Evaluation Q7

Evaluation Q6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We had many decisions to make when considering the technology used in our film. The main decision to make throughout the process of pre-production, production and post-production was who would be using the various technologies of which we had for use. The camera we decided was to be operated whilst filming by me, Ellis and Callum. We came to this decision because of the fact that Darren was acting so therefore wouldn't be able to and we felt that with three people working together we would be able to get all of the correct shots that we needed. This was an important decision to make as this had a result on the entire film and whether it was good enough. 

We then came to the decision that we would all work together to edit the film using Final Cut Express. We felt like this was the best way to go about things and be more efficient than just delegating the role to one person as this is one of the most important parts of the post-production and could not afford for it to be done wrong or not up to a high enough standard like we wanted it to be. How the editing was carried out would impact the entire film and whether it was a success or not.

We also then use questionnaires and graphs to show the results of the survey that we got people to complete. We thought that this was the best way to show our results and findings as it makes it very clear to see. This also made it easier for us to evaluate our findings so that we now know what  we did well and what needs to be improved if we are to create another film in the future. We now know what areas we need to improve upon.

I have learned a lot though the experience of making this film and completing this project. I have firstly learned how to use google blogger and am now confident in creating posts, embedding videos and adding photos using their URL. This means that i will be able to use this in the future without any problems. Furthermore, i now know how to operate the cameras that we used trough filming and wouldn't have any problems in the future if we were to produce another film. Finally, i have developed a brief understanding of the Final Cut Express software. I have only developed a brief understanding because i haven’t used it a lot as we had all four of use contributing. My role was more just telling Darren where to make cuts and add sound as opposed to doing it myself. For this reason i have only developed a brief understanding of the program and probably would not feel comfortable if a was to use the program by myself. 

Evaluation Q5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Through the research that we have conducted i can see that our target audience has been reached. I know this because of the fact that most of the people that filled in our survey were in the age range that we set as our target audience. This was between 15 and 25. 

To ensure that the target audience was reached we added in several features that we felt would appeal to the audience. We stared the sequence with a scene where David doesn't know where he is or what has happened. This would be appealing to a young adult audience as they would possibly enjoy the fear of the unknown. Furthermore, later on in the sequence we added in an action scene. This is because younger people tend to like faster paced violent action scenes in their movies. This is how we made the audience be drawn in to the film and make them enjoy the film experience. From our audience feedback we can see that our efforts were clearly worth it as 90% of the people who participated in the survey said that they enjoyed the film. This clearly shows that our target audience appreciated the scenes we had put in just to appease to their preferences. 

According to the rest of the audience feedback, our presentation of the genre of the film was clear as 100% said that they could see that the film was of the horror genre, so that was pleasing for us. Moreover, the majority of our audience feedback said that we had chosen the correct setting in using a hospital ward for the sequence. This is pleasing as we had taken influence of famous zombie movies and tv shows such as ’28 Days Later’ and ‘The Walking Dead’ so i am glad dot see that this paid off well. 70% of the people who filled in our survey also claimed that they could relate to the main character David. This is good because we wanted to create the type of character that an audience could relate to as this will make people more wanting to watch the full film. 

We received some constructive criticism from our audience feedback saying that we could have utilise the zombies a bit more and possible had more zombies included in the sequence and if we were to make this film again then that is something that we would definitely work on. Another comment that we got was saying that the lighting in some of the shots could have been darker. This is understandable as we had the lights on throughout most of the shooting and should've considered this more. The final piece of criticism that we received was about our overuse of point of view shots. This is something that I have touched upon before and something that if we were to do the film again, we would sort out and add different shots in instead so that we aren't just using the same shot over and over again.

Evaluation Q4

Who would be the audience for your media project?

The target audience for our film would be 15-25 year olds. Through our research we came to the conclusion that this would be the best target audience as more people in this age range enjoy zombie horrors. The film would also mainly be targeted at males as the majority, although many females would also be interested. These males would stereotypically be quite geeky and possibly into comic books depicting zombies such as the walking dead. However, this won’t always be the case as many other people will also enjoy zombie films and tv series’. The film would have been consumed in many ways. By means of cinema, DVD, TV and online.

We conducted a lot of pre-production research on our target audience including a video questionnaire in which we thought of 10 questions as a group and asked 3 16-18 years old of their opinions on our synopsis of the first 2 minutes of our film. We got mixed feedback from this and therefore used this feedback to improve our film. One of the pupils we interviewed suggested to us that the film would fit in with a heavier type of music such as rock. We took this advice on board and an the action scene at the end of the film we used fast paced rock music to give the scene a sense of urgency. However, two of the students that we interviewed didn’t quite fully understand the synopsis, for this reason we decided to simplify the storyline slightly and had less action in the sequence as this was making the sequence confusing. Although most people we interviewed knew that the film was a horror so that was a relief.

We also found out from our online questionnaire and result graphs that the majority of proper who would want to watch our film are around 17 years old. This fits in with our target audience perfectly. There was also a near even split between the male and females in the questionnaire so that we got a less bias overall opinion. All of this has made it more clear to us how our film should be marketed and distributed. This is also the age range that we said we would target in our audience and we have managed to pull it off. 

Through the research that we have conducted we gained valuable information and ideas from our questionnaire and interviewees. We incorporated this feedback into our film and I believe that our film sequence is better as a result of this.

Evaluation Q3

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

There were many different possible distributors and producers of our film, all of which would have brought a different outcome were we to make the full film.

