Evauluation of my final media product.

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

Our trailer follows many conventiones of real horror trailers. For example, the trailer contains the following aspects which would be conventional in most horror films:-

• Entertainment


• Scare/Thrill


• Excitement


• Escapism


• To create a message about society

The opening couple of scenes of the main character (Joe) getting up and leaving for school just like a normal day establishes the equilibrium, this is then followed by the disruption which is then partly disturbed by the news report on the television. The equilibrium is eventually fully disturbed when the zombies are revealed to the audience as Joe is making his way to school. An attempt to solve the problem is then carried out by Joe who is attempting to escape and fend off the zombies at the school to get home to safety. These three stages of the trailer support Toderoffs idea of the conventional narrative structure. However, as it is a trailer, the restoration of the equilibrium and the new equilbrium isn't shown and left for the audience is a code of enigma.

As Charles Derry suggests, there are three types of conventional horror films.

• The horror of personality


• The horror of armageddon


• The horror of the supernatural

With our trailer we have chose the horror of armageddon to follow conventions fully. We have also followed the conventions of horror films which are targeted a young, male audiences. Our sub-genre is a zombie, slasher, supernatural horror film.

Our trailer holds many similarities with "Shaun Of The Dead", mainly being the nature of the main character. Some of these similarities include:-

• Escape (The Winchester and The School)


• 'Shaun' and 'Joe' vs. the rest of society (living dead)


• At the beginning, 'Shaun' and 'Joe' are shown as ignorant (equilibrium similar)


• A companion becomes infected (Shaun's Mother and Joe's girlfriend)


• Pursuit throughout.


• Will to stay alive.


• Bloody violence.
  
• Isolation
  
• Binary opposites- (Human vs. Infected)- Levi Strauss.
  

Our trailer also follows forms and conventions of real media products as it contains a repetoire of elements:-

• Iconography- (Blood, Corpse, Make- Up, Baseball Bat etc..)


• Style- (Low angle shots, Point of view of the Zombie, fake blood)
  
• Setting- (School, Title of film)
  
• Narrative- (Contemporary)


• Characters- ( Zombie/Monsters, Girlfriend (victim), Main Charater (hero), Teacher (Authority)).


• Themes- ( Violence, Isolation, Threat/Danger, Pursuit, Conflict)


• Audience Response- ( Frightened, Excited, Thrilled)


• Target Audience- ( Mode Of Address, Male Dominant)

The length of our trailer is conventional for a theatrical trailer, and we have included all the features that would be expected, (titles, end screen, warning at beginning.) We have used a non-linear sequence with fast pace editing to emphasise action and the thrilling nature of the film.

· How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I have made sure that my three products are suitable for promoting our film. I have used the monster as my main image for the front cover and have used an image of the hero of the trailer on my poster to establish the identity of the product and the genre. The settings of the school and the home of the hero is used in all three promotional devices. The photo used for the magazine front cover is set at the home of the hero standing in the open doorway to establish a sense of a breakout. The photo used for the poster is an image of the hero with an iconic prop (the weapon). The background of the poster is of the school and this further emphasises how a place that is supposed to be beneficial for children, has now become the opposite.

· What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We have asked a group of 10 people the following questions about our trailer:-

1. Is the genre of the trailer identifiable? (Please state the genre)


2. What is the trailer about? (What is the plot?)


3. What is the most memorable scene in your opinion?


4. Did the title help you understand the plot?


5. What are your impressions of the main character?


6. Did the soundtrack complement the footage and genre of the trailer?


7. What certificate do you think the trailer is? (I.e. PG, 12, 12a, 15, 18.)


8. Would this short trailer make you want to see the whole film? Is so, why?


9. Is the name of the film effective?


10. What would have made the trailer better? (I.e. scenes/sounds/character etc.)

This feedback helped us to see where we could have improved on our trailer and what they liked about it.

The 10 members of the audience agreed that the genre of the film was easily identifiable and that it was Horror. The whole audience could identify the plot of the trailer because it had zombies and was based in a school. 5/10 audience agreed on the zombie in the last scene of the trailer is the most memorable part of the trailer because the zombie goes for the camera. The other 5 agreed on the teacher being dragged down by a zombie in the classroom because it made them laugh. 8/10 of the audience said the titles helped them to know what was going on and that Joe was having a bad day. All the audience agreed that the main character was shown to be strong and heroic, being the only human left. The entire audience agreed that the soundtrack complimented the trailer. It was fastpace and the right time and the pace of the music was right in the right places. The age classification varied between 12A and 18. This would have depended on how explicit we would decide to make the film. But the majority said 18 certificate. The majority said they would like to see the film after viewing the trailer because they want to know what happens to the main character. Others said they would not want to view it because they do not like horror films. The audience said that the name 'DEADUCATION' links well with the film. It has zombies in it which are 'dead' and it is based in a school which links with 'education'. 9/10 audience agreed that we could improve our trailer by adding more characters/zombies or even add a female character which would challenge conventions of a zombie film. Also to add more short fast paced edits in the trailer. The other person said they couldn't fault it.

