Evaluation Task 3:

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

Account for your choice of institutional context and its implications for production, distribution and exhibition of your film product.

Our thriller is based on the Miami Zombie attack in 2008. This was the main spin of for our inspiration and we brought our idea on from here. We looked at 28 days later distributed by 20th Century Fox, Dawn of the Dead distributed by Universal Studios, Shawn of the Dead distributed by Universal Pictures and Rouge Pictures, I am Legend distributed by Warner Bros Pictures and finally Monsters distributed by Magnet Realising and Vertigo Films. The majority of these films take the zombie genre and are low concept films with key high concept sequences. Some of these films are bigger than others and hold a higher concept. Also, different production companies, some being bigger then others distribute the films.

Our sequence itself is about a young postgraduate going for a interview, she is on a new trial drug and is experiencing some weird side effects. She is particularly worked up about the interview as well as not feeling well as a result of the trial drug that she is taking, although this is unbeknown by her and the interviewer. Towards the end she then blacks out and goes crazy, biting the interviewer's arm.

We completed some research on the production companies, the sorts of films they distributed and the concepts of many zombie type films. We noticed that a film like 28 Days Later is essentially a low concept film with high concept scenes; this is the type of film that our thriller would come under too. The film itself was distributed by 20^th Century Fox. 20^th Century Fox as of 2011 is one of the main six major America film production companies and distributes a range of high and low budget films. The production company for 28 days later is DNA Films. Which is a very small independent British company yet is very successful. It is run by Andrew Macdonald who is a very successful and talented director. Their Productions include Dredd 3D, Never Let Me Go, The Last King of Scotland, Notes on a Scandal, 28 Weeks Later, 28 Days Later, Sunshine, The Beach, Trainspotting and Shallow. Although they have not produced many films, the films that they have produced are extremely successful and well known.

Looking at the cinema release dates showed how the 28 Days Later started of as a small British independent film and was such a big hit that it was then released in the USA. 28 Days Later was released in the UK on 3^rd November 2003 on 318 screens grossing £1,500,079. It was then released in the USA on the 29^th of June 2003 on 1,250 screens grossing $10,061,858, showing it was a much bigger hit in the USA.

The budget for the film 28 Days Later was £5,000,000, for a British independent film this is a fairly high budget yet for a Hollywood film this could considered to be a low budget. However, when you are making a zombie genre film even for a small British independent you would want a £5 million budget because you would need to have the special effects in order to make it a reasonably good film. If the films was distributed by a big company and was high concept the marketing would be much bigger and a wider audience would be addressed. Whereas a smaller British independent film would not have as bigger budget so the marketing would not be as wide and less people would probably hear of the film.  The cinema release would not be as wide because they would not have the money to show it on lots of screens.

The other films we researched such as; Dawn of the Dead and I am Legend which were distributed by big production companies that deal with high concept films. We also researched Monsters, which was disturbed by Magnet Releasing in the U.S and Vertigo Films.

We also had a look at Shaun of the Dead, this was distributed by Universal Pictures and Rogue Pictures. It was also produced by Universal Pictures. It was a fairly low budget film of £4,000,00 but as it was successful in the market it became a high concept film and very successful.

If we went for a high concept with a big production company we would have the think about the cast and the people staring in it, they would have to be well known. Also the special effects would have to be of a very high standard and this would cost a lot of money. There is a huge market in the film industry for Zombie films and the majority of the films we have researched have been high concept films.

There for we would be aiming for a fairly small budget and low concept zombie film with high concept scenes like 28 Days Later. So a distribution company like DNA films would be what we are targeting because they are a small independent film company yet with a well know director (Danny Boyle) and it is possible that over time the film will become a big hit. By using a smaller independent film company we would also be able to have a low budget which is perfect because we do not know how big of a hit the film would be and we would not lose a lot of money and there is a possibility for a big profit if it is a big hit.

Evaluation Task 2

How does your product represent particular social groups?

Our product represents different social groups through camera, editing, sound and mise-en-scene. The different headings reach out to a particular social group and also show positive and negative representations throughout. This means that our particular social group we are reaching out to is the younger job hunting generation, at this part of the movie particularly being females as a result of the positive representation being shown. Enforcing a positive representation of women in this day and age.

