Evaluation!

How does your media product represent different social groups?

What did you learn about new technologies?

The rest of the evaluation: 

Evaluation planning.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We will use Facebook to have a conversation which answers this question. Then we will screen-shot this and include it in our evaluation. This links to the question as it is using social media which is a key media platform for social interaction.

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

We will make a drawing and writing time-lapse video explaining the answer. 

Who would be the audience for your media product? 

We would present using pointing stick and wipe-board, as if to an audience. We would film this and add cheering sound FX. 

How did you attract / address your audience? 

We would make posters with the answers on them and make a video of stapling them to things.(3 x canted close-up, and then 1 long close-up of it. )

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

We will use "Perezinception". This is a prezi about the technologies we learned about (AKA prezzies among other things.)

Looking back at your Preliminary Task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

We will make a video commentary of both video, inter-cut together to compare them. 

Another Update

We have decided not to continue with the Lego stop motion idea. Instead, we will return to live action filming but incorporate a child playing with Lego to foreshadow the films eventual outcome. We chose to abandon the stopmotion technique because the result was not of the quality we had hoped for and it was taking a long time to complete.

However, we liked the idea of incorporating an aspect of childlike media into our film opening as it can be juxtaposed greatly with the horror and zombie theme. From this we developed our idea of playing out the original story with Lego, to a child's game of Lego reflecting the 'reality' of the live action elements of our first draft.

We are trying to find a child to play the part, and we plan to film on Friday 2nd and edit on Sunday 4th.

Filming Stop-Motion

On Thursday 23rd February we began filming our stop motion opening using Lego. We filmed for around 3 hours after constructing a set out of Lego, which included building a Lego house to replace the pole in the original film and making zombie warning posters on the computer to add to the mise-en-scene (approximately 11mm by 8 mm). We also set up professional lighting softboxes and a green screen behind the set so we could include more mise-en-scene, relating to Western films.

After choosing the best Lego figures available of zombies and cowboys, we began to film using the original storyboard and taking around 600 frames in total for the session. We used a variety of shot angles and camera movement in combination with the stop motion technique, as we had done in our live action first draft.

This technique is not ideal, as it is very time consuming and we may not finish it by the deadline.

Lego breakthrough!

Our quest for Lego has reached its end! 
Although I did contact my sister to try to get Lego from the Lego shop, this wasn't necessary. I actually found that my brother was hoarding Lego in his cupboard and on his shelves, and probably in his house that he actually lives in too. 
We now have 2 cowboys, 2 skeletons, 2 zombies (although these are pirate zombies because they came from the Pirates of the Caribbean set, but we can switch the bodies) a variety of accessories, some suitable vegetation and some sandy coloured bases. 

We have arranged to shoot as much as possible at my house on Thursday 23rd Febuary, and we will continue this in the following week. 

Looking for Lego

After researching Lego we decided to try to find some suitable lego figures to use. We looked in Boswells as it has a nice lego department, but there was only starwars and other models that weren't helpful for our project.
We have decided to ask my sister (who lives within walking distance of an official lego shop) to look for some cowboy and/or zombie lego. If she can't find any for us we will construct our own using our own lego collections.

Research into Lego animations

Information from WikiHow.com:

Build and stage your set, this could be 100% Lego, a real world scene or a combination of the two. Be sure to look through the camera you'll be using, to get a sense of how your video will look. While you're doing this you can check for unwanted elements that need to be covered up or camouflaged, especially in the background.

Next get the Lego minifigure actors ready. As the stock minifig heads are very static you may want to have a few suitable heads ready to go if you'd like for your actors to be expressive. If you can't find heads that work you could always paint some yourself.

Position the starting scene of your movie and your camera keeping in mind that it is imperative that the camera be immobilized; otherwise your finished video will be jerky. Use a tripod or similar device to keep the camera still, then take the picture.

Now it is time to move the actors in your scene, but just a little bit. It is easiest to move the character about two paces on the platform or about half an inch on the floor. Continue this until you are done with your movie.

Use any stop motion application on your computer that can make variable fps time settings. preferably one that can set up to 15fps, It will give the best results.

Sequence your shots in a video editing program and ensure that each shot has an equal duration.

