Foundation Portfolio

Evaluation Portfolio Question 1

The genre of horror we decided to make was 'zombie.' we chose this genre because we both watch/ have watched many zombie films; and so we had good knowledge in the genre. The main films which we like and have inspired us are; 28 days later, 28 weeks later, dawn of the dead and I am legend. We researched the films and actors using popular sites such as: Youtube and Imdb, once gathering this information, it will contribute to our planning stages such as scenery, mise-en-scene, story plot and script. It will help us as we would very much like our film to be similar to these films and take key aspects from each, such as the gore and editing techniques they used and redesign then into our own idea/ technique.

Our production for the film worked out really well, It consisted of quality communication and structure. As there was only two member in the group, we had a good partnership and seeing as we were close friends, there was no problems; and if there were a problem to be arisen the matter would be solved fairly quickly.

Film Trailers:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBZnuUZIbBQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LUzJAsa-gg

Evaluation Portfolio Question 2

The horror genre comes in forms of many, like vampire, zombie, psychological and ghost. We have seen films like Blade, Dawn of the Dead and Nightmare on Elm street to view the different forms of horror and have took note of all the different techniques and editing they use.

We have used the research to build an idea for our intro, and to involve gore to the film. We took notes on films and bits that we liked and so used the notes to help us.

We decided to not challenge these conventions, as a zombie movie if you challenged the conventions we think it wouldn't make a good zombie film at all.
We thought about using a male actor for the victim, but we thought this could be too predictable and we would like to challenge the stereotypicall ideology of the victim, so a female was chosen. Although we did have a male for the zombie which kind of fits in with the typical horror convention of the male dominant and the women being vulnerable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0mx0dBXkw4

Evaluation Portfolio Question 3

Left is a chart on the IMDB user ratings for the zombie genre, the chart shows films we have mentioned that we have been inspired by like I am Legend, Dawn of the Dead and 28 days later. Although these don't have the highest user ratings, they're up there with the best ones and still manage to inspire us.

The target audience we went for was 17-25 year olds that loved gore, blood and exciting movies. Preferably male as gore is more of a male thing. Although on IMDB, majority of zombie films are rated aged 15, we think having it at 18 would allow us to go one step further with gore and storyline.

This age group could be involved in the genre as they are young and would like to see the excitement in a horror and enjoy the horror with all their friends or possibly with a partner. Teenagers thrive of excitement and so we would apply more gore,horror and more excitement to our film for it.

28 Days later was produced by DNA films which i a British film institution. This company would be used by us to maximize publicity as well as having a stable, well known company to distribute and market our product. Also, this company is renowned in producing and distributing British horror films. DNA films could use our film as it has a unique selling point and although it fits in the horror genre, it differs in a sense that we challenge conventions. We will use both internet viral campaigns as well as physical posters as our marketing strategy. This therefore relates to most of how British films distribute as the marketing techniques directly appeal to our desired audience and demographic, at all angles.

Evaluation Portfolio Question 4

Our film has a traditional stereotype of a vulnerable girl who is being chased by a monster(zombie), this is usually the case in horror films as it is more scary when the victim finds it harder to get away. Females are stereotypically weaker than males. The male Is dominant overt the female - It is rarely the case in a horror, where it is a males trying to escape from a monster/ killer. Also age in horror films are taken into consideration, if a young person such as less than 13 years was being chased attacked, it would create a big impact on the audience as someone of that age is still incapable of certain things and they would be vulnerable in any situation when they are on their own.

Age is also took into consideration as our audience is a late teen audience so we had characters that were 17 giving it a more related feel to it.

We selected our friend Natasha Tate as she is a small slim girl who would be helpless in a situation like this, we think she played the part well and what she was wearing also related to people of the similar age.

Evaluation Portfolio Question 5

The target audience intended for was both males and females aged between 17 and 25. From previous questionnaires we have acknowledged that they would rate it as a ‘teen’ aged movie.
The actors were also teen aged, which would relate to the teen audience as they could see someone their age experiencing the horror. The girl in the movie was also wearing quite trendy clothing, which again could possibly relate to the viewers as most teens currently like to be trendy.

Also, I think we were effective with actors, music, mise-en-scene, etc. Our actors were good, and we used good make-up techniques on them - Using tutorials via youtube.

pre-loaded sounds or instruments. It then lets the user manipulate, arrange and edit the sounds.

Actors/ mise-en-scene:

I think we targeted our specific group well, we fulfilled all their requirements, and also took into account how we could get the most out of them - Using the best tutorials, software etc.

Evaluation Portfolio Question 6

After looking at http://www.imdb.com/, I have had a look at possible production companies that would take our film up and think DNA productions would be one as it has made a zombie film before (28 days later). Although they only produced parts of it, they produced the gory parts and that is what we would like in our movie.

28 days later

Metropolitan Filmexport would also be a company that could possibly produce our film as they have done films like Saw 3D, Resident Evil: Afterlife and The fourth Kind. These film all relate to our genre of film and take our interest in bits.

Resident Evil: Afterlife

All these movies have been successfully distrubuted and have all had their own unique look on the zombie world and are known for what they've done. Therefore the production companies would clearly suit our film as they would probably do it in a similar way.