 If we had chosen a big American studio such as Warner Bros. or Universal Studios then the film would have been produced to a higher standard. This is because the film would have been given a larger budget as these American companies gross more money from box office and other forms of distribution. With a bigger budget and more money to spent on cameras and actors, the film would have been able to attract the best actors that could be found and be able to pay them. The film could also have been produced in IMAX quality, which gives the film another route to go when advertising and promoting the film. This is the same as how Harry Potter and The Dark Knight promoted their films. This money would also have paid for higher quality looking zombies as we would have been able to hire professional make up artists and used more expensive and better quality make up. With more money it would also have meant that the film could have been distributed better and to a higher efficiency than with no money.

The content and style of the film may also have been affected by using the big American company because they have to make sure their films are appropriate to their audience whereas the smaller companies do not have to worry about their reputation as much and therefore are able to create more controversial films. A good example of this is Warp films’ production ‘4 Lions’. The bigger companies are more used to creating family feature films and not as controversial as this could give them bad press and affect their sales and profits.

In my research i looked at the film ‘World War Z’ which was produced by Paramount pictures. This film was a huge success and is the same genre of film as our film. This shows that our film could be this successful with the right production and distribution. This is why for our film we decided to go with 20th Century Fox as our distributor as they are a big company with a local UK office so would therefore be able to offer the resources we needed to promote our film in the most effective way possible.

Evaluation Q2

http://www.slideshare.net/tomswfc14/evaluation-q2-47390821

Evaluation Q1

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

For our film we used many conventions and ideas similar to that of other films in order to help our film fit into the zombie horror sub-genre.

In the narrative we decided to make the title sequence come at the end of our 2 minute sequence. This is after there has been a short intro to the film, introducing the audience to our 3 main characters. We did this as it leaves a good stand point for the film to carry on from after our small sequence is over.

I feel like we did a good job of creating an atmosphere worthy of the zombie sub genre. We used appropriate settings such as the hospital ward, our characters appear worm down like they had been in the rough for a while and we also had zombies in our sequence which makes it obvious to the audience that this is a horror film of that genre.

We used several point of view shots in our sequence because we let like they would add more of a sense of realism to our film. Point of view shots makes the audience feel like they are right in the thick of all of the action and that is exactly what we wanted. However, it could be argued that we used possibly too many POV shots and maybe should have used some other shots at times, for example an over the shoulder shot as we only had one of those throughout the entire sequence. This is something that we would have to look at improving if we were to do the film again. We also used wide shots to set the scene of the rooms the events were taking place in as well as many long shots. This was to emerge the audience in the action as much as possible.

The continuity in our film was very good on the whole except for one cut to David’s face in which he is looking a slightly different direction. The sequence started off slow and then got faster as it went on. This builds up the tension and then lets it explode on screen.

Again, we were supposed to start off with slow music for when David is just waking up, however after we exported the film we realised that the music had not been saved properly and therefore wasn’t in the scene. However, when we watched it back the group decided that it looked and worked better without the music so we left it out. As silent it added another element of tension to the scene. We then used fast music during the action scene to add more suspense.

For our mise-en-scene, we used a hospital ward for the location as we did a lot of research on 28 days later and used that as inspiration for our setting. The zombies all had make-up on in order to make them look more realistic. I feel like this did go well as the zombies scars and blood all looked very real and professionally done. David had a hospital robe on in order to fit in with the surroundings and i feel like this also worked well as he did look like a hospital patient.

Finally, for the typography on the title sequence we used a white font as it stands out the best to a black and red background. This was good as it meant that there was no chance that anyone wouldn’t be able to read it.

Preliminary Material

Risk Assessment

Risk Assessment for Epidemic

Title sequence evaluation

After extensive research this is the title sequence we ended up creating. We feel it is great for our film. If you break it down we have the logo of the film in the centre of the screen, and we wanted to portray the fact that the world was broken and distorted so we put that in where we distorted the image in several different ways, with the static graphic and the sound of white noise. The image distorts just like the modern technology would distort in an epidemic as phone lines and electric will go down. Also the effects look really good on the screen. Then there is a really quick flash of a zombie for those that are looking intently which tells you what it is about. And then there’s the title that comes in slowly for the effect and then distorts right at the end. In terms of music there is slow music which we composed ourselves and it consists of a C minor and a G minor to give a slow depressing mood. One thing we didn’t have was names of the actors appear on the screen because we just decided to be different and not do that. There wasn't really any reason behind that just that we didn't want it. So looking back at what we created. We think it is very good and fits with the genre of our film. And the music fits with the mood of the film and overall we think that the title sequence is great!

Promotional Items

Promotional advertising is very popular in the film industry as it is the key way of getting your film out to the audience and we thought as a group that we should have some promotional advertising. In order to get an idea about what ways to promote or how to set out our promotions we had to look into different methods and research them. Our first thought was a film poster so we decided to look into existing film posters.

First we looked into 28 days later and saw that they had a film poster. We looked into the film poster and noticed there’s the logo in the middle so your eyes are immediately drawn to it. We thought we’d imitate that on our poster and have the logo as the center point because it is very eye catching. They also have text about the film such as the actors, directors, casting agents, producers and other crewmembers. The poster also has a graphic of London in the background which gives me an indication that the film is set in London. But overall the poster looks good and does the job of advertising the film.

We decided we would create a poster for our film and we knew we had to have certain elements of information in so we included all of the cast and crew members involved in our film. We also put in the logo and the title in our poster as that is what we are advertising. Finally we put the production logo on and that was that. We then did a few other promotional items.

Finally looking at all the promotional items we have created, we feel that we can reach a wider audience with what we've created and help get our target audience.