Media Evaluation

By Jake Boarder, Lee Porritt, Matthew Pounder and Craig Harman

1All of the opening sequences we analysed were horror movies and within these horror movies they have the same horror conventions of building up a story slowly and creating a slight mystery during this. This is an area that we incorporated for our opening sequence. Our sequence develops as it continues to play giving the audience more and more information as we progress through the story line. We decided to not challenge many typical conventions of zombie horror and horror movies and used many ideas of transformation to zombie from other films but decided to not use a violent and gory version of this to ensure we kept our sequence different to other zombie films. In the movie Resident Evil we adopted the scenes that show the areas of infection and we used this to highlight to the audience the extremity of the infection to reveal more information to them.

Screen grabs showing Resident Evil Inspiration (Left) and Our interpretation.

2Gender was represented in our film in a stereotypical way with the main characters being male including the main protagonist, the security guard being male, a member of the public transforming into a zombie within the garage (Who was male) and the one female character within the sequence was transforming into a zombie within a living room. Our sequence is male dominated and the mise en scene is very stereotypically. The garage scene shows that the mise en scene fits well with the gender. This is also with the addition of Professor Cottage having a moustache. Our mise en scene is also portraying female stereotypes with our one female character transforming in a living room. We have specifically not particularly aimed for a certain social class or age group but we believe the film will appeal more towards teenagers as this sub-genre of horror is more appealing towards that age group.

Shots showing mise en scene portraying different genre’s.

3Our opening sequence would be of interest towards a media institution most likely Channel 4 as it is similar to other zombie films but takes a different approach and tries to incorporate a more general horror style. It is very similar to a Resident Evil film except for accepting more conventions of horror style movies (building the enigma). Our movie would be aiming for a TV movie as it would suit TV viewing regulations after the 9PM watershed. We believe that it would be suitable to be shown upon channel 4 after 9PM as its similar to Dead Set which was also a new type of zombie film which attracted over 1 million viewers. It would not be very suitable as an arthouse movie as it would appeal to a bigger audience than arthouse is aimed at hence it could reach higher viewing as a TV movie.

Example of using the Media Studio

3It could be successful as an internet movie however we believe as it is suitable for a TV audience we believe the viewing figure would be high enough to attract much attention from a wider audience. Our movie would be released to offer a opportunity to add something different towards the zombie film sub-genre and to keep the audience glued to the screen e.g. thickening the plot, creating tension ect. Our mise en scene also affected the audience as with our variety of shots in different areas. This impacts the audience in the way they view each scene that is shown towards them. With our film being on a very low budget we used our media studio to create a realistic and cheap news studio that is believable but very cost effective.

4Our age audience for the sub-genre of horror that we had selected is very specific. This is due to the sub genre only appealing to mostly teenagers, mostly male aged around 16-25. Our narrative of the film is aimed at certain audiences and more towards the typical audiences of this genre (Teenagers) however I believe in some areas we have covered an older audience with our news broadcast and building that we filmed within. Our film was not very similar to others however I believe they are certain areas of our opening sequence that relate to other zombie-horror films. 28 Weeks Later had a very similar transformation scene to ours and this mostly appealed to teenagers interested within the gore of this sub-genre. Resident Evil mostly appeals to a older teenager (+16) and this is due to the swearing and gore within the film. Our film would also be targeted towards this audience due to similar films within this small sub genre also targeting that age group.

News Broadcast

Transformation InspirationThe top images shows our production were as the bottom images show the transformation scenes from 28 Weeks Later. You can see where we have drew inspiration from this in comparing the images.

5Our audience profile would be an age group of 15 - 25 and mostly male being the conventions of this sub-genre appealing mostly to that group. Our age group would most likely not be affected by anything that was seen however if anyone under the age approved rating or some squeamish people watch our footage the blood scene may scare people. The camera work does not add any difference towards the audience experience however in the shots were we show the main characters perspective adds a different experience towards the audience giving them the experience of the main character allowing the audience to immerse themselves into the sequence giving the audience more tension through watching the sequence and learning more about the story line giving the conventions of horror movies. Our audience feedback clearly shows that we have shown a good atmosphere and mise en scene towards the audience enhancing the experience of a horror movie; ensuring the audience immerse into the action, learn as the story line develops and create a believable story line.

Some Examples Of Camera Shots Used

Over Shoulder Shot Medium Close-Up/ Low Angle

Point Of View Shot Medium Shot

To give characters perspective and creating enigma of hiding character

Medium Close Up To highlight characters features and low angle to show seniority

Giving Characters perspective of what the character is like at the time and what they view.

Showing full character and highlighting weapon reloading.

6The camera equipment we were given was fantastic and we were able to use all 3 different camera’s to their full uses including good deep focus shots and good Point of View Shots. Filming with this equipment was very easy and we only encountered a few problems including the biggest problem with was from swapping a tape from long play mode to short play mode with 2 of the different camera’s and in a few of our shots we lost sound when importing but this was easily re-filmed. We also had a small problem with the aspect ratio set on one of the camera’s one time and this was fixed with cropping our shot. We were very lucky to use the media studio with our project and using the green screen effects for our news studio and this enhanced the experience that we gave the audience with the opening of our sequence.

Shots showing fault with aspect ratio fault.

6The editing software was something that neither of us were familiar with at first

but near the end of the editing we learned all the features the program could do and iMovie performed very well in delivering good effects particularly transitions and this helped a lot to enhance our mise en scene. However our soundtrack unfortunately could not be recorded with real instruments due to the technical difficulties but Garageband proved to be the second best thing for us with pre-recorded chords from several different instruments built in we were able to create several short soundtracks to blend in with our footage.

Garageband

iMovie

On Set

7Looking back onto our preliminary task we have all made progression in the way that the footage was planned and made. We had many in-depth thoughts about how we product a horror movie and what conventions we would use and those we wouldn’t. We decides upon doing a zombie-horror but using more conventions found within a horror movie in highlighting the storyline as a major part of the sequence. We knew the shots we wished to acquire and for the different purposes, for example we had one lesson of visiting areas we wished to film in order to view what shots could be acquired and what they would look like.

Example Screengrabs From Pre-Lim

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Our use of different shot types has improved dramatically with our preliminary task having a lack of different shots and not using the right ones for the right purpose. With our mistakes also made with recording the preliminary task we ensured that we knew the equipment much better than before ensuring the lack of mistakes and with iMovie not being software we were familiar with we have dramatically increased our knowledge of the software since our preliminary task. When our product was finished I believe that we produced a very successful and what we aimed for with several different pieces of footage we didn’t plan but decided upon to thicken the plot-line and make the film easier to understand for more people within our age aim.

Example of Development Of Low Angle Medium Close Up From Pre-Lim task to Final Product

Overall

During our production we have learned several skills that we had never used before and this includes editing skills, shooting skills and even using the high tech software available within the media studio. The audience feedback we received from people was generally positive with a few negative points about problems with sound (to which we fixed) and problems of understanding the plot (to which again we fixed with a few additional shots). Our sequence overall we believe worked much better than we originally thought and our original idea and we believe we have produced a very suitable sequence for our audience and for the genre.