Scene 1, bathroom scene:

Firstly, with the camera and editing we follow the lead role. The lead role being a female gives a positive representation to females as she is dressed well, in a serious interview environment with other intelligent looking women, all these factors being a good representation of female roles. In zombie genre films they are usually male dominated. A male would usually take the role of the main character and women are often perceived as weak and often used as a victim. By using a female lead subverts the stereotype of male and female roles and the roles played in zombie genre films. Throughout the camera follows the main character with cuts and edits depending on the state of mind the character is in and her anxiety, reinforcing this with the audience. At the beginning of the sequence the character is stressed out and in a panic the camera uses shots where she unsteady as well as shot fast cuts to reinforce the panic she is in. The camera opens with a close up shot of the main characters face looking at her self into the mirror, then cutting down to her getting the pills out of her pocket. The close up shot continues to follow her until she takes the pill and it goes out to a mid shot. This is when the camera work slows down. A close up shot of her washing her hands shows out she is clean and hygienic. The sound has been heightened again enforcing her cleanliness and also adding to tension which the social group would be expecting in the thriller. Mise-en-scene is important for this scene. The bathroom uses cold lighting (this being slightly gray/blue). This adheres to the thrill feel that is meant to come across in zombie and thriller genre movies. The character is dressed smartly which again adheres to the young/mid aged males and females watching the film. All these factors come together to reach to our target audience, this being young females as a result of the female role. As well as our secondary audience being young males. The female lead might draw the male audience in to. 

Scene two, IQ Test:

Once again we are following the main character who is dressed very smartly, this time we are introduced to more characters. Again these are all well dressed intelligent looking females. This is a positive representation of females again attracting a female audience as they would like the idea that not only does a female take the lead role but is also surrounded by females who are making a step in their career. The camera follows the character, using techniques such as tracking the camera round to the view of the character as she looks round her in confusion draws the audience in. We have also edited in a way that represents her not reacting well to this situation; looking around at others and skipping questions. Many young people in the audience will know how it feels to have a mind-blank when in a test situation, this helps reach out to the targeted social group. The mise-en-scene again goes back to the fact that there are three women well dresses in test and interview situation. Showing/proving that they are going against the stereotype of women being 'house wife' and they are out making a living for themselves. This makes it popular with a female audience. We have used very subtle sounds here. The sounds begin to increase the tension as she looks around. This will add to the thrill that the target audience have come to see. The alternative tribe being the majority of our viewers would also be into this sound/music being created and the tension that is has helped increase. 

Scene three, The interview and bite scene:

This is the most important scene in the sequence as it sets of the whole of the of the rest of the movie and it is what the audience have been waiting for and expecting to see in a zombie movie. The camera work in this part of the sequence is very important. The camera mainly focuses on the main character showing the audience that we should be on her side. Close up shots are used of the main characters face showing that she is really not in the mood to be shouted at and to indicate that something is wrong. We then go back to the technique we used at the beginning of the sequence again. This being using quick and choppy edits to create panic and confusion. The sequence ends with a close up of the girl biting the interviewers arm. This is the beginning of what the viewer has come to see a zombie movie for; the blood gore and violence. The sound at this part of the thriller increases the tension. Drum and rattle sounds are used to cause the viewer to feel at unease. The sound being used to build up the tension would represent our particular social group, this being the alternative group. The music chosen is not quite and 'chilled' but aggressive. One could say that that this fits well with the alternative social group as they are often into quite heavy music.

 

In conclusion, generally our thriller has a positive representation. Especially to the female gender, as the main character plays the role of a female and comes across as strong, well dressed and intelligent. Also the fact that a female role is the one who turns into a zombie, usually in zombie films the females are the victims. Adam is in the role of an authority figure but then his arm gets bitten and we assume he dies a gruesome death. Generally females are being well represented although she does turn into a zombie it is not her fault. Also the authority becomes the victim which is not stereotypically seen in movies. Through the film there are various parts that reach out to a particular social group. The female role allies with the female alternative group. Although by having a well represented female would also attract the male alternative social group but so would the choice of music and also the blood violence and gore.  

As you can see from these pictures of the three female interviewees they are well dresses and appear very smart, adding to the possitive representation of females in our thriller.

Evaluation Task 1:

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

Of course as our thriller is a zombie product the audience would expect to see some stereotypical zombie shots such as; blood, gore and violence. These are all features that you would expect to see when watching a zombie movie.

One of the main title sequences that we looked at was Dawn of the Dead. This being a zombie movie that we used as our main focal point of research. As you can see in this screen print from the website www.artofthetitle.com shows in 9 small screen prints blood, gore and violence. It shows what people are expecting to see. The second screen print I feel is the most important out of all 9. By this single picture you can see that it is a zombie film. The blood and the crazy zombie like man creates this effect is just one single picture. I feel that the font and chosen still of the titles links well with the format of the zombie film. Red signifies blood and the font represents the running of blood. In the other screen prints you can see how society is trying to deal with the outbreak of zombies. 28 Days Later is another zombie movie that we looked at a great deal yet there was not a grid like this on the art of the the title website.

I then went on to create my own taking inspiration from those I had looked at on art of the title. I created my own by taking screen prints from my thriller on You Tube and arranging them in the grid like format. I had to be careful with the prints I was choosing because I needed to make sure that it would portray the zombie movie aspect in which I need to create. Although when looking at the prints I could use It struck me that I needed to use a range of prints rather then just the blood and violent ones at the end of the sequence as I felt there needed to be some sort of process and also I did not want it to be all the same, I felt it needed some sort of variety.

