Tuesday, 2 April 2013
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in progression from it to the full product?
Since the preliminary task I feel that we have learnt
a lot; from the very first time we used continuity editing. Trying to match up
the motion of the man walking down the corridor and through the door was an
example of this. We had trouble trying to find the right angles to shoot from so
that the character was still in the same positioning and following the 180
degree rule. However, we tried many different camera angles and possibilities,
until eventually we managed to get it right to the best of our abilities. The
preliminary task was a real eye-opener to what camera work and editing really
was. It wasn't as easy as we believed
it what be. Seeing that it’s only about thirty seconds, we thought it would be
very quick. We soon discovered that that was not the case, and actually a bit
more thinking and trying of different angles is very
beneficial.
A pan
screen-shot from the preliminary task and the final project.
The
preliminary task was very tedious to say the least. The feedback we got from our
teachers helped us to understand new techniques of camera work/angles and how
the position the actual camera. When it came the actual project, we spent the
majority of the morning of filming deciphering where the put the camera, where
the actors should be and working with the lighting (as we shot on location). The
lighting was something quite difficult to work with, as we hadn’t had any
experiences with it. When shooting the preliminary task, we shot it in an
already lit corridor and room. We didn’t take the lighting into account.
However, when it came to the actual film, we found ourselves trying to find the
perfect spot. That was the biggest thing that we learnt throughout this because
it’s something that was vastly important. For the perfect shot, we had to get
the perfect lighting first.
Something
else that we didn’t do in the preliminary task that we did in the actual film
was working with actors/people. To put the actors in the right place and to get
them to do what we wanted to do was very tedious as well. Putting makeup on
people was also a very strange thing. It was really awkward initially as we
didn’t know what to fully do, then where to put the makeup on. But we got it how
we wanted it eventually. It looks kind of cheap, but there’s a certain charm to
it. We tried to make the makeup look as good as possible with what we have, but
seeing as neither of us had any past experiences with applying makeup. It didn’t
look that professional, but it still looks good overall.
The
preliminary task opened our eyes into what we needed to do for the project. It
was very important in that we took many different approaches in the task, rather
than rushing it and trying to get it done as quickly as possible. We took our
time, and our project looks a lot better for it. That’s the biggest thing we
took from this. Take your time. Don’t rush, have patience and your project will
look so much better for it.
Friday, 29 March 2013
Media Evaluation - Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?
For our film, we debated on mainly, not
deciding what studio it will distributed by, but rather if it was an independent
film or a mainstream, ‘Hollywood’ film. About 10 years ago we probably would
have gone with an independent studio, as the genre wasn’t that popular at the
time. The zombie films being made then were mainly cheap, ‘B-Movie’ type films,
but as time has progressed, so has the genre. ‘Dawn of The Dead’, ‘Shaun of The
Dead’ and ‘I am Legend’ are just some of the examples of films which were picked
up by the big name studios. Even then, in 2004 at the time of the ‘Dawn of the
Dead’ remakes release, the genre still wasn’t that popular. Zombies just weren’t
that scary to the audience anymore, so the genre needed a revamp, which came in
the form of AMC’s television show, ‘The Walking Dead’. The ‘Walking Dead’
revolutionized the genre, it made zombies scary again, without even using a lot
of zombies, but developing realistic, relatable characters and putting them in
positions which seem scary. The show isn’t about killing zombies, but more about
surviving in a world where some of the people are as much of a problem as the
zombies are. We could have easily made the typical, zombie horror film, and made
it more of an independent film, but decided that by making it more realistic and
more survival based it would have a better chance of being picked up by ‘Warner
Bros’, ‘Columbia Pictures’, etc. These studios might not be known for
distributed just films of the zombie genre, but we feel that our film is more
than that, and crosses across other genres such as, drama, post-apocalyptic and
even has some Spaghetti Western, elements included within the film.
