I am a huge fan of horror movies, but sometimes they have a tendency to be both flat and predictable. Halloween just passed, and I was able to catch up on all the blood and gore to keep me satisfied until next year. Taking a break from the usual consumption of John Carpenter’s Halloween chapter 1 through 500, I turned the channel on ye olde tube. Next up on the rotation is Zombieland starring Woody Harrleson (Tallahassee) and Jesse Eisenberg (Columbus). The opening credits of Zombieland tweaked my melon (caught my attention), and carried it through the duration of the film. I thought it was brilliant of Reuben Fleischer’s special effects team utilizing 3D typography, a slo-mo camera, and narration of Jesse Eisenberg to make the movie to come alive. The irony is not lost on this one.

Rule number one, the typography. Let’s play a game of never have I ever. I have never seen typography used to complement the intensity of a scene quite like this one. For instance, in the opening scene, a guy is being chased across a football field (:55-1:00), and the motion graphics begin to pump as if it were an actual heart beat. Mind blown. Apparently it’s easy to recreate in Adobe by following these steps.

Rule number two, the camera. The camera used to achieve this intense look in the zombie attacks is the phantom camera or a slo-mo camera. What the phantom camera does is it allows a cinematographer to record a scene at 1000 frames, which works out great for me because it shows all the bloody stuff. (2:22-4:49)

Rule number three, the narration. Jesse Eisenberg is the king of smart-ass. The cadence of his voice and the remnants of The Social Network movie come through lending a mix of funny-nerdy-goodness. The narration helps move the story along in places where the story could have possibly fallen short.

Viva la zombies!