Evaluation

Apocalypse How?

Evaluation

Apocalypse How?

 

My media production challenges regular film conventions as it is a mixes two genres into one film, it is a horror film as the pretenses of the film, a zombie apocalypse and 3 teenage Caucasian male leads that do not know what is happening, but comedy has been introduced as the reason they do not know what is happening is because they slept through the apocalypse/ the rapture because of a hangover. The sort of film I wanted to have was a sort of film like ‘Shaun of the Dead’(2004) staring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, that’s why I did my film in this convention … I wanted my film to be a sort of cross between ‘Dawn of the Dead’(1978) (George A Romero) and ‘The Hangover’ (2007)with an English styled subtle comedy portrayed by films such as ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and ‘Hot Fuzz’(2007).

My film used a light atmosphere, to show the more light/ upbeat to show the more comedic aspect, we also used that atmosphere that people can relate to. The main idea of the film is to put the viewer in the shoes of the characters, seeing these normal people in a world they didn't know existed, I want the audience to think even if it’s just for a moment to question themselves and ask what would it be like if they were pushed into the world of the undead, what would they do and how would they react to it. But it was also important for me to have comedy in the film, that way we can sort of see a funny side to these people being dropped into this situation they don’t understand, and that’s why in my film opening I decided to try and make the film have a relaxed atmosphere.

My production shows the stereotypical quite nerdy teenage male group, we have a nervous character that is quite quiet and worries about most things but is also the butt of the jokes, played as the character ‘Harrison’, we also have the fat guy, the comedic center of the group and is the one who makes all of the jokes and isn't really afraid of offending people depicted by Steve Moore playing a mixture of himself and some of the character ‘Ed’ from ‘Shaun of the Dead’(2004). And then we have the final part of the group the one that is the more stupid one, the character that doesn't really understand a joke nor understand what’s going on but goes along with it and tries to contribute with a conversation and stay with the other group members because he thinks it’s fun, and that character is ‘Ed’ played by Ed Shiers, Ed represents the innocence in the group, he just wants to be a part of what’s happening, that’s why if we were making a full feature length production ‘Ed’ would be the character the audience feels the most for because he isn’t complaining about what’s happening he is just accepting it and trying to keep the group together, he is very much the character of ‘Allan’ played by Zach Galifanakis. Although it times the group seem annoyed with him, he is the one to really keep the group together and I believe that’s what ‘Ed’ is.

Would most likely be the production company that would be involved with the distribution of my film because it is an English film company that have released many films in all genres comedy, drama, horror, thriller and even romcom’s, they have distributed films such as :

This is why I believe that ‘Film4’ would be perfect for my film as they participate with a very wide range of very successful films, but they are not as big as the major conglomerates such as companies like ‘Time Warner’ or ‘Fox’ also it is a British distribution company which is a lot more approachable for making smaller budget films, and although my film does have horror elements it has many comedy elements so it wouldn't fit in with the company such as ‘Hammer Films’ which released many of the biggest British horror films such as the classics like ‘Dracula’ (1958) starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, they also recently released the latest horror installment ‘The Woman in Black’(2012) staring Daniel Radcliff, which was a big hit and had a very big budget which is why I don’t believe ‘Apocalypse How?’ would fit in with the ‘Hammer films’ films. 

The audience for the film would be people aged 15 – 20’s (The film would be rated 15) mostly people like the characters in the film, mainly I’d assume teenagers would enjoy the film as it is in the perspective from a group of incredibly normal group of teenagers, well a normal group of nerdy teenagers. That’s why I would suspect mainly teenagers would view the film as I think they would be able to relate to the characters in the situation not knowing how they themselves would cope in a zombie apocalypse. There is no real targeted class in the audience but I would say that more middle class people would be attracted to the film, as that’s the social class of the characters I think more male members of the population would watch the film as they might find it easier to relate to the characters, and may even have the same sort of conversations with their friends what would WE DO in an apocalypse? I also think it would be younger audience members, because of the genre of ‘ZOM COM’ it would require people to have the same level of maturity of the actors in the film.

