Friday, November 19, 2010

"Lambs of God" UPDATE

Well I got word from the composer that Lambs of God screened very well at the 'We Like Short Shorts Film Festival'.

While we didn't win, I'm very happy that we got selected for a film festival. This short was for fun and very last minute. My plan was to put it straight on youtube.  I may submit to a horror film festival, everyone likes a dark comedy.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

"Zulu Dawn"

I feel I need to start tying up all my zombie stories and get them out there after watching the second episode of The Walking Dead.  Now I've never read the comic series so I have no idea what this story lines entail except for the summary on AMC.  There was a scene in the second episode that pretty much encompassed my entire 'Disbanded' script.  The scene was about a racist survivor who had trouble following a black man and a hispanic man. There was also an Asian to finish out the trifecta of multi racial.  My script 'Disbanded', ("On the road trying to reach a safe haven, eight people must work together to survive a zombie apocalypse") deals heavily with race relations and differences among a group of people with the same goal--survival.  The zombies aren't the villains in my script, it's the people within the group.

 Now I'm sure the outcome of my story is completely different than the Walking Dead but I was just amazed by the comparison.  Now this single scene pretty much was my entire 96 page script and I applauded the level of writing as compared to mine. I'm still amateur.  (Plus I think they're setting up the Dixon character for something later, probably the hero's villainous foil).  Anyway, I had my story idea in 2004 and it was inspired by American History X meets Road Warriors meets Band of Brothers in a zombie apocalypse.

Anyway, the point is there are no original ideas it's all about EXECUTION.

This brings me to my short film "Zulu Dawn"--"A downed aircrew member in zombie territory fights to survive."  I've had this idea in my head since I saw "Bat 21" in 1988 and after seeing "Dawn of the Dead" in 1986.  And I've come to find out Zulu Dawn is a prequel to the title  "Zulu".  (The 1979 film "Zulu Dawn" bombed at the box office.)  So my title isn't even original.
There is a very similar story in the book "World War Z" about a downed pilot.  Again there are no original ideas.  Anyway my 2010 "Zulu Dawn" is a story that runs parallel to the world I created in "Disbanded".    After reading that chapter in World War Z, the only similarities are the downed crew members are both female and they parachute after their aircraft breaks apart.  So I'm not too worried if people cry, "WWZ!"  Because  the opening of The Walking Dead (TWD) is guy wakes up in a hospital bed, which is very similar to the opening of "28 Days Later".  Now I'm sure people balked at the opening of TWD but overall you don't care. There's a lot of similarities in shows and movies now-a-days.  It's all about execution.

Oh by the way  Hollywood if you're listening, I have a third story from my series that is basically "Taps" meets "Toy Soldiers" in a zombie outbreak.   My fun working title for it is "Chow Hall". So please make that one too.