Even if the film was picked up by a big
studio, we would still need to promote the film and as it is a new brand, a new
franchise, marketing would be an important part of making the film a success. We
were looking at various marketing campaigns and saw that the using YouTube for
videos other than trailers was a huge success. 20th Century Fox
marketed ‘Rise of the Planet of The Apes’ by created a video of an ape, but did
it with a fake account, to make it look like it was real. It created a lot of
buzz, some of the audience even thought that it was real, a it meant that the
film had a lot of interest from just a twenty second clip. We would like to
emulate that sort of thing, creating fake profiles with clips of survivors
during the outbreak. This sort of ‘hidden advertisement’ has proven to be
popular in the past and it is something which would draw interest from the
audience, making them want to see the film without even having to actually
mention it, the most unconventional forms of advertisement are normally the most
successful.
Thursday, 28 March 2013
Media Evaluation - Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Question 2:
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
For our film’s central character one of the main inspiration was Daryl Dixon from the Zombie TV show, The Walking Dead.
One similarty we can see is the costumes which the two characters are wearing dark but ‘normal’ clothes which shows how they were both regular people before the zombie outbreak, not a soldier or somebody with experience for extreme situations. This isn’t reflected on their body language however, as we can see that they are not nervous or experinced, they have adjusted to the world in order to survive. As they both take place months after the intial outbreak and they have gotten over the part where they are unsure what is exactly going on. Both characters have similar backstories as they lost someone important to them, Daryl Merle from The Walking Dead loses his brother and ‘The Hood’ loses another close family member (which is shown in a flashback scene). One thing we took inspiration from was the weapon Daryl uses in The Walking Dead. Normally in a Zombie apocalypse, the traditonal weapon would be some sort of gun, but both of these characters use a bow and arrow, which shows how they are different to the normal survivor.
One difference between the characters is their personlity and they way that they show this is through their use of dialogue. While Daryl from The Walking Dead regualry talks to the other survivors and even makes some jokes at times, The Survivor from our film dosen’t speak once in the opening of the film. One reason for this is that the survivor from our film is more of a loner, and takes care of himself. His personality more matches a character like the ‘man with no name’ from the Good, the bad and the Ugly and other Western characters which have the mystery, ruthless characters. The role that our character and Daryl from The Walking Dead in their respective films is also different, as Daryl serves as a side character and rarely has a main storyline in the TV show, our character is the main character which means that he has to have a ‘stronger’ back story.
Our film dosen’t really deal with social demographics but as the main character, but as he is Irish, he would probably more identifiable with the C2DE social group. During the film the audience learn that was a normal, working family man, who had to change because of the zombie outbreak. This means that many people would be able to identify with him because he was just like them at one point. This film also shows how social groups become irrelevant in times of distress, and as the story progresses we learn how everyone is affected the same.
6.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this
product?
The
first thing that I learnt from the process of constructing this media product
is the methods it takes in order to create special effects in the production.
For example in our production company name ‘Dark Orbs Productions’ we decided
to have mystical looking orbs rotation with the camera angle creating a pan and
zoom effect over the top of it. This required the use of After Effects; to
begin with a set of masks and adjustment layers had to be added to the
production, this was done by locating all necessary files from both the
internet and programme’s built into After Effects. Using spherical effects and
feathering the images used were able to fit the orbed shape that we wanted to
acquire. Next setting the motion of the
orbs and position of the camera, the effect that the orbs were spinning and the
orb in the background was coming into focus. 
During
the product a scene in which the protagonist was in focus of the screen and a
zombie was slowly coming into focus in the background was needed. Adding a
depth of field to the product gave it a realistic effect that can be seen in
horror movies across the zombie genre. It was done by first adding a mask over
the protagonist character and then adding a fast blur over the rest of the
clip. The blur was put on a timer so that the depth of field would change, and
as the clip went on the protagonist went more out of focus and the zombie came
into focus.