I would attract my audience with a viral marketing campaign (similar to the movie ‘Cloverfield’) it would start with a deal with ‘YouTube’ where a channel would be added with the name of one of the characters in the film, then videos would be released over time, they would contain videos that looked like mobile phone camera footage of the characters running away from something, the clips would only be a few seconds long and be released over a period of a year never revealing the true antagonists of the film … the undead. and finally in the last viral video the audience would finally see the title of the film and the release date … so the audience would finally know what the videos they have been drip fed over the course of a year. And hopefully leaving them questioning what’s going to happen in the film and to the characters and if any of the people they saw on the clips are in the film and hopefully that may entice people to come and see the film. I would also use ‘Facebook’ to my advantage by anonymously sharing pictures and allowing them to get spread around so more and more people would see them, I would do the same on ‘Twitter’ with the sharing or re tweets of the pictures and when the big reveal takes place I would have the film advertised on the side of the   page.    

      

I have learnt a great many things over the course of the past year both on the technical side of media and the practical side of media, I have learnt about all of the necessary camera angles that are needed in film I have also learnt about the mise en scene, the sounds and the Editing, and from what I have learnt in the class room I have been able to portray in my media production. I have learnt how to successfully operate a tripod with a steady hand as well as master filming using ‘Sony HD 1080i’ video camera in order to make my 3 minute long film opening, I have also learnt how to successfully edit my shots in order to make a linear film on ‘Adobe Premiere’ editing and splicing shots together and also adding in titles (including a title of a production company that I made up) and add music to show the atmosphere of the film, and although the music is quite upbeat I believe that it shows clearly the genre of film I have made. I have tried to challenge the norms in making a horror film with comedy elements much like ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and even ‘Joss Whedon’s’ ‘Cabin in the Woods’ and from this came what I believe to be a successful media production that challenges conventions whilst still showing  the technical skills needed to be a film maker in the future. With what I have learnt this year I am very confident that the mistakes that were made in my production will not be made again next year, because of my analysis of my own film I can see clearly how I could have made it much better, including continuity errors (Duvet not on floor and as we walk downstairs I lost my hoodie and Steve gained his) but also in terms of props and story line I believe that next year I can prove myself much more in comparison to this year’s work.

“Before time began there was” … the prelim task, which is where we learnt the basic premises of film making where we learnt about the 180 degree rule, and the basic rules of mise on scene, camera angles and editing, from what we learnt doing the preliminary task I was able to transfer into my final media production. Making sure that all of my shots made sense and were fluent telling the story and making sure it is easy to follow the characters and what’s going on. But what was the biggest difference from the prelim and ‘Apocalypse How?’ was writing the story and trying to make connections between characters and the audience hoping that they would care and relate to the characters, although the main problem was thinking an original idea, as we know zombies and horrors have been made countless times but I can only think of a few films that have challenged the conventions of horror by adding a large comedic aspect to it films like ‘Shaun of the Dead’ (2004) and ‘Zombieland’ (2009), but I feel like I was able to challenge the conventions and made it work quite well. Although to portray this I had to use many types of camera angles and shots, to show the shock between myself and Steve upon discovering what we assume is Ed’s dead body we had to do a shot reverse shot, also we had a shot reverse shot when the characters are having a conversation. We even used some over the shoulder shots; this was to show a different view of Ed but also show that even though Ed was covered in blood I and Steve had power over him as he was dazed and confused and didn't know what was going. We had to make sure we stuck on to the 180 degree rule so it makes sense to the audience and that we don’t seem to just hop around creating a big and really confusing continuity error. I feel that although my story wasn't a huge success I feel the camera angles and shots work well, in my film I added some different effects and a lot of fades, but because I was trying to challenge conventions so I took out the colour changes, because I wanted my film to look like what it would be for anyone thinking it was a normal day and for it to escalate into something that really isn't expected … making it look like the world was exactly the same even though it would never be the same again.