Yes That's a Quadruple Barreled Shotgun.

Undead, directed and produced by brothers Peter and Michael Spierig, is an Australian zombie film containing elements of Action, Horror, Sci Fi and Comedy is about  ‘A quaint Australian fishing village is overcome by meteorites that turn its residents into the ravenous undead, leaving a small group of those unharmed to find a way out.’ Many problems were encountered during all production processes, including the budget and the effective use of post-production resources.

One of the struggles during the pre-production and production stage of Undead was the insufficient budget. Casting took 2 months during pre production, establishing how hard it was to fill the corret roles. On the first day of production both of the Spierig brothers claimed to have spent their entire budget on that one day. This proved a challenge, even with all the pre-production planning, but it was possible to overcome this roadblock throughout the production phase. They incorporated several cost saving techniques and ways of gathering enough resources, the budget was essentially what the family of the directors could provide so gaining more money seemed like an unimaginable scenario. They shot most scenes in only one or two takes due to the situation with the budget; they managed to gather free resources such as paint and shot the majority of the film in the single warehouse. This tested the persistence of the boys and the cast through the whole film, enduring terrible weather outside. Every interior location was a set, despite the budget of the sets being under $5,000. Most sets were acquired previously by the directors from working on advertisements, and taking the left-overs. Although this seemed like a task too difficult considering the budget difficulties were accompanied by illness from everyone else working on the film. The post production phase had just only begun.

The post production phase truly tested the will of the Spierig brothers in completing the film. Due to their spending of the budget, the boys were forced to take on the post production process themselves, working on outdated and their own personal computers which lacked the industry standard. They managed to complete the post production phase after 9 months working on their computers, battling with continuous hardware and software failures.

Due to the contrast in size of the production, our productions in Term 4 will face different problems that the Spierig brothers did not have to encounter. One of these challenges we have with our production is the use of time in the shooting of the film, we have a very small window and we must use our assets to the best of their abilities, finding the correct location, actors, will also be difficult. The lack of understanding of editing technology might also be a hindrance, as most students aren’t familiar with the software. Although eventually with another preservation some of us will be able to accomplish what we sought out to produce.

The difficulties of pre-production, production and post production are constantly faced by directors and producers alike, whether they are as higher class as a Scorsese or just a student filming a short film. It is up to individual problematic skills and budget/resource efficiency skills on being able to complete a production and I believe that is the key to accomplishing a successful production in Term 4.