This is an example of a Lego man. His legs and arms can move vertically, but not out horizontally. (This shouldn't be an issue when they are zombies.) Their heads can swivel all the way round and they can bend backwards or forward at the hip joint; again not side to side. It will be easy for the Hero to hold a weapon, for example a light-saber, as the Lego hands are designed to do so. Also as demonstrated by the above Lego man's Darth Vader costume, accessories can be added to give them more of a character. 

Zombie Lego is available:

The last zombie is demonstrating the generic zombie walk which we will adopt in out film opening, and the first is demonstrating the ability to hold weapons or meat. 


Cowboys are also available, so we can use their accessories and/or bodies to give more context to the zombies, and also use them for the humans.


Here are some examples of what we could use for "The Hero":

And this could be used for the "Little Guy". He doesn't have such a manly face, in comparison to the "Hero" figures he looks slightly dazed and deluded. Also his clothes are more colourful and less dangerous looking.

Sandy coloured Lego platforms are also available, and cacti are as well, so we could use a cactus as the object that the "Little Guy" crashes into, and also include them in the mise-en-scene. 
I have a green-screen and good film lighting, so adding a backdrop would not be a problem, and the posters could be made of small paper easily.(I have experience of making small paper things for Lego men)

Correspondence about the situation

To Mr. Wroe:

Hi,

Because the hard-drive with all of our work on it broke we no longer have our original footage, first or second draft. We did download the 1st draft from Youtube, but it's gonna be really difficult to edit. So we're considering re-making the whole thing. We wondered if it would be ok for us to do it in stop-motion animation instead?

We probably wouldn't have enough time to re-film it in live-action because of mocks and difficulty getting people and what not, so we were thinking it may be alot easier to make a stop-motion using lego men. We have the resources for good mise-en-scene (we can actually use a desert now cause of chroma key and such) and we have good lighting and equipment so it wouldn't look shoddy. It would be much easier to re-make quicker, also we could easily cover all areas in the mark scheme. (Mise-en-scene, angles, shot distances, typography, etc.)

Would it be ok for us to do that instead? Are there any disadvantages? 

Thanks

Rosie and Clara 

From Mr. Wroe:

Dear Both,

Sorry to hear about the hard drive - blog about it! Copy your messages to the blogs to document what you're doing.

Have you tried a specialist computer place to retrieve the material? Computer Assistance on Oxford Road (very top of Cowley Road) are very good.

As regards the animation, fine in principle. Good that you're paying attention to the Mark Scheme. My advice to you would be to add research into lego animation on to your blogs - best to deal in rushes of 100 or so images at a time for example to avoid computers crashing. Also, I would be inclined to look at some examples from Art of the Title.com - particularly the work of Saul Bass, and pay a lot of attention to the typography and in animating that. Many films don't have actual footage for the titles, they use elaborate typography and transitions and title boards with the music over instead.

Good luck with it all and I hope that you can recover your original material after all.

Mr Wroe

Update on our predicament

As mentioned in the last post we lost everything. (We no longer have original footage, sound, 1st draft, 2nd draft, etc. Literally everything is gone.)
We downloaded the 1st draft from Youtube t try to re-edit that, but it is going to be very difficult given that it is in a non-editable format. (1 block of video rather than comprised of clips and sound files that we can move and change.)


We are considering re-making our opening in animation form. This would be much easier to re-build quickly and it would be easy to include mise-en-scene, camera movements, etc. 


It would be very difficult to get our cast together again partly due to exams and partly due to time pressure, we would have to re-shoot our opening very soon, and that wouldn't be practical for most people. With stop-motion animation the lego men will always be available for us. 


Anyway, we can apply the storyboard and script work to the new animation opening, so we would only have to re-make the actual piece.  

Final Editing

Unfortunately the external hard-drive we were keeping our film opening on broke. So we have the 2nd edit version, however it's already been "produced" meaning we saved it as a mov. file using Powerdirector8. This means it is no longer comprised of clips and files, but is one file itself. So that was insanely inconvenient. 


We've scheduled another editing session for Wednsday 15th February to try to work around the tech. failures, but if we can't we will arrange another filming session for another day during half-term. Then we can do another series of edits in quick succession, using a whole day at my house. (Saving the opening on a memory stick as well as the internal hard-drive of my computer. This way Clara can have a copy too.)

2nd Draft of my Film Opening

Stuff to change/edit from our first draft:

•Credits and typography

•Sound

•Shot improvements

•Editing

•Mise-en-scene

Though we had already created our title board, we didn’t have any other credits on shots in our opening. We used the same fonts and colours to add names into the first few shots.

We were advised to add more to the first few shots of the film. We have added more sound effects to the build up of sound ending in the lamp post crash.These include a heart beat, zombie, car alarm, footsteps and breathing sound effects which all help build the tension of the scene.

We were advised to add more to the first few shots of the film. We have added more sound effects to the build up of sound ending in the lamp post crash. These include a heart beat, zombie, car alarm, footsteps and breathing sound effects which all help build the tension of the scene.

To make the editing smoother as was suggested, we refilmed a shot of one of the zombies falling over and edited this in to our first draft. This made it much easier to follow and made The moment more impacting. 

To make the mise-en-scene more in keeping with the aesthetics of our two genres, we originally added zombie warning posters to the background. However, these were difficult to see in our first draft so we filmed more shots of them that made them clearer.

Preliminary Task Plans!

An idea we had for our preliminary task was a film about a sandwich.

. Walk in room

. Walk to fridge

. Look in fridge

. Take out jam

. Knife from draw

. Bread from bag

. PB from cupboard

. Plate from cupboard

. Unscrew lids

. Fly-on-wall of stuff on counter

. Panning across stuff (Western style?)

. Eyes panning/close-up?

. Knifes from pocket like guns

. Violent spreading

. Slam sandwich shut

. DUDE! INTENSE SANDWICH! moment

. Intense sandwich pick-up

. Shot - reverse - shot of sandwich

. End on bite.

Feedback on my Opening

I need to hold some of my shots more steady and include more camera movement. I could even improve my shot distances a bit, but that's not so much of an issue.
 My mise-en-scene is not exactly western, however as this film has a modern context as well, and we wanted to include some more modern mise-en-scene. Also we didn't have a desert at hand... The costume, sound and filming style is fairly western. 


Some aspects we did well were:
Shots we used, framing, editing and sequencing, soundtrack and typography. (However we have improved the titleboard for our company logo. 


We also intend to overlay more sound effects during the build-up to running into the lamp-post.
We will add close-ups of the posters and re-do the shot with the Little Guy lying on the floor, as it's way too messy. 

Some Extra Zombie Work:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkWXfrlGHgE&list=UU25CfXR_ZZukR6owrQSakcQ&index=2&feature=plcp


I made another video on zombies just for fun. :) 

Film Opening - First edit

Our completed first edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdf_gD-gvA8&feature=channel_video_title

We still need to add titles to the beginning shot. We intend to only put titles over the first shot, as the following ones have too much movement, so would just be disorientating with titles. We created the title today, but due to my editing program (Power Director 8) the text went fuzzy and pixilated every time we actually played the clip; it was fine in the editing process. We also tried adding it as an image instead of text, and applying chroma key to remove the white background, but that went fuzzy too.


We also still need to add a breathing sound effect and a heartbeat sound effect. We did actually add the heartbeat.. so I'm not sure where that went... but it's probably something to do with the multiple sound tracks added to this video. We have multiple video tracks too. The split-screen we used needs to have the previous shot taken out from behind it, the timing in the sequencing got a bit messed up there. Other than that we just need to tighten up the bit where the Zombie gets beaten with Mildred, the stick, by the hero. 


We'll do all that stuff in the next editing session. 

Logo

This is the logo we are going to use at the beginning of our film opening, before the opening title card and credits. Production company logos always appear at the start of films, with usually multiple logos displayed (we may create more for our final draft). This will give our film opening more authenticity.

Titlecard

The titlecard from my previous post was a basic use of Microsoft paint and fonts downloaded  from the internet. To make the titlecard more interesting and more engaging to the audience, I have experimented with adding some images  to it                                                                                                                                                  I have added an increasing number of bullet hole images that I found on the internet to the titlecard. This could possibly be used with sound effects, with each version shown after the other to create the impression of shots fired. As the images, which I edited to improve how they looked (e.g. edited out website logos and corrected by size), are of bullet holes through glass, this relates to the presentation of the film on a screen, making the opening more interactive to the audience. It also closely relates to the genre of westerns and the red lettering used for the word 'cowboy' which has connotation of blood and violence, reflecting the aspects of horror.

This is an example of the images I found on the internet from websites such as gettyimages.com and shuttershock.com. I then edited them into my previous titlecard. This is the progression of each one:

By Clara

The Representation of race through editing and sequencing in The Bill

The two races shown in this extract are Asian and British. By use of shot sequencing, camera angles and movements and editing they are represented as equal.

This extract opens with a high-angle shot of an Asian girl who is the suspect. This shot indicates that she is weak or unimportant, however as she stands up the camera pans up with her, keeping her central in the shot, therefore signifying that the action is revolving around her, and consequently that she is important, weather as a victim or an equal. From here there is panning across to an Asian police woman who is standing at the same level as her. This suggests that the two are equal, however as they are separated by the back of a male British officer, they are of opposing sides. The British police officer is not featured in this single panning shot until it smoothly becomes a tracking shot. This may indicate that he is considered of a higher class or importance than the two Asian women, however as he is in the same panning/tracking shot as them, he is supposedly equal to them. This may lead to the analogy that the two Asian people are not equal to the British man, however despite being of opposing sides, the two women are of the same race, so are therefore equal. In contradiction to this, there are two-shots of the two police officers. This suggests that although they are of different races they are equal. As the suspect is of the same race as the police officer, the immediate representation of the suspect is not a reflection on racial (in)equality.

Throughout this sequence the Asian suspect and the Asian police officer are opposite each other, and never in the same frame. This is obviously no reflection on race as they are of the same race; however the British police man is also never shown in the same frame as the suspect. Although he is shown in the same frame as his Asian co-worker, indicating that they are equal despite racial differences. Also a close-up on him is always matched with a close-up on the suspect. This suggests that they are equal, as are the suspect and the Asian police woman, as their close-ups are also matched.

In the interview there is an Asian man, in the background, sitting beside the Suspect. He is only ever shown in shots with the suspect; never in the same shot as either police officer, Asian or British. A two-shot of the police officers is always matched with a two-shot of the suspect and the Asian man. This indicates that the two Asians are represented as being opposed to the police, possibly linking to the racial stereotype of Asian terrorists. The Asian man is sitting opposite the Asian police woman; however they are never in the same shot. This denotes that they are against each other because she is an authoritative figure, representative of law and order, not because of race. He is also wearing a turban, stereotypically linked with terrorism, where she is in a police uniform. The Asian man and Asian officer are both quiet during the interview, where the suspect and the British man are talking intensely. This indicates that the Asian man and officer are against each other, where the British officer and the suspect are against each other. This could be representative of two rifts in society; the rift between figures of authority such as police officers, and civilians, or possibly terrorists, and the rift between British and Asian people. The British Officer and the Suspect both appear closer to the camera and higher in the frame, so are represented as more important than the other pair.

When the British man says “…interracial harmony,” the focus is on the Asian police woman, therefore suggesting that there is interracial harmony between the police officers, however this may not be so in the case of the suspect. The British police officer says, “I don’t do racism”, this is reinforced by a close-up on the Asian police officer directly after he states this. There is then a close up on the suspect. This may indicate that he is equal to her as well as to his colleague.

All of the editing and sequencing in this clip indicates that the Asian characters are equal to the British man, the only factor changing their equality is the police officer’s power and authority. In general this extract uses a range of techniques to represent race equally. 

Sound mind map



This.

Westerns are dead. Like zombies. Oh, the irony! 

Film Opening - Sound

We looked at a range of sund effects and techniques and we have come to a decision to use the following sounds:
. Heartbeat effect
. Breathing effect
. Zombie growl effect
. Car alarm effect
. Footsteps effect
. Ecstasy of Gold (Music)

We decided to use these effects as we studied many zombie films (EG. Shaun of the dead, Dawn of the dead, Zombieland, 28 Days Later) And we also studied some westerns (EG. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Magnificent Seven, Fistfull of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, Paint Your Wagon.) And we analysed common sound motifs used in these genres. We wanted to base our film in the modern era, and to use mostly zombie film style sound effects, however we decided on the western style music to combine the two genres. The zombie sound effects are generally used in zombie horror movies to create fear in the audience, though in our film opening the desired effect is more based around comedy due to the ridiculousness of the combined genres. These effects will build the intensity of the opening until the comedic payoff of the slow moving zombies.
We decided to use the song Ecstasy of Gold as part of our soundtrack and also looked at the differences between soundtracks and musical scores. Soundtracks are made up of various found songs from different artists and sources, while scores are originally composed for the film. The style of the score will generally be based around the genre of the film.
We decided to use our effects as sound bridges and form a soundscape over footage of the little guy running.

These sounds will work as anchorage, to inform the viewer of the modern context, while including an underlying western theme, combined will common features of a zombie film.

Filming schedule

Shoot film: 26th October (2pm - Summertown)

Reserve filming date: 30th October (2pm - Summertown)

Editing: 29th November (My house after school)

We managed our time effectively by creating a group thread on facebook, to see when our whole cast was available. Originally we were considering filming on 28th October, however we had to change our date due to unavailability (A father's birthday.)

We planned a reserve date for filliming incase we didn't finish filming on our in
itial date, or if we had to cancel for whatever reason. Upon uploading our footage to my computer we discovered a shot missing, so on 30th we filmed that shot and all was well.

We have each worked on individual pieces of editing/typography/music, and on 29th November we are going to combine our work and hopefully finish our film opening. :)

Discuss the ways in which the extract constructs representations of gender using the following: Camera shots/angles/movement/composition, Editing, Sound, Mise-en-scene

In Doctor Who women are presented as generally equal to men as their roles and superiority change throughout the extract, however the woman in the red dress is presented as superior to everyone. At first the master, and therefore men, were more powerful and important than women. The master was in control and the only women were the woman in the red dress and Martha’s family, dressed in maid uniforms. This lowered their status. However when Martha was brought in, although she was dragged, she was central in all of the shots and therefore presented as an important character. There were many close-ups matched between the Master and Martha, signifying that they are both important and equal, however as the extract progressed the close-ups on the master began to show his weakness, whereas Martha was shown as powerful. However Martha, at times is presented as weaker than the Master by high-angle shots of her matched with low-angle shots of the Master. High-angle shots of all of the other characters are also used in conjunction with low-angle shots of the Master, and the woman in the red dress, showing that they are more important or powerful than the other characters.

Throughout Martha’s speech, where she explains her plans to defeat the Master high-angle close-ups of her are juxtaposed with a clear sense of authority. Martha is also presented as powerful as she is wearing dark, military-esque clothing and has her hair tied back. This indicates that she is prepared for action and is able to defend herself, however these traits are sometimes associated with men, and are deemed manly. As Martha is speaking the music begins to build up and become louder and more intense. This indicates that Martha is powerful as the music is on her side, and as the music is very powerful and hopeful sounding, it shows that she is good, therefore denoting that women are generally good and powerful as a group. After Martha’s speech the master is obviously very weak and frightened, showing that he may be defeated by a woman. However the music becomes much more intense as the Doctor becomes more powerful, indicating that he is more important than Martha. The importance and power levels of male and female characters are constantly being reversed throughout this extract, therefore representing both genders as equal.

Although the woman in the red dress has a frightened expression and is standing behind the railing as if she has been put on a shelf by the man, the shots are composed so that she is higher up than the man, suggesting that she is more important. She looks as if she is looking down on the events and seeing them from a god-like perspective. This is partly due to the woman's costume. Her hair is styled in a casually coiffed fashion, and she is wearing little make-up, the style of her dress is almost Greek goddess-like, with a modern seductive twist. The red of her nails and dress connotes power and possibly evil. She looks out of place in the scene as she is the only colorful thing there, and she is not simplistically dressed. The master is dressed in a simple black and white tuxedo, which shows he is rich, however he looks untidy in comparison to the woman and their environment. He consistently holds a fairly casual posture, and looks relaxed until he is challenged by Martha. Where the woman is standing straight and powerfully, he is slouching informally and this ridicules him slightly. He looks as if he is comfortable in this environment, possibly because he thinks that he is in control, and is possessive towards the woman, however she holds a passive and strong position and is higher up, so may feel that she knows she is more important than the man.

Their surroundings are simplistically decorated with modern natural wood furnishings. However there are also high-tech scientific diagrams on the walls, and unnatural lighting. The wooden furnishings therefore seem pretentious. The ceiling is large and black, this looks intimidating and gives an underlying effect of tension and makes the scene seem more dangerous. There is unnatural white lighting coming from the left onto the background and the man, the fact that it is not natural connotes that his power is superficial. However the lighting on the woman is coming from the right side, and is an unnatural pink/red light. This could show that she is a much-loved possession of the man, but also that she is seductive, powerful and/or evil.

There is a point in the narrative of this extract where all of the characters, except for the Master, repeat the word “Doctor” over and over again. The woman in the red dress also joins in with this, despite apparently being on the Master’s side. This shows that she is intelligent and morally sound, possibly representative of woman as a stereotype. There is a high-angle shot of her as she says this. This shows that all of the characters, and therefore genders are equal in their bid to destroy the Master and restore the Doctor. It also denotes that all of these characters are less important than the Doctor, who is male. When the Doctor is restored to his original form, he emanates an ethereal light and floats towards the Master in a powerful way. The Master and the Doctor are against each other, and the Master tries to kill the doctor by use of a sonic screwdriver, however the Doctor is more powerful, and takes the screwdriver from him. The Male protagonist and antagonist are therefore presented as cooler. They are the characters which are involved in the action and are therefore more important. While this happens Martha is shown running and hugging her family, who are dressed as maids. This shows that they are equal, however Captain Jack, and other male characters are also in the same position as Martha and her family. This signifies that gender is not intentionally reflected on in the Master and Doctor’s battle. There are also close-ups of a countdown timer, consistently placed throughout the extract. This could signify that the operation underway is more important than any of the characters, male or female.

In general women and men are presented fairly equally, as their importance and power statuses are reversed constantly throughout this extract. However the main female characters in this extract are presented as much more intelligent than the Master or the Doctor, both men. The Master and the Doctor are both presented as much more action-based characters who despite being important and more physically strong than the women, are not as powerful as Martha or the woman in the Red dress. All of the characters shown in the outside world after the Master’s defeat are shown celebrating together, male or female. Therefore connoting equality between males and females in this extract.

Title boards

This is a potential title card for our film opening. I used the fonts that I had experimented with in an earlier post but edited them onto Microsoft Paint. As the background is now black, similar to the title card of Dawn of the Dead, I changed the colour of the words to red, white and gray so they would be visible. I chose these colours because of the connotations with blood and the contrast white has with red. I used grey for the 'and' to make it more neutral and as close to the background while still visible as possible so the other two words would stand out more. 

The other set of writing will be edited onto the film opening over shots rather than in a title card as to keep the action in the film flowing without being broken up too much by titlecards. I used the same fonts to continue the theme though different colouring to make it stand out more.

By Clara

Props For Our Film Opening

These are some Western style clothes we based out costumes for our film on. Unfortunately none of us had cowboy boots at hand, so we had to make do with what we had, however we used cowboy hats for the Hero and the Little Guy, and tried to use neutral colours and shirts where possible. The clothing is all very casual as we pictures out film taking place near the beginning of the apocalypse, so there would have been no time to gather provisions or more appropriate clothing, and as the film is set in the modern day there are only elements of Western cowboy-esque styles in the costumes. 

We used fake blood in our costumes as well, to give the film more of a genuine zombie feel. We used it mainly on the zombies as they have been eating flesh, but not on the humans as they have been avoiding this. We also spattered it onto most of our posters. This way the mise-en-scene is more appropriate for our film.

Chosen Location for Our Film Opening!

We have taken some photos of the location that we have chosen to shoot our film opening in.

This is the road we chose to film on. It has the lamp post that we needed, some rails for zombies to swipe at the ,little guy through, and our shots can be framed by the trees and buildings on either side.

These railigs will be where the zombies first target the little guy.

This is where the little guy runs into a post during the zombie-chase sequence.

The area we are using is the road next to the South Site carpark. 

Script for our Opening.

As our opening only includes one line our script is very simple and is mostly stage-directions.


Zombies who are also cowboys
Little guy: (Run down street, panting and looking a bit scared)


Tilt-shot on the little guy running away from the camera through the shot.
Over-shoulder shot.
Dutch-angle close-up on Little-guy's feet running.
Medium tracking-shot


Zombie 1: (Swipe at little guy with claw.)


Tracking side-close-up of little guy's face. 
Tracking side-close-up of little guys arm and torso. 
Medium shot


Little guy: (Still running)
Zombie 1: (Chase Little guy into shot slightly)


Medium-close-up of a lamp-post.


Little guy: (Run into lamp-post and pass out.)


Bird's eye zoom-out of little guy on floor.
Dutch-angle medium long-shot of little guy on floor, zombie 2 in background.


Zombie 1: (Step 1 leg into shot)


Extreme close-up of zombie 2's eyes
Extreme close-up of zombie 1's mouth
Close-up of zombie 1's hand.


Zombie 1: (Swipe air.)


Close-up of zombie 2's legs 


Zombie 2: (Shuffle forward)


Split-screen tilt-up shot of both Zombies.
Extreme close up of each zombie's eyes in quick succession. 
Establishing shot 


Zombies: (Pause and then  shuffle towards little-guy slowly) 


Medium-shot from behind zombie 1
Medium close-up of zombie 1
Medium close-up of zombie 2
Medium close-up of zombie 1


Hero: (Hit Zombie 1 over the head with a big stick.) 


Close-up of zombie 1


Zombie 1: (Fall over, gurgling)


Over-shoulder of zombie 1 falling.
Tilt-up shot from zombie 1 to hero


Hero: (Kick zombie slightly, take off hat, rub head, replace hat, spit on zombie) Eat timber! Aha! 
         

Final Zombie Poster

The is one of the posters we made, splattered with blood and trampled on after shooting our opening. It was featured on the floor in a dutch-angle close-up of the little guy's feet running.

Zombie Posters

In our film it is set relitively near the start of the zombie apocalypse so we had to print off some zombie warning posters. These kind of posters are likely to still be there for a while into the apocalypse, and they are obligitory to improve our mise-en-scene. By seeing the posters the audience will emmidiately make links with zombies and therefore anticipate attacks.


Here are some examples of zombie warning posters we found on the internet. They mostly contain breif information on zombies, to inform the general public and alert them of zombie-safety. We decided to mention a curfew in our posters, and warnings not to approach the infected.

My Film Opening

Our creative uses of technical skills include varying shot distances, having the music tempo match the film and also matching the pauses in the sound-track with pauses in the film. We will also use editing to create greater effects on the audience when Zombies appear in the film.

Much of our film opening is filmed using hand-held or Steadicam, however all of our stationary, or panning shots are filmed using a tripod so as to keep the shots still. The steadicam is used to elevate the tension and give a sense of urgency to the film, but the shots using a tripod help the audience to understand what's going on better, while still keeping the perspective of the Little Guy while he is still conscious. When he falls unconscious there is no more steadicam in the opening, showing a change of perspective.

In the shot with the little guy lying in the middle, the shot is framed by the two zombies, and the film opens with a tilt shot on the scene with the little guy running through it. This is framed by the buildings and trees, however not much else is framed very well. We should probably think about that some more. 

We have varied our shot distance appropriately in the bit where the two zombies are about to try to attack the little guy. There is a number of close-ups on the zombies, followed by a long shot of the two zombies with the little guy in the middle.

Our film opening is appropriate for the task as it shows a range of techniques as well as being of a subject matter appealing to a wide audience. 

As our film would hypothetically be set around the beginning of a zombie apocalypse we were sure to include many posters relating to curfews and zombie safety and such. Also all of the buildings are still standing. (However if we had a higher budget we would probably set some fires and break some windows in an empty street, and ensure that everything is more dirty and dark.)

When editing we will probably slow some shots down to put emphasis on the horror of being in a zombie apocalypse. We will also break up any concentrated amounts of close-ups with long shots or establishing shots so as to include as much detail as possible while following a narrative. 

We intend to use alot of zombie sound effects such as groaning. The only dialogue we have in out opening is "Eat timber" said by the hero at the end, and this is said with no soundtrack of sound effects in the background to draw emphasis to how relaxed the hero is, and how he seems to gain pleasure from killing zombies. We are going to use Metallica's cover of Ecstasy of Gold as our soundtrack in the opening. This is because it is a western song, but with a modern twist that will tie in with the mixed genres nicely. 

Our title's font relates to both zombies and cowboys as it incorporates aspects of both genre's typography. We will also put credits over certain shots in the opening, mostly in the darker areas on the screen, possibly in red writing so it matches the themes of horror, while not looking out of place in the shots.