JM - Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

From the first stages of our project we began to research a variety of horror film openings, particularly Zombie Horror. From this research we took the typical conventions shown throughout, such as the conventions of typography, mise-ene-scene and soundtrack. As a group we undertook Audience Research which also improved our understanding of the conventions to be expected in the horror genre. We constructed our film opening according to our research.

Possible the biggest finding of our research, is that many of the modern Zombie horror films in many ways take a sarcastic view on the genre. One of the foremost conventions that achieves this is the soundtrack. Many Zombie Horror openings begin with a high paced rock song, such as ‘Zombieland’ (Fleischer, 2009) which has ‘For whom the bell tolls’ by Metallica throughout the opening sequence, in contrast to horror films which choose slowly paced songs which are often minor key.

Another typical convention shown in many Zombie horror films is the typography. We learnt that the font and effect on the font can often immediately inform the audience of the genre. We noticed that many of the fonts had been chosen and given an affect which gives them a blood like appearance. Furthermore nearly all of the fonts were red. As a group we chose a font with the appearance of blood, similar to that in ’28 Days Later’ (Boyle 2002). Our typography can therefore be said to use similar font conventions to many other horror films.

Also conventional of horror is a glooming light throughout. We decided to develop this convention with a mixture of day time shots, at the beginning of the sequence, progressing quickly into night at the end of the opening. We achieved this by specifically timing our film days and adjusting the saturation, contrast and brightness, both on the camera and post production in our editing software, Adobe Premier. These techniques, alongside our chosen locations created the ‘gloom’ light throughout. Particularly the tunnel shots of a our opening sequence were successful in achieving this, shown below.

Considering our camera techniques and editing, we tried to use a variety of shots and angles, rather than concentrating on specific show, however we attempted to use numerous point-of-view shots, as they are typical of horror sequences. We wanted to achieve this as it puts the audience in the characters position, given the chaotic effect.

How does your media product represent particular social groups? 

It is difficult to comment on particular social representations within our opening sequence as the audience can only relate to one character. This is the 16-25 year old businessman protagonist character. We chose this character as it appeals to the largest target audience, and we therefore felt that this age was most suitable.

Possibly the biggest way our opening sequence represents a social group is the costume and props of our character. The aim was represent the protagonist as a smartly dressed male, this is typical of many 16-25 year olds working in the city, who take pride in their appearance. We achieved this through Suit and tie costume. Furthemore the choice of a male as the protagonist character within a Zombie Horror is typical of the genre. Nevertheless is it common that the victim of the horror storyline in female, due to the idea of vunerablility, we however used a male. The victim being a male in many ways challenges the typical horror conventions.

Furthermore we also aimed to represent the teenage audience at the beginning of the opening sequence. Many teenagers are keen in modern technologies, in order for the audience to feel related to the character; we gave the protagonist a prop. The protagonist was listening to an IPOD on the train, this was at the beginning of the opening and therefore the audience can quickly relate to the character, and therefore increasingly emphasise for the situation the protagonist find himself in later.

For one of our Zombie characters, we chose to represent a lower class male. This decision was made as male lower class are often used in films to represent violence and aggression. We achieved this by the costume of the charcater, a Hoodie and Tracksuit bottoms. Many people throughout society recongise the hoodie as a sign of hostility and aggression, we therefore felt that this choice was particularly successfully in representing a Zombie character.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? 

Our opening sequence, as we planned, should appeal to a mass audience due to a combination of factors. These being the age and gender of our protagonist character, male 20-25, which often appeals to the masses, and that our film is not culturally specific. It should therefore has potential to be distributed to multiplex cinemas such as Cineplex. I believe that we are not restricted by our, small independent production status, should not restrict our investment from large distribution companies such as Columbia Pictures, under Sony Pictures, as our film is aimed at such a wide audience, this being the 15-25 year old audience.

A possible company to distribute our film, which has shown interest in the Zombie Horror genre in previous years , could be Fox Search Light pictures. The parent company Fox, distributed both ’28 Days Later’ (Boyle, 2002) and ’28 Weeks Later’ (Fresnadillo, 2009) to the American market, showing the company’s interest in the Zombie horror genre. Having a large conglomerate such as this, would allow our independent production to benefit from the marketing advantages the conglomerates have available, which would increase the buzz factor for the film’s release.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? 

Throughout the whole process of constructing our opening sequence, we have been recording stage by stage our processes on ‘Blogger’. This proved to be a successful piece of software, as it allowed us to easily and quickly record and comment on the process of our opening sequence.

For our film shooting we used a Panasonic HD camera and used a tripod to ensure smooth shooting and camera movements. We have a variety of shots where the protagonist character runs past the camera, the Tripod allowed us to do this and help to keep the camera in the same place.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle for me personally would be the use and understanding of the Editing software, Adobe Premier. I began the editing by uploading the footage onto the computer, and then importing it in the Premier software. Importantly I did not wait for our group to complete the footage in order to finish shooting, as I believed this was wasted time. This meant that after every shoot, I would upload the previous day’s footage onto the computer. The first stage of editing involved organising the footage into order. Thirdly, began the task of cutting down the footage, and compression of time. The majority of this stage was spent ensure the montage at the beginning of the sequence was cut perfectly. The next stage involved adjusting the brightness and saturation of the footage. This was an important stage as we wanted to achieve a specific time frame, and lighting throughout.

In the montage at the beginning of the sequence, we added a technique called strobe which involved putting white and black flashes within and between the shots. This in many ways was the hardest technique to achieve as it was very time consuming and the timing of the flashes was particularly important.

The final stage of our editing was to add titles and transitions. For this we used a black screen between specific shots, and then adding the ‘Your Murderer’ font with red colouring.  We then added the ‘fade in’ and 'fade out' motion so they dissolved from and to next sequence. We made sure the text was cut to the footage so it ran smoothly and looked professional.

After the time consuming stage of editing, we finally exported our opening sequence. Other than the skills learnt in the Editing stage, as a group we particularly learnt the importance of large amounts footage needed. This allows the person editing, to pick the best shots. Furthermore we changed numerous pieces and idea we originally planned to shot and edit, as they proved to be difficult and time consuming. When comparing our plans to our outcome production, I believe that the biggest problem we faced as a group was the lighting. Our aim was to progress from the light of day to the darkness of night, however the technology we had available to us, specifically lighting equipment, this was extremely hard to achieve.