Evaluation Portfolio Question 7

At first we thought creating a zombie movie would be really hard and challenging, but using technology such as garageband and Imovie, it has made it a lot easier to create something like this. They both are easy to use and can let you edit in many different ways.

The software and technology we used on the Mac, were extremely helpful and resulted in making our film look proffesional and creative. The software such as garageband pushed 'audio and soundtrack' creating to its limits. It also pushed us the creators to think more and choose many other routes to create and manipulate audio. The software gace so many options and choices to choose from which made it fit into our film well and give us the exact sounds we wanted to fit into the films genre and atmosphere of the footage.

GarageBand-

Garageband had a lot of different techniques to editing and inputting sounds, the one we liked was where you choose the style of sound and play through a digital keyboard.

IMovie-

IMovie allows you to cut, edit and create clips to make the film exactly how you want and it comes with a number of effects to edit the clips exactly how you want to. IMovie has the creative feel about it as it is so easy to use and so eas to edit.

Evaluation Portfolio Question 8

From the preliminary, we have definitely learnt a lot to do with zombie movies, like how the shots would be handled and what distances are necessary and look good. We also know just how to apply make up to make a zombie and make the film look nice and professional.

we have learnt to make the film consist of excellent shots, editing and make up. We have also learnt how to organised a shoot and how to use Imovie. If we was to do the production again, we would definitely invest in better props and think about the storyline a bit more.

A key factor that we have learnt from the preliminary task would be the weather and lighting. When we planned to film our task; It got dark too quickly and when we captured the footage and played-back on the Mac, it was way too dark and could some parts could not be edited at all and had to be scrapped.
We also learnt that, filming rules; such as the 180 degree rule and leaving equipment into shots need to be taken into consideration and thought about considerately throughout the whole of the film shoot.

Evaluation Portfolio Question 9

Daniel Wilson -
"Contribution in our group was split more or less even, we both did our fair share of work...

For the planning, and purple folder work, we split the pages into an equal amount and completed them; however sheets such as the storyboard, script and mise-en scene sheets, we both discusses, voiced our opinions and completed them together.

For filming, we were both at the film shoots, and had a fair-share at holding/ controlling the camera and shots, while the other member would instruct the actors.
However, Matt filmed extra 5 second shots of scenery (no actors) when I was not there.

Editing; I would say I did all if not most of the editing for the film(80%)

With the soundtrack and audio, again I did the majority of producing and editing the sound, I created all the sound effects and audio in our film, as well as also creating a 'live press conference' from scratch using advanced software at home."

Matthew Spindley -
"Like Daniel said, contribution was fairly even in most areas of the film.
In filming I did the majority of preparing shots and making props, part of the filming was in my garage and organizing the shoot was down to me, meeting at my house and applying make up to the actors.

In editing I gave my fair share of opinion to what could be good and what wouldn't be, but Daniel did take charge in this area and did majority of editing.

Audience feedback

Audience feedback
'Really good editing'
'Good use of sound, and creation of sound'
'Intro and titles little bit too long'
'Good use of make-up, and props'
'Good level of suspense created'
'Flow was not very good'

AUDIENCE RESEARCH

Research was taken up on the age ratings, this is how we decided for our film to be an 18.

AUDIENCE RESEARCH

TEST SHOTS

We found make up videos on youtube and tested them out on here. We learnt how to make grazes and gashes into the skin

TEST SHOTS

The lighting was perfect but the location could have been more 'horror style', but we did like the location we chose.

FILM OUTLINE

Our film wasn't too complicated but the outline we created suited what we wanted to do.

HEALTH AND SAFETY

LIGHTING PLANNING

We selected lighting areas carefully and took notice to where electrical sockets could be accessed around the location. We had to also make sure these didn't cross over the camera's view. We decided to provide extra lighting to the sunlight as we thought it is better to have it than not.

STUDENTS PREVIOUS WORK MARKING

We carefully marked the students' videos and found them very good but we managed to pick out the errors in them in which we placed on the sheet.

RECEE SHEET

Our location was picked carefully from a few possible other locations, we thought it would be good here as its a narrow area with shabby looking buildings and spooky trees.

RELEASE FORM- ACTORS PERMISSION

We signed up more characters than needed so we could come prepared when shooting if someone decided to back out and not want to film anymore or something on the lines of that which did actually happen. One of our actors Grace Dawson said she couldn't be the actor anymore as she had too much coursework to do, so cleverly we asked Tasha to do it.

STORYBOARD

We thought long and hard how we would set the start of our movie and decided on a number of different ideas.

STORYBOARD

We knew exactly what we wanted to happen in the intro as our research set our minds on a certain style of which we both extremely liked.

STORYBOARD

The story goes on to start with the girl being chased by a zombie and tripping, we put this in as a scare factor.

STORYBOARD

Originally, we was going to have the victim with a gun and shoot the zombie in a vulnerable position, but we had to improvise with what we had and decided to have the victim stabbing the zombie in the head which we think worked well.

TEST SHOT

This is how we applied make up to our zombie making it appear to have gashes and grazes on its skin.

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

As 28 days later was one of our most inspired films, we decided to review this film. The film was very scary and is exactly how a zombie movie should be, providing excitement and gore.

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS