G321- Matt Healey Media Studies
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
AS Media Evaluation Questions
Question 1: http://matthealeymedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/as-media-evaluation-question-1-in-what.html
Question 2: http://matthealeymedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/media-evaluation-question-2-how-does.html
Question 3: http://matthealeymedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/media-evaluation-question-3-what-kind.html
Question 4: http://matthealeymedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/as-media-evaluation-question-4.html
Question 5: http://matthealeymedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/media-evaluation-question-5how-did-you.html
Question 6: http://matthealeymedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/as-media-evaluation-question-6-what.html
Question 7: http://matthealeymedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/7-looking-back-at-your-preliminary-task.html
Final Film: http://matthealeymedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/as-media-complete-opening-sequence-we.html
Matt Healey
Jack Quinlan
James Robinson
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in progression from it to the full product?
Since the preliminary task I feel that we
have learnt a lot; from the very first time we used continuity editing. Trying
to match up the motion of the man walking down the corridor and through the
door was an example of this. We had trouble trying to find the right angles to
shoot from so that the character was still in the same positioning and
following the 180 degree rule. However, we tried many different camera angles
and possibilities, until eventually we managed to get it right to the best of
our abilities. The preliminary task was a real eye-opener to what camera work
and editing really was. It wasn't as easy as we believed it what be.
Seeing that it’s only about thirty seconds, we thought it would be very quick.
We soon discovered that that was not the case, and actually a bit more thinking
and trying of different angles is very beneficial.
A pan screen-shot from the preliminary task
and the final project.
The preliminary task was very tedious to say
the least. The feedback we got from our teachers helped us to understand new
techniques of camera work/angles and how the position the actual camera. When
it came the actual project, we spent the majority of the morning of filming
deciphering where the put the camera, where the actors should be and working
with the lighting (as we shot on location). The lighting was something quite
difficult to work with, as we hadn’t had any experiences with it. When shooting
the preliminary task, we shot it in an already lit corridor and room. We didn’t
take the lighting into account. However, when it came to the actual film, we
found ourselves trying to find the perfect spot. That was the biggest thing
that we learnt throughout this because it’s something that was vastly
important. For the perfect shot, we had to get the perfect lighting first.
Something else that we didn’t do in the
preliminary task that we did in the actual film was working with actors/people.
To put the actors in the right place and to get them to do what we wanted to do
was very tedious as well. Putting makeup on people was also a very strange
thing. It was really awkward initially as we didn’t know what to fully do, then
where to put the makeup on. But we got it how we wanted it eventually. It looks
kind of cheap, but there’s a certain charm to it. We tried to make the makeup
look as good as possible with what we have, but seeing as neither of us had any
past experiences with applying makeup. It didn’t look that professional, but it
still looks good overall.
The preliminary task opened our eyes into
what we needed to do for the project. It was very important in that we took
many different approaches in the task, rather than rushing it and trying to get
it done as quickly as possible. We took our time, and our project looks a lot
better for it. That’s the biggest thing we took from this. Take your time.
Don’t rush, have patience and your project will look so much better for it.
Matt Healey
James Robinson
Jack Quinlan
Saturday, 30 March 2013
Thursday, 28 March 2013
AS Media Evaluation - Question 1 In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions of real media products?
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions of real media products?
Our media product uses conventions of real media products in numerous ways, for example
As you can see in this classic zombie television show the font titles they use in this opening sequence are Impact and this convention can be seen reflected in our media film.
Also title reveals use the same generic effects in their titles.
The setting and location of this media product also develops conventions of real life media product. We shot the entirety of the film in a woodland background; the woodland background is constantly used in real media products such as The Walking Dead http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-walking-dead
And Dead Snow
Also we played on genre conventions, for example the way to kill a zombie is through an attack to the head, so for our movie the protagonist dispatched of the zombies within this way, also the idea that in a zombie apocalypse food is scarce we played upon. It can seen that the protagonist is now having to hunt for his food and scavenge what few resources he can find, the facet he also uses a bow and arrow and knife for the most part of the film also shows the conventions of noise attracting zombies attentions which is to be avoided at all costs. The shot types we used in this also play with continuity and conventions of zombie genres, for example the ‘he’s behind you’ shot was used where the monster his approaching the protagonist from behind and also shots in which the monsters point of views are shown. We used these variety of shots to follow the genre codes and conventions which will show that we use and challenge real media products.
Our media product also challenges media products as it is adapting to the new market of post apocalyptic dramas, by making our story purely character driven the audiences become more engrossed in the film.
Also our product develops the real media through its special effects. The effects allow us to add the realism to the film and make it compete with films of the zombie genre.
AS Media Evaluation - Question 6 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?







Exporting the video was another thing I learnt about the technologies used to construct the product. Exporting is what gets the clip into film format so it can be uploaded onto social media sites such as YouTube so they can be viewed by the world. When exporting, certain criteria needed to be met before it can work; we tried multiply times to export on MPEG2 but the format refused to upload. So we decided that if used the ‘Match sequence settings’ option and then exported the product onto memory sticks that had higher memories. So the next time we decide to create and upload a product we will use ‘Match sequence settings’ and export it to memory sticks in the future.




Media Evaluation - Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?
For our film, we debated on mainly, not deciding what studio it will distributed by, but rather if it was an independent film or a mainstream, ‘Hollywood’ film. About 10 years ago we probably would have gone with an independent studio, as the genre wasn’t that popular at the time. The zombie films being made then were mainly cheap, ‘B-Movie’ type films, but as time has progressed, so has the genre. ‘Dawn of The Dead’, ‘Shaun of The Dead’ and ‘I am Legend’ are just some of the examples of films which were picked up by the big name studios. Even then, in 2004 at the time of the ‘Dawn of the Dead’ remakes release, the genre still wasn’t that popular. Zombies just weren’t that scary to the audience anymore, so the genre needed a revamp, which came in the form of AMC’s television show, ‘The Walking Dead’. The ‘Walking Dead’ revolutionized the genre, it made zombies scary again, without even using a lot of zombies, but developing realistic, relatable characters and putting them in positions which seem scary. The show isn’t about killing zombies, but more about surviving in a world where some of the people are as much of a problem as the zombies are. We could have easily made the typical, zombie horror film, and made it more of an independent film, but decided that by making it more realistic and more survival based it would have a better chance of being picked up by ‘Warner Bros’, ‘Columbia Pictures’, etc. These studios might not be known for distributed just films of the zombie genre, but we feel that our film is more than that, and crosses across other genres such as, drama, post-apocalyptic and even has some Spaghetti Western, elements included within the film.
Even if the film was picked up by a big studio, we would still need to promote the film and as it is a new brand, a new franchise, marketing would be an important part of making the film a success. We were looking at various marketing campaigns and saw that the using YouTube for videos other than trailers was a huge success. 20th Century Fox marketed ‘Rise of the Planet of The Apes’ by created a video of an ape, but did it with a fake account, to make it look like it was real. It created a lot of buzz, some of the audience even thought that it was real, a it meant that the film had a lot of interest from just a twenty second clip. We would like to emulate that sort of thing, creating fake profiles with clips of survivors during the outbreak. This sort of ‘hidden advertisement’ has proven to be popular in the past and it is something which would draw interest from the audience, making them want to see the film without even having to actually mention it, the most unconventional forms of advertisement are normally the most successful.
Matt Healey
Jack Quinlan
James Robinson
Matt Healey
Jack Quinlan
James Robinson
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