As you can see the top three screen shots show the main character taking the pill and not feeling well. This indicated that there is some reason in a malfunction of the pill causing her to turn into the zombie. This then signifies to the audience that the movie is going to be about a the malfunction of a pill that is causing people to become zombies. The next two screen shots show her having a huge nose bleed and the next one of her throwing up blood. This begins the scene of blood, violence and gore expected to be seen in a zombie movie. 

In conclusion; existing from and conversions, blood and gore, screen shots of the arm being bitten and blood pouring.  This tells the audience that they will be watching a zombie film because it follows the form and convention of a zombie film.

Editing to get the final piece

After long hours of editing and getting closer and closer to the end piece we finally got there. The final process included adding in more sound affects and having to record new screams to go over the top of the end part of the sequence as the screams that we got at the end of the day did not sound realistic enough. 
Once we got these screams all we had to do was place them into the sequence and HD the sequence. 

With editing, like any other peace of creative work there is always something you can add, take away or manipulate and you have to be very careful you do not over do it and you know where to stop. There is always going to be something that you felt you wanted to change but the key with the process is knowing where to leave it.

Here is our final sequence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqgEQIU_fMc&feature=share&list=UUwxVEfHzBUtutL-OGAFRwGg

More Editing...

After taking some time looking at the footage we had when we came to edit the last part of the sequence at the end we ran into some problems. On the day of the shoot when shooting the last part of the sequence we began to run out of time as we were shooting in the conservatory and the light began to go. This was a mistake that we made by shooting the most light dependent and complicated scenes at the end of the day. It meant that we did not collect all the shots that we could/should have got. This became apparent when trying to edit this last part and the footage is clearly rushed and just does not look realistic enough for what we were going for. I feel that it is because we rushed it and this has caused it to be really difficult to edit and making it very difficult to make the piece flow. 

Although this is not the end of the world and we will be able to work around it. We will work with what we have got and will make this part of the sequence very choppy like we did in the first part. Not only with this benefit with the footage we have got but also help add to the tension and anxiety we want to create through out peace. 

We then went back to it another day and created a new 'rough cut' going back through the video and experimenting with more editing. Matt went through it with us and pointed out some possible on how to make it better. Then we went through it ourselves changing mainly the second part of the sequence. The part were the main character is preparing for the interview and taking the IQ test all runs quite nicely. Yet, the part which we are having most difficulty with is the second part where she is in the interview and when she lashes out. We came up with the idea that we need to make the cuts fast and furious in order to make it look realistic and cause the viewer to be on edge. By making the cuts really fast it makes it hard to see what is going on, this will cause the audience to feel at unease. 

Editing Session Two & Three

Session two was on the 6th of February. Having organised our clips into log and rush bins and re-naming them we started talking about how we wanted to tackle this. We started off by editing the bathroom scene for the beginning part of the sequence. We were a bit anxious to start with as we had forgot some aspects of the editing so we had some help from the teachers and then we were off. After we were feeling more confident it started to come together more. We got through the first part of our sequence in the bathroom, incorporating a range of shots; close ups, mid shots and wide angle shots. 

Our third session began by looking at what we had achieved in the previous lesson. We noticed that the long stretched out shots it all looked a bit calm. So we started experimenting with editing it to make it look more jumpy with shorter cuts. This then calmed down after she took the pills and the cuts went back to being long and stretched out. 
We then moved onto the IT scene, we had some problems with the continuity but we had to work around it with the shot we had. Using a range of different shots; close ups, wide shots and zooming in shots. We still need to go back and work with this part of the sequence to make the continuity work and allow the scene to flow. 

First Editing Lession

Today was the first time we sat down to edit our sequence. It was also the first time we had looked back at any of our footage. I was excited to watch it back as I thought that our footage might look actually quite different. I was quite shocked by the footage but was really pleased. I was particularly pleased with the scenes in the bathroom, I thought the lighting gave an eerie and cold atmosphere; which is what we wanted to portray through the lighting anyway. 

First we opened 'Final Cut Pro' which is the software we do our editing in and checked out our files. After watching back our footage we created two files; the 'Rush Bin' and the 'Log Bin'. The 'Rush Bin' is where every single file is kept and the 'Log Bin' is where we copied all the good clips to. This was to make it easier so we knew which were the good clips and the ones we wanted to use. We then went through and re-names all these clips to make them easier to identify when trying to edit. 

This all took quite a long time because we had to organise all the individual files and watch them back. Although this took a long time it will be worth it because when we go back to edit it will be a lot easier to find the files. I am looking forward starting edit the clips together.