· How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

When we started the A-level course, we learned how to use the digital video camera, which obviously was the key piece of technology used in the process. We then transferred the shots onto Adobe Premiere Elements to edit the material. This is an essential stage of the process, we were able to add titles, fade to blacks, dissolves, to edit the pace of a shot and to add music which effectively changed the mood of the shot. The Internet was also used for research and I watched many horror trailers including Shaun Of The Dead and 28 Days Later on YouTube to grasp an idea of pace and content of conventional horror trailers. We also used the digital camera to create an animatic, gain effective images for my poster and front cover and to capture a crime scene to use for the news broadcast within our trailer. We found a piece of music on www.freeplaymusic.com and this music was fast pased which suited the pace and effectiveness of the trailer.

Filming our final product.

Now that we have finished our animatic, it is time to begin filming our actual product. The animatic should help us substantially in the planning stages. We have organised our actors and certain props and clothing for the shooting process. We will be filiming our shots and then editing at the same time to speed up the process of the project so we will have more time to edit it and add or take away anything we need when the product is finished.

Brainstorm
Today we developed our ideas for the storyboard. After taking pictures for our animatic, we realised that we needed to add a lot more shots to create a scary atmosphere. We brainstormed our ideas, then added them to the storyboard. We now need to re-draw the storyboard to finalise our ideas. Then we need to finish the animatic and use the editing software to see if our trailer in achievable.

Animatic
Now we have completed our storyboard, we have to create an animatic of our trailer. A simple picture of each shot is taken so they can be put into order to see if it is attainable and so we can pre-visualise the motion picture before filming it.

Dead-ucation
A sixteen year old boy (Peter) gets up for school. His parents have left early and left a note on the fridge saying that they had to leave for a conference at work so he is on his own in the morning. He walks down the stairs with a hoody and MP3 player in both ears. He's eating his breakfast cereal in the kitchen and the radio is playing an emergency broadcast explaining that there is an outbreak of a highly infectious virus which turns people delirious and is highly dangerous and the reader reccomends all listeners to stay indoors and to keep their children from going to school. Peter cannot hear this because of his music. He walks to school unaware of all that has happened. He comes across a disoriented young boy, as he is walking, who is from Peter's school and he has school uniform on and this boy just stares with a pale face and mouth open. He then begins seeing disoriented pupil and teachers in school who seem like they feel threatened by Peter as that start slowly trembling towards him. He sees a few other fellow students who are not infected running through the school gates as they are being chased by several infected individuals. He then meets up with them in the vacant reception in Upper School. These friends consist of Lisa, Henry and Simon who are all in his Year Group. They then realise that all school exits and surrounds by infected individuals. So they form an alliance to fight through the school grounds and get to the towns train station to evacuate. This is a daunting task as nearly 2500 pupils and teachers are abundant in the school grounds.They are trapped in the school assembly hall and trying to find certain implements to use as weapons to combat the infected as they now know they are dangerous and seeking to kill. Steel chairs are used to fight off the ever growing foes in the Hall scene. As they then break out of the hall, they run for the sports field to hide in the tall trees. They run past the sports equipment shed, which is open and grab some hockey sticks to use as weapons. They then run across the field, bringing down each enemy as they pass until they reach the trees. They use this time to carefully devise a plan to escape the school. They loose Henry and Simon to the infected so Peter and Lisa escape the town and eventually get to the train but their is a twist at the end as we find out that Lisa is infected after suffering a minor bite to one of the infected earlier on in the film. The film ends here. So there will be a sequal.

Research- Textual Analysis
Jeeper Creepers teaser and theatrical trailers.

1. What is the genre of the film?

Horror.

2. How is the audience able to identify the genre of the film?

Eory Music creates a tense and spooky atmosphere which is conventional in most horror films.There is also significant evidence in the first shot of both trailers where it shows a long shot of a truck on a very empty road and what looks like an empty area. The theme of isolation immediately makes us aware of the genre of the film.There is also alot of iconography when there is a crane shot of the chruch going up to the crucifix at the top, there is also a crow sitting at the top which signifies evil.

3. How does the trailer target an audience?

4. How long does the film trailer last?

1 minute 29 seconds.

5. How many shots are used in the trailer?

31 including titles.

6. What transitions are used in the trailer?

There are fades to black in between shots from the film and this created an uneasy effect on the audience.

7. How is digetic sound used in the trailer?- Focus on dialogue and sound effects.

In the teaser trailer there is very little digetic sound. Although there is the sound of footsteps and screams to add to the suspence.In the theatrical trailer, there is alot of digetic sound ranging from speech and vehicle sound to explosions.

