example 3
- 1. OCR Media Studies J526 Production Portfolio in Media Studies B 324 Planning and Evaluation: Commentary
- 2. I worked in a three : Piers Harrop, Nick Nelson and myself I took responsibility for post production and props. I also provided the camera, a Cannon 550D We made a thriller film opening entitled Dead Capacity Our film is a hybrid-genre. It has aspects from thriller/horror movies.
- 3. Zombie film analysis – Dead Snow The clip I chose to study is a fight scene from the zombie-horror Dead Snow. The scene opens with two mid shots of a pair of protagonists. A two shot reveals they are by a lakeside, in a cold, snowy environment – probably in the mountains. The codes and conventions suggest violence, gore, horror in the monsters they are facing and small moments of dark humour. The entire scene was shot handheld, with many close ups of both zombie’s horrifying expressions and the heroes reaction to the situation. Shaun of the Dead First weekend - £1.6 million in 307 cinemas in UK Since release had made $30,039,392 has been earned worldwide. Its average audience would be young adults and teenagers, probably mostly male but perhaps with a decently sized female audience as well due to the comedy. 28 Weeks Later $28.6 million in the US and $35.6 million in other countries, bringing worldwide total to $64.2 million 1.3 millions DVDs sold in USA "fresh" rating of 70% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 182 reviews (128 fresh, 54 rotten) Opening in 2000 Cinemas across USA. $3.8 million in first weekend
- 4. Audience profile: our target audience is likely to have both genders but favours a male audience of a age from teens to young adults. Zombie thriller films are not a niche genre; they are very popular according to research In the last twelve months these viewers are also likely to have seen ‘Zombieland’ (Dir. Ruben Fleischer, released 2009) and/or ‘Shaun of the Dead’ (Dir. Edgar Wright, 2004), an extremely popular zom-com. Despite it’s release date being seven years ago, it’s immense popularity means viewers are likely to still be watching. Box office returns for films similar to mine show the following figures (source box office mojo) 28 Days Later $45,064,915, Shaun of the Dead $30,039,392
- 5. Opening – I downloaded the Lionsgate horror logo from YouTube. The opening sequence of Dead Capacity follows, in which ‘coffee guy’ finds his brother James transformed into a zombie and begins running from the post-apocalyptic situation. Titles – after extensive experimenting with possible title fonts on our laptops, I used a font in Livetype which matched it closest. The font used was called Chalkboard, and I kept this font for all opening credits. The film name was displayed in a basic san-serif font against complete TV-static. Mise-en-scene – The set typifies the zombie genre: night (connoting the vulnerability of being outside in the dark), isolated house, mysterious alley ways & sheds, & lonely forests. Costumes – For James, played by both Piers and Charles Harrop, a black t-shirt and any trousers. The reason for this was to make the hand-stab effect as easy as possible in the edit. Coffee Guy’s costume was a simple t-shirt and jeans, with a red hoodie. The colour of the hoodie was chosen deliberately, for its dangerous connotations and the link with the colour of blood. SFX – Many SFX were used in the following order; post Foley of dogs barking, the entire hand-stab, post Foley of bushes rustling, all TV-static effects, colour correction on almost every clip to enhance the image, post sound FX of the stick hitting Nick-zombie and snapping as it impales him, and the distorted effect on Charles’ face as he acts the role of James at the end. Finally we used zombie contact lenses.
- 6. Atmosphere – I tried to be inventive in building atmosphere post-production. This was primarily done using visual & audio effects e.g. radio static interference sounds which accompany a visual distortion of a radio; as if the viewer is watching through a bad TV. As ‘coffee guy’ turns off the radio this suggests something is very wrong with the universe. Mise-en-scene also builds a heightened feeling of suspense – a dark house, in the middle of the country; isolated, it’s dark, it’s dangerous. It’s all the conventions of an apocalyptic zombie world. Sound –mostly ambient; recorded with the in-camera microphone. However some sounds were recorded by Macbook Pro’s built in microphone for post sound such as the stick impact and screams. Other sounds, such as the dog barking and rustling bush (which was actually a very short section from Ilife’s heavy rain sound effect) were taken from Ilife Foley . One example of ambient/post sound is the radio; we took the original diagetic sound of radio static and in post production we enhanced it. Music – for the Dead Capacity music I used five musical soundtracks; three purchased, one composed by myself on Garageband. One of the two purchased was from Harry potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1, (‘Bathilda Bagshot’). The second is an Assassin’s Creed soundtrack (‘Flight of the Brotherhood)’. The percussion in this enhanced the heavy strings heard in the chase sequence. The Garageband track is a mixture of shrill, tense whistles heard throughout the first half of the clip. The last one was a three/four second extract from a Zombieland soundtrack used to enhance the horror of the moment when the hand-stab happens. Finally I used a Muse song as ambient sound playing from the radio.
- 7. Enigma – The mystery in this opening, used to complete the thriller codes, is the question ‘why is the dog lost, and why is James lost too... What’s getting them?’ This is set up by the one-by-one loss of first Rufus the dog then James. In the chase sequence this is broken, but is replaced again by another question – how will ‘Coffee guy’ survive? Dialogue is also limited to thirteen words in the whole sequence. Mystery is typical of thriller films, and our functions as a proper thriller having made use of enigma. Camerawork is also extremely important in this sequence. The audience has been positioned to follow the initially brave protagonist ‘Coffee guy’ who is looking for his lost brother. Tracking shots and zombie-POVs keep the narrative on ‘Coffee guy’, and the audience follows him this way. When the chase sequence begins he is also placed in danger; so the audience is also placed in danger. Audiences who go to horror films like to be scared, so we have positioned them in a position of jeopardy to help complete this effect. The camerawork is also extremely successful in giving a narrative flow and suggesting Coffee guy (and at first, James) are in danger. A few of the camera angles used include tracking shots, panning, establishing, long, mid, close up, extreme close up and POV.
- 8. We sought audience feedback by uploading our video to YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/VenturayProductions#p/a/u/1/azftb1Liqgw. Audience feedback was largely positive. By 28.03.11, three or four weeks after the initial upload of Dead Capacity, we have around 300 views. Although the version uploaded on YouTube at the moment only have 115, an older version had 200+ views. There are also 7 ‘likes’ and 6 comments, 5 praise and 1 constructive. I also requested my parents to email the link to work friends, and many positive comments have come in via emails. The only negative feedback was that the hand-stab was too dark, and the intestine eating effect was too obviously string or spaghetti. Audiences praised the film with comments such as ‘AWESOME!!!’, ‘Heyhey. I have the shivers...’, and ‘This is really fantastic! The technical side is amazing with the radio static shown in the visual distortion and the titles fit really well. The zombies, bloody hand and stake through the body are really convincing. Fantastic sound effects!’. Constructive comments from the YouTube page were also taken into account. My colleagues also created a Facebook page to advertise and promote the video. The page has screenshots from the film, aswell as the ULR posted onto the wall repeatedly. The ULR is ‘https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dead-Capacity/196469513716850?ref=ts’
- 9. As a film opening, the feedback suggests good understanding of the narrative, and also confirms the suspense and atmosphere gives a chilling effect. The sequence provides all necessary titles, and would capture and audiences interest with how the narrative plays out. Enigma works as it should within thrillers; the audience is hooked. The soundtrack, events such as when the viewers will see James’ eyes, all contribute to building suspense.
- 10. As said before, I feel the whole project was a success. Despite having numerous and over- whelming issues, such as losing team members to appendicitis and suspension, we triumphed nevertheless. We were able to produce the required work within the time limit – we made a high quality film opening and evaluated it along the way, producing numerous bits and pieces for the appendix.