Developing a DayZ short film. I want your input.

[matthewc 7]

Hey folks,

I'm a filmmaker from Vancouver, BC, Canada. I got into the DayZ mod a couple months ago, just seemed like a great concept. I also tried WarZ, but I'm not a fan of the company or their practices, and DayZ deserves the proper respect for creating this genre. While I've only dabbled in DayZ, due to my long hours in the film industry and not having a whole lot of time on my hands, the world of mistrust created by this game and the real life behavior of individuals within it really speaks volumes of story to me about humans.

First off, I'm looking to gather those stories from people that border on the edge of reality, plausibility, and would be good source material for me to write into a short film. The universe is open enough that I could potentially expand it into a feature, but that is not for here or now, let's focus on the small stuff at first. I've watched a lot of DayZ short films on the internet, and while some are decent, they are lacking the production values and budget a game like this needs to be represented properly.

About me, I shot a short film called "To Save One's Self" back in January 2012, and it has gone to a few film festivals across North America. My Director of Photography was a man named Peter Wilke, who worked on 2012, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, A-Team, etc. We shot this short film on the same camera they shot Captain America with. This is the trailer for it: http://youtu.be/p2Wpeb4roXM

I'm working on my 2nd project as we speak, this is a web-series pilot called "Citizen", and here is some stunt footage that was thrown together for various crew to watch. We are currently editing the pilot. This is not an official trailer:

I'm putting those links in there to show that I get extremely professional crew here in Vancouver, and shoot my projects as serious project, usually with 30+ crew members.

Now I have a base story down for my short film, and I'm hoping to bring it in under 15 minutes. I'm working on the script but I believe it will definitely start to grow in length, and unfortunately budget.

Eventually I will be starting a Kickstart campaign, but for now, I'd love to hear your stories.

I want to hear about the times you made friends with a stranger, then things started to feel a bit off and you ended up killing him thinking it was a trap. Or that time you saved someone from a zombie, only to have them turn around and beam you in the head with a hammer and take all your shit. Mistrust is a huge factor in the story I'm writing, but any interesting stories would be much appreciated.

Also, I'm excited to be part of such a passionate community, thanks for letting me be a part!

[h3retic 224]

Whenever u meet someone, ure always afraid to turn ur back on them for at least the first hour ure playing with them.

Some time ago, i remember running into a guy with broken legs and an m16. at first i was just looking at him from afar and trying to find a better place to take a shot at him (he was between buildings) , but then it just so happened that i approached him and starting talking over the voicechat, and well he turned out to be a good guy, haha.

I helped him out with morphine, and played with him for over 2 more hours. And even though we were helping each other, and sharing stuff we found, we still almost all the time were checking each other out thinking that u never know when a shot may come. But it never did, and even up to this day, i still play dayz with that guy and a few more of our friends.

Only one shot back then would have spoiled most of the fun that i was later going to have in that group.

Cheers to not shooting on sight!

not exactly what u asked for in the post, but still a "cool story"

Edited January 9, 2013 by h3retic

[Hetstaine 10852]

Click my sig and go to the Dayz section, there is a couple pages there with a whole bunch of in game tales that have happened since the beginning :)

[h3retic 224]

jesus hetsaine, did u write all that haha

[beastoverlord 574]

I don't have a story, but here are some ways that you can have people interact to subtly indicate something is wrong.

I think that one thing that is really interesting about the game is that you can judge people through something similar to 'body language.' I feel like this is probably pretty similar to real life.

When you first meet someone, you should look for several signs to see if they are interested in killing you (other than simple RL body language).

- Always pay attention to if the person walks next to you, in front of you, or behind you. If they are regularly behind you they don't trust you and are waiting to shoot you in the back usually.

- Notice how vocal they are. If they don't have much to say, beware.

- How do they aim their gun around you? If it's usually pointed in your general direction that's a bad sign. Make sure that if you trust someone you never bring the gun's sights near them

- Do they regularly volunteer to use their scope/ binoculars to search for things? If they do that means they trust you enough to take their eyes off of you.

- Are they greedy with the loot you acquire? If they are greedy they most likely just care for themselves and not the partnership.

[DemonGroover 8836]

There is a thread called DayZ Stories which contains many, many tales.

http://dayzmod.com/f..._ dayz stories

This may help you out a bit.

[b683960 3]

I don't have a story, but here are some ways that you can have people interact to subtly indicate something is wrong.

I think that one thing that is really interesting about the game is that you can judge people through something similar to 'body language.' I feel like this is probably pretty similar to real life.