Also
with editing the film I learnt that to give the overall product a more
realistic feel, colour correction needed to be applied in order to add extra
gloss to the clip. This was done by going into the effects tool bar adding fast
colour corrector to the clips. From this tool we were able to change the
colours of all of the clips to a blue/grey colour to create the atmosphere that
the production took place in a cold environment. The next effect that was used
was the motion paths of certain clips, for example in the scene where the
protagonist is walking and zombies can be seen in the background, a slow screen
size increase was used to focus in on the zombies to add a more serious tension
to the product.
Another
effect that was included in the product was the use of title sequences with
entrance paths. We added an eerie and scary entrance path for all of the titles
included in the product in order to fit with genre conventions. These effects
in technology are helpful to the product as I learnt that through the use of
these effects it keeps the product interesting, if the titles had been static
and unchanging the audience’s attentions would not have been grabbed as well.
Exporting
the video was another thing I learnt about the technologies used to construct
the product. Exporting is what gets the clip into film format so it can be
uploaded onto social media sites such as YouTube so they can be viewed by the
world. When exporting, certain criteria needed to be met before it can work; we
tried multiply times to export on MPEG2 but the format refused to upload. So we
decided that if used the ‘Match sequence settings’ option and then exported the
product onto memory sticks that had higher memories. So the next time we decide
to create and upload a product we will use ‘Match sequence settings’ and export
it to memory sticks in the future.
After exporting the video onto memory
sticks the next step was to upload it to YouTube and embed it onto Blogger.
This was done through logging into the YouTube account and clicking the upload
button, the clip then has to render and finally upload, the problem that we
found with this is that the product needs to have a small capacity (Mb) so that
the up loader doesn’t crash half way though. After the YouTube section was
complete embedding the file onto Blogger was needed. Using the insert video
option we can now embed the product directly from YouTube and onto our blogs so
that it can be viewed and evaluated. 
The handheld camera was
used to capture the entirety of the product. We learnt that they are highly
sensitive when it comes to zooming and tracking. In the first few tries of
tracking our protagonist in the product the camera would often shudder and the
shot wouldn’t work out. This was due to the stand that the camera was on being
lifted up leaving no control over the cameras movement with it being up high.
So the way we got around this difficulty was to simply take the camera off of
the stand and slowly step with the person being filmed to imitate the motion of
the track. Wednesday, 27 March 2013
1.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of
conventions of real media products?
Our media
product uses conventions of real media products in numerous ways, for example
As you can
see in this classic zombie television show the font titles they use in this
opening sequence are Impact and this convention can
be seen reflected in our media film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifusMBkmqAI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifusMBkmqAI
Also we played on genre conventions, for example the way to
kill a zombie is through an attack to the head, so for our movie the
protagonist dispatched of the zombies within this way, also the idea that in a
zombie apocalypse food is scarce we played upon. It can seen that the
protagonist is now having to hunt for his food and scavenge what few resources
he can find, the facet he also uses a bow and arrow and knife for the most part
of the film also shows the conventions of noise attracting zombies attentions
which is to be avoided at all costs. The shot types we used in this also play
with continuity and conventions of zombie genres, for example the ‘he’s behind
you’ shot was used where the monster his approaching the protagonist from
behind and also shots in which the monsters point of views are shown. We used
these variety of shots to follow the genre codes and conventions which will
show that we use and challenge real media products.
Our media product also challenges media products as it is
adapting to the new market of post apocalyptic dramas, by making our story
purely character driven the audiences become more engrossed in the film.
Also our product develops the real media through its special
effects. The effects allow us to add the realism to the film and make it
compete with films of the zombie genre.
Monday, 25 March 2013
Production Logo
This is the logo of the production, which we will use for the title credits of our film. Made by Jack.
