are slowly decaying and falling apart which you actually see in the series. However. Since my outbreak is literally being seen from day one, I'm not looking at at the make-up but more at how they're being directed to walk and act. So I wanted to see how they directed these actors because when you watch the series, none are actually walking the same, it's always something different and I wanted to see how we could get that out of actors. The executive producer does a workshop called ZOMBIE SCHOOL which is where actors audition to be zombies for the series. However, the producer doesn't direct them or tell them what sort of thing he wants. He lets the actors act how they believe zombies would be with some scenario to help them. He then choses the best people around and asks them back for the series. Although they all follow a basic idea. The zombies need to be relaxed and limp, sort of dragging themselves along. Rather than the original concept from 'Night of the Living Dead' where they just limp slightly. I'm going to try this technique with my actors to try and get the best possible performance out of them.
As well as this I also looked into the relationship of the characters Rick and Shane. We see them before and after the zombie outbreak, after the outbreak we see them working their differences but also both trying to take leadership over the group. However it was one particle scenes that caught my interest from a Directors point of view. In season one we see their friendship begin to fall and crumple because of the outbreak but at the beginning of season 1 we get a 4 minute scene of just them talking about the situation between their partners. The scene can be seen below:
This scene really grabbed my eye. Firstly, the camera movement. There basically isn't any. The entire scene is made up of 5 actual shots. See them below.
Close-up on their food, explaining why they're sitting in the car and establishing the scene.
Mid-Close-Up on Risk and Shane, favouring Rick to see both their reactions and dialogue but to have the focus on Rick.
Close-Up on Rick's face for full focus on Rick's dialogue and actions, Shane seen at the side to keep him within the space and keep them close. I would also argue both shots are set up to symbolise how close they are. We never see them dead on from the front and the shots keep them close together as they are close friends here.
Mid-Close-Up on Shane and Rick, favouring Shane to see both their reactions and dialogue but to have the focus on Shane.
These are the only shots for this entire scene but it works. The camera is still and doesn't have any track or pull focus shots. It's very basic but works perfectly for the scene. Looking more into the actions of the scene. Rick and Shane are always looking at each other when talking and joking about women not turning off light switches. Rick is always looking into his eyes. They're still eating here to show they're calm and relaxed, as well, Rick always looks at Shane when talking. But when the conversation flips to talk about Rick and Lowri... See how their actions have changed. Rick won't look Shane in the eye, in fact he always looks to the side which helps us to see that this seriously effects him. But he looks again at Shane when he explains that he would never say what his wife said in front of his son. This is a brilliant piece of directing actors to help really show the emotions that're within the lines. The director Frank Darabont (Also the Writer) clearly thought ahead about this scene and saw that the camera needed to be still with this and allow the actions of the characters to speak and bring the scene alive more. This is what I want between the scene with Shaun and Ed in 'Shaun of the Dead'. Originally, Edgar Wright has the camera moving a lot with a lot of track, pan and tilt shots. But, I think the scene would work much better having the camera stationary and focusing on the actions from the actors instead.
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