George,
as a low budget filmmaker myself I read your script and I want to say first that taking on a project at 13 is a noble effort and I wish you tons of luck, but I need to give you some advice on your script. I had some issues with my first film and they were related tot he script and I realized the mistakes I made so I want to help you avoid those same mistakes.
1. No parent would ever allow their 13-14 year old child talk like this in front of them. The language you have them using is too unrealistic. I really don't know of a father of a 13 yr old who would allow his child to say Goddamn, and f**k and whatever curse words as free flowing as you have them doing it. Tame down the language
2. Naming your characters Ash and Cherry, is nice when making an homage fan film to Evil Dead and grindhouse, but again in a zombie film even low budget this is an un-needed cliche and very eye rolling. People will tear this apart based on the fact you have pre-teens named ash and cherry. Although zombie films are a fantasy based gimmick, they need to be grounded in as much reality as possible. Change the characters names.
3. When Cherry hugs Ash and the dad walks by and questions what they are doing... Ummm, no parent would let children this young keep doing and they sure as hell wouldn't just walk away even if the kid asked him to do that.
4. Don't use the word zombies at anytime in your script. Remember people don't know what they really are and it is good to just refer to them as "things" or "monsters"
5. Having ash Brag he is a better shot than max when max says to him "Nice Shot" is crude and rude. You are trying to establish ash as a hero, not an asshole. So change that line. You have the potential for a good character and a likable one but that line of dialog made him come off like an ass.
6. Having the father drive through a group of zombies... Not going to happen on a $5,000 budget. Having him maybe run over one zombie is doable, but a group... no way. Because of your age you will never get the streets closed or the insurance to back this up, not too mention the cost of the insurance to do this type of stunt will suck up the entire $5K and more. One thing I learned is you have to keep the script in tone with your budget. a Mistake I made on Deadlands: the Rising. While I was able to get a lot of stunts done, certain things had to be dropped or toned down to fit the budget.
7. Using dialog from Planet Terror is not going to really help you. I can see you really enjoy that film because a lot of the dialog and scenes are direct lifts. it is ok to reference a favorite film, but to blatantly borrow from it.... is a big no no.
8. Ash's dad has just turned into one of the infect and in less than a minute you have him acting like it is no big thing. Any 13 yr old who loses a parent, no matter how tough they are is not going to be functional or rational that fast.
You have a good concept behind the story, but not a lot of thought was put into how to make the concept flow correctly. Keep in mind you yourself are 13 years old, and with how fast the zombie infection starts and how fast the story progresses you have ash going from being a normal kid to RAMBO in 2 days time.
You have $5,000.00 to work with, which is good, but keep in mind a few things. Of that $5,000 how much are you going to need for production insurance, make-up FX, food for the cast & crew, equipment.
A decent camera will suck up a fifth of your budget ($1,000) a really good camera will take up half.
Make-up FX... Though you never give a definitive count of zombies I potentially see the need for 100+ at certain points in the script. Make-up supplies for 100+ zombies is going to run $500-$700 at a minimum, and keep this in mind, you won't get every shot you need in one day so you have to be able to get those 100+ back and make them up again.
FOOD - I guessing none of the actors will get paid, so in order to make them feel needed and as a way of thanking them you have to feed them. On my new film trapped the night I had 100 zombies it cost me $90.00 to feed the zombies and the other 25 people in the cast & crew. Pizza isn't going to always cut it, but it is doable. If you do pizza have your mom or dad call around to pizza places and explain you are making a film and in trade for screen credit could they give you pizza at a discount. Domino's and Papa Johns did this for us on Deadlands: The Rising.
Equipment - From the looks of your script you are going to need lighting and a generator. Any old generator will not work. You need to rent a quiet generator so it doesn't interfere with sound. Generator rental can cost about $100 a day. A regular generator for home use will not work because they are too loud, you will need to contact a film equipment rental house.
STUNTS - your current script requires stunt driving and stunt people (Running over zombies) and the closing of a road. Most communities will not just close a road during the day so you can shoot a movie because of the impact it can have on a community. also you are doing a very dangerous stunt which will require general liability insurance of at least $5,000,000, plus workmans comp in case anyone gets hurt.
Here is my suggestion... tone down the story as best you can. The dialog is very unrealistic. Finding a convenience store to shoot at might not be a problem... so keep that in your story, but have the zombies swarm the parking lot and make your escape more impossible. The closing of a street isn't that easy. I got lucky in Deadlands with the 4 lane highway because it actually was a dead end road that went nowhere. If you use friends work with them on camera. I used close friends for Deadlands and had to give them extra takes until they felt comfortable to make it seem more believable. So rehearse as much as possible.
Also don't forget using friends means you have to get their parents permission, and they will have to sign a waiver to let their child participate. No distributor would touch a filmed filled with people under 18 unless you can supply the needed consent forms because of child labor laws.
I don't want this to discourage you, as i want to help you and see you make your dream come true. When members make a comment saying your script is better than half the low budget stuff they have watched shows to me they know nothing about the filmmaking process other wise they would not have made that comment. This is not going to be an easy task man... making a film takes a lot of time and a lot of patience. You have to be quick and dirty but you also have to make sure it looks good and doesn't look hokey.
If you have any questions just post them. there are enough filmmakers in this forum that can help point you in the right direction.
Gary
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Originally Posted by Trencher
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