Still images from set
These are some of the shots from our behind the scenes video which will be edited at a later date:
More inspirations
A father (Viggo Mortensen) and son make their way across a post-apocalyptic United States in hopes of finding civilization amongst the nomadic cannibal tribes in 2929 Productions' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's thrilling Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road. John Hillcoat (The Proposition) directs from a screenplay provided by Joe Penhall. Charlize Theron co-stars in the Dimension Films release. (2009)
Inspirations
Film Inspirations
These are some of the films/Televsion shows which was the main inspiration for our film:
28 Days Later is a British horror film released in 2002 which tells the story of an incurable virus that sweeps through the population, and a small band of survivors who try to reach safety.
It was written by Alex Garland and directed by Danny Boyle - also famous for directing Train spotting (1996) and Slumdog Millionaire (2008).
The cast included relative unknowns Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris and Megan Burns in leading roles alongside well-known character actors Brendan Gleeson and Christopher Eccleston.
Tuesday, 5 March 2013
Editing and final filming
Now that we have filmed the majority of our film Jack has started to edit it for the first draft of the film, which includes designing titles and credits which will be used for the opening sequence. James and I continues to work on the behind-th-scesn part of the film, and help with editing when necessary.
Filming Update
On Tuesday we filmed the majority of our film in a woods near Harold Wodds. We had previsouly planned on having more extras/actors to play zombies but instaed we had to reuse one of the actors to play a zombie in a differnt scene. Some parts of the opening sequence include a flashback scene and these will be filmed at a later date, and will be filmed in a different location.
Last minute preparations
The day before we started filming we did some last-minute check
ups such as; getting the cast details, buying spare props, checking weather news
for our shots/continuity. Filming takes place on Tuesday 19th of February and
may continue onto Wednesday if necessary.
Matt Healey: matthealeymedia.blogspot.co.uk
James Robinson: musefanjames.blogspot.co.uk
Jack Quinlan: jackquinlanmedia.blogspot.co.uk
Thursday, 14 February 2013
Examples of production titles
Here are some example
film production title credits that we can take ideas from:
Production Schedule
Production Schedule:
|
Monday 18th February
|
No Filming
|
|
Tuesday 19th
February
|
Filming
11-4
|
|
Wednesday 20th February
|
Possibility of filming,
11-4
|
|
Thursday 21th February
|
Possibility of filming,
11-4
|
|
Friday 22th
February
|
No
Filming
|
|
Saturday 23th
February
|
No
Filming
|
|
Sunday 24th February
|
No
Filming
|
|
Monday 25th February
|
Editing
|
|
Tuesday 26th
February
|
Editing
|
|
Wednesday 27th February
|
Editing
|
|
Thursday 28th February
|
Editing
|
|
Friday 1st March
|
Finished editing
|
|
Saturday 2nd March
|
Finished
editing
|
|
Sunday 3rd March
|
Finished editing
|
Our Script
Script
– Zombie film
By
James Robinson
EXT.
Wood’s – Day
Shows
back of main character, pretending to skin a rabbit.
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
Main
character notices Zombie
EXT.
Wood’s – Day
Turns
towards the Zombie, Pull arrow out, shots from Bow
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
Arrow
lands in the forehead of the zombie
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
The
Zombie falls to the floor
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
Character
hears Zombies groaning/moaning
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
In
the distance, the character sees Zombies, he looks straight, right
And
left, Zombies advancing on him from all directions
EXT.
Wood’s – Day
Shows
main character with bow in hand
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
Cuts
to OTS shot of character as Zombies approach
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
Main
character shots three Zombies directly in the head
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
He
touches his quiver and notices that there’s no more arrows
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
Pulls
a knife out of his holder/pocket
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
Character
jumps on Zombie
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
Character
voraciously repeatedly stabs Zombie in the head
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
Reverses
to show the character face whilst his stabbing
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
Flashback
to his child on a swing
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
Cuts
back to character with a sort of depressed look
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
Shows
Zombie, with two hands, character stabs the zombie between the
eyes
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
Character
gets up slowly, looks shaken by what happened/flashback
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
He
turns notices more Zombies advancing on him
EXT.
Wood’s - Day
Shows
characters expression
ENDS
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