8. How is non-digetic sound used in the trailer?- Focus on music and sound effects.

In the teaser trailer there is the disturbing sound of a heartbeat as they approach the pipe and this also makes us aware of the genre of the film.In the theatrical trailer, the non-digetic sound is slow and creepy which builds up as the equilibrium is being disturbed and eventually turns into loud, face paced rock music.

9. How does the trailer present character and their relationships?

In both trailers we are not revealed much about the relationship between the two main characters, only that they care for eachother as the female goes after the male when he goes missing down the pipe.We laern quite alot about the monster from the representation that is given in the theatrical trailer. We learn that the monster is hiding its true identity when we see a person throwing bodies into a pipe at the start. It is wearing a black wastecoat and hat and trying to look like a normal male, this costume has major connotations of evil. We also learn that the monster is clever, in the teaser as the titles in the fade to blacks say certain things e.g "A PERFECT PLACE TO HIDE". This indicates that the moster has a plan and that it has chose to hide away near a church because it is were nobody would expect it to be.

10. How does the trailer create a sense of narrative?

11. What does the trailer reveal about the plot of the film?

From both trailers we can establish that its theme is pursuit because we know that the male is rescued by the female and gets out of the underground lair of the monster. They try to escape the location of the film and on their way out the monster tries to trap them and retrieve the male and possibly the female. This immiedaitely gives the audience a sense of pursuit.

12. How does the trailer create a code of enigma?

The mystery and the question posed to the audience is "What is the monster?"

13. How does the trailer use titles to communicate with the audience?

The trailer uses fade to blacks to use titles with white text. The text is also moving and this creates an uneasy effect on the audience.

14. How does the trailer establish the mood and expectations of the film?

G324 Advanced Portfolio
Skills Development
Preliminary Task- What Lies Beneath

How did you plan your ideas?

• Through a 12 scene storyboard.

How/Why did you use a storyboard?

• To plan our ideas and memories of the film we chose.


• To make our task more oranised and well planned.

Did you use a script?

• Yes, we recorded all lines of the film we knew from memory.

How did you organise the shooting schedule?

• We planned the day before the task that we would shoot our scene at one of our houses.

Why did you need a release form?

• To re-assure the teacher that the owners of the property where we were shooting gave us permission to do so.

How did you organise the shoot?

• We gave ourselves individual roles before shooting, these were; camera operator, actor 1, actor 2, director and clapper board operator.

How did you use the clapper board?

• Before shooting every shot, we wrote the number of the shot and the number of the take we were currently filming.

How did you use different camera shots and angles to create effects?

• In the "carrying through the door" shot we used a transition as they walk through from a low angle shot of the feet and the legs outside the door to a high angle shot looking down as they walk through. The high angle creates a spooky effect.


• In the shot where the male character is talkin on the phone, we used a point of view shot from the female characters prespective emphasising her worry and helplessness as she sees her husband in the mirror. The gradual zoom of the female character in the bath creates a sense of tension and an inability to predict future events.

How did you choose the location for your shots?

• We decided that a member of our groups bathroom would be best as it has good lighting and is quite comparable to the one in the film.

How did you use mise-en-scene during filming? Think about setting, costume, props, lighting etc.

• Light through the bathroom window was purposely used as the shot in the bath has that light directly shining on the female character.


• On the bath we tried to include aspects of realism by leaving the bottles of shampoo and other toiletteries on the edge of the bath tub.


• As we shot the film over two days, we remembered that the costume needed to stay the same. We chose normal casual wear for the male and nightwear for the female character including and robe and pyjamas.


• In the final scene, a mobile phone was used which was provided by a member of the class.

How did you organise the actors during the shoot?

• We made sure that the actors movements didn't make the faces or bodies go out of the shot too much.


• We had to rehearse the actors' lines before shooting.


• Also making sure that they were wearing the correct costumes.

What problems did you find during the shoot?

• We experienced problems of keeping the actors' faces in the shot especially in the mirror shot.

How did you edit your final footage?

• We used a programme in school to edit our final footage.


• We needed to take out unwanted speech and sounds.


• we also had to play around with our shots to make the film look better.

What problems did you find while editing?

• We had one main problem which was the sound of the running water which is in one shot and then not in the following one.


• Another problem was when in the last scene the male comes in through the bathroom door with the phone. We never showed him leaving the shot before he went out.

What were the main successes of your project?

• The opening two shots were very successful and looked professional.


• The mise-en-scene was quite comparable to the actual film so that was a success.

What aspects of the project could have been improved upon for the main task?

• The acting


• The script


• The continuity of good editing.

How well did you work individually?

• I thought i participated well to the project with acting, helping the directing of the shoot and contributing with the slapper board.


• Our teamwork was good overall and our planning helped that.

How successful was the finished project?

Were successful.

• Mise-en-scene


• Organisation


• Teamwork


• Basic applied knowledge of filming

Were not successful

• Some sounds were wrong e.g running water


• Missed out some shots


• Incorrect basic editing