When you first meet someone, you should look for several signs to see if they are interested in killing you (other than simple RL body language).

- Always pay attention to if the person walks next to you, in front of you, or behind you. If they are regularly behind you they don't trust you and are waiting to shoot you in the back usually.

- Notice how vocal they are. If they don't have much to say, beware.

- How do they aim their gun around you? If it's usually pointed in your general direction that's a bad sign. Make sure that if you trust someone you never bring the gun's sights near them

- Do they regularly volunteer to use their scope/ binoculars to search for things? If they do that means they trust you enough to take their eyes off of you.

- Are they greedy with the loot you acquire? If they are greedy they most likely just care for themselves and not the partnership.

Really interesting.

[Heiduk 265]

The DayZ version of a Mexican Standoff:

Two players, in bushes (for their magical Zombie protection), on opposite sides of a wall peaking at each other in third person.

[darknight558 41]

One of the most real stories i have experienced in dayz was when i was helping a new guy out.

I had went to cherno (the big city in the game) to meet with a friend (im mainly a guy who just hides up north because it's nice and peaceful there XD), but his game didnt like joining that server so i just screwed around in the server for a couple of hours. While screwing around, I met this guy in the church who had no gun, so i had decided to give him my AKM (think ak-47). Fast foward about 50 min later and im in the adjacent big town (elektro) and while i was looting the grocery store, some crazy hatchet fucker came at me, broke my legs, and left me at almost no blood. I had managed to injure him with my m1911 and patchup just before i bled out. I'm guessing he thought he could quickly kill me and steal my gear before i even got out of the looting menu. once he realised he brought a hatchet to a gun fight, he ran out of the grocery store and he didnt come back. fastfoward a couple of paranoid minutes waiting for his return, i had finally started planning my way to the hospital near by. When all of a sudden I hear "turn around and you're dead". Some guy must've heard my shots from the fight. So while he is aiming at me another guy comes out from the back of the grocery store and faces me. I say dont worry, im friendly. and i hear a familiar voice reply . "Hey, i know that voice! its the guy who gave me the ak back at the church!" I replied, heh, ya, im in pretty rough shape.

So anyway, the guy who he was rolling with was another stranger he met in town, he went to get medical supplies and we never heard from em again. But me and the church guy were able to make it to the hospital and patch me up. When we started heading north from the hospital we had met with another person who had a hatchet and the same skin as the guy who tried to kill me, but we scared him off with a couple of bullets near his feet. I didn't want to take the chance that it was just an unlucky newspawn at the wrong place and the wrong time. We got the hell out of that city after that and headed north for his friend's base.

Sry for the wall of text, but there's a lot more when that came from if you need inspiration. I've been playing the game since June. Excuse me for the horrible grammar, i'm just writing it as i remember more of that day; It was a long time ago XD.

Steam Profile:

http://steamcommunit...d/darknight558/

The Anti-Bandits Steam Group:

http://steamcommunit...groups/TAB-DayZ

Edited January 10, 2013 by darknight558

[Hetstaine 10852]

jesus hetsaine, did u write all that haha

Yeah..me and the Steak meister... sorry :D

Edited January 10, 2013 by Hetstaine

[Brittanica 26]

Driving along the coast in a caravan of cars.

There's 6 of us, armed til the teeth, 2 offroads and one Ural.

We meet a newly spawned and tell him to get in the back of the Ural and not to try anything funny.

The plan is to drive from Kamenka to Berezino, pick up as many newly spawned as we can and execute them in Berezino.

We drive along, fight, kill some more people, etc.

All this time our prisoner had the chance to excape, but he didnt.

Meanwhile over TS the rest of our group decides to join us, we have no idea where they are.

As we drive past Elektro all of a sudden 2 cars appear straight ahead of us.

Someone screams 'Enemies straight ahead'.

Everyone jumps out and start firing, and this huge firefight takes place.

Nobody knows who is who anymore and starts killing their own.

Turns out the 2 cars were the rest of our group trying to join our quest.

Theres more then 10 fully geared dead bodies in the middle of the road with the best guns and gear one could wish for.

For some reason none of us survived.

Except our bambi prisoner, he's still sitting in the back of the Ural.

[TruckingBucket 10]

Id love a movie with non-stop explosions, gun fights, sex, swearing, vandalism, arson, trading, cars flying, theft, hijacking, motor bikes, hots chicks, buff men with chest hair and moustaches. If you have all this it will be the best movie ever.

[MOS182 63]

TC that short film trailer was great, where can I see the rest of it? Citizen also looks great, hopefully I'll get to see it as well. Keep up the good work, you're very good at what you do.