Question 1:
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Although Harry Potter is not in the same genre as our opening sequence we chose took inspiration from the chase scene in Deathly Hallows parts one. It may not be a horror film but nonetheless if still features topics which are dark, eerie and sinister which are aspects found frequently in horror. The scene was also shot in a forest and similarly to ours featured the survivors trying to escape the grasp of the villains, which in our case were the zombies.We believed that this was effective as it was fast, dark, and caused the audience to feel suspense of what was to come.
Another convention that we used was how Casey was juxtaposed to the killer in scream. We used this because with our original castings we noticed that the survivors were taller than the zombies and when placed next to each other the survivors looked more threatening than the zombies because of this considerable height difference. This was a problem because we had aimed to present the survivors as the heros of our sequence and the zombies as the villains.We took inspiration from the opening of scream as it clearly made the distinction between predator and victim, Casey was looked innocent and small compared to the killers more sinister and dark look. We then made sure to cast a zombie who could look intimidating next to the survivors. We also developed this by attempting to make these distinctions more subtle in order to give the sequence the realistically quintessential look that we desired.
Image which shows the contrast between both Casey and the killer. Killer is dressed in black which connotes darkness whereas Casey is in whiteness which is associated with innocence and purity. Killer also physically more intimidating than Casey.
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Screenshot showing the contrast between the equivalent to out killer and victim.
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Zombie films often chose to focus on finding a cure and we chose not to go down this path. Some of the films that do this include I am legend and world war z . We opted to go down the path of focusing on the people and how they would manage to survive in the situation. We also thought the fact that here was no cure would add an interesting twist because instead of saving the world,which is an incredibly common film trope, the character would have to be adapting to a new darker future.
A typical convention that we defied was pathetic fallacy,when the weather mimics the mood, and also filming in the dark. We chose to go against these conventions as we believed that they were overdone and filming in the day added a somewhat unexpected twist and many people associate the day as safe and do not expect anything to go wrong. We also believed that filming in the dark,which we did attempt with no success, was a hindrance as you could no longer see all the details which made the opening sequence look realistic and consequently made it effective. In the dark you could barely differentiate between person and zombie because you could no longer see all the effort that was put into costume and makeup. Although we didn't followed pathetic fallacy as the sequence progressed the lighting did get darker. We did this to highlight Alice's transformation, the further she turned into a zombie the darker it got.
Another convention that we followed was making sure that thoses who we cast would look appealing to the audience, because typically the audience will not care as much about a film or the character if they consider them to be ugly. Zombieland and The Walking Dead are examples of two shows which follow this convention and we felt as though the people that we cast bore some resemblance to the stars of these media products.
Another convention that we develope was the use of contact lenses with our zombies. We looked at other film which had used this effect and thought that it was incredibly effective and made a real difference. Products that have used this convention include: World war z, Warm bodies, and the walking dead.We however wanted to change the effect and make it more and original so we chose to use a combination of two contacts, one red and one white for the main zombie and the other kept just the white contact.
EB
Script for our video
Many media products have distribution and production companies that are relevant to their product. We specifically chose to make our own production and distribution company as we believed we would therefore be able to cater them to our product. For example we chose stormy seas as the name for the distribution as the seas would represent how our product will be distributed globally. For our production company we decided to name it Bloodstream productions as we wanted it to link in with the sub-genre of zombie.
We develop Wes Craven’s horror theory that although we see houses as safe places this is not the case. We use this because we have our characters trying to evade the danger by entering a house, similar to the opening sequence of scream. Both Casey and out characters believe that entering the house will provide them with safety but before Casey can return to her home she is killed. We defy this as after the characters enter the house Alice transforms.
We followed the media product, the walking dead’s, use of lighting. We did this because we thought that is added a twist to typical horror conventions. As horror is nearly always filmed at night. We also believe that this allowed the audience to be able to notice the difference between the survivors and zombies which definitely added a higher level of fear to the sequence.
We also followed the convention of having the protagonist as teenagers. A example of a product that does this is zombieland. We chose to follow this convention as our target audience is mainly teenagers so this convention would appeal to them.
For our the zombie who was featured the most we chose a male actor who was tall as we thought this would make the villain of our film seem more intimidating to the audience. Examples of horror media products that do this include: warm bodies, Texas chainsaw massacre, and the shining and American phyco. This is an effective convention to follow as otherwise the audience will not find the killer as intimidating and therefore the product will not be as effective as it will no longer be deemed scary.
Another convention that we used is having zombies who do not possess basic human understanding and instead just want to kill people. Examples of films that also do this include 28 weeks later, 28 days later and dawn of the dead. We chose to do this as we believed that otherwise we wouldn't be able to have as much focus on survivors as we wanted.
We also chose to incorporate a human to zombie transition. A film that has also done this is world war z. We included this as we think that it is a vital part of any zombie movie, and also adds to the fear the audience will experience.
Script written by EB LP
Many media products have distribution and production companies that are relevant to their product. We specifically chose to make our own production and distribution company as we believed we would therefore be able to cater them to our product. For example we chose stormy seas as the name for the distribution as the seas would represent how our product will be distributed globally. For our production company we decided to name it Bloodstream productions as we wanted it to link in with the sub-genre of zombie.
We develop Wes Craven’s horror theory that although we see houses as safe places this is not the case. We use this because we have our characters trying to evade the danger by entering a house, similar to the opening sequence of scream. Both Casey and out characters believe that entering the house will provide them with safety but before Casey can return to her home she is killed. We defy this as after the characters enter the house Alice transforms.
We followed the media product, the walking dead’s, use of lighting. We did this because we thought that is added a twist to typical horror conventions. As horror is nearly always filmed at night. We also believe that this allowed the audience to be able to notice the difference between the survivors and zombies which definitely added a higher level of fear to the sequence.
We also followed the convention of having the protagonist as teenagers. A example of a product that does this is zombieland. We chose to follow this convention as our target audience is mainly teenagers so this convention would appeal to them.
For our the zombie who was featured the most we chose a male actor who was tall as we thought this would make the villain of our film seem more intimidating to the audience. Examples of horror media products that do this include: warm bodies, Texas chainsaw massacre, and the shining and American phyco. This is an effective convention to follow as otherwise the audience will not find the killer as intimidating and therefore the product will not be as effective as it will no longer be deemed scary.
Another convention that we used is having zombies who do not possess basic human understanding and instead just want to kill people. Examples of films that also do this include 28 weeks later, 28 days later and dawn of the dead. We chose to do this as we believed that otherwise we wouldn't be able to have as much focus on survivors as we wanted.
We also chose to incorporate a human to zombie transition. A film that has also done this is world war z. We included this as we think that it is a vital part of any zombie movie, and also adds to the fear the audience will experience.
Script written by EB LP