EVALUATION

Here are the paragraphs that I have written in response to the questions I have for the evaluation:

IN WHAT WAY DOES YOUR MEDIA PROJECT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

We have tried to stick to the accepted conventions of a real zombie film. We researched it and found that while George A. Romero’s rules of how he believed a zombie film should be, they are being outdated by the new generation of zombies. During the refilm, we started by sticking to the old school way of doing it – shuffling, brain dead corpses who really aren’t that much of a threat until you were surrounded. These zombies were native to the serious, terrifying style of zombie thriller. It wasn’t until we were half way through filming our second draft before we realised that this was exactly not what we were trying to make. So we switched to the other style of zombie. The new generation. They are fast and require a lot more fighting on the humans behalf and go hand in hand with the comedy zombie films such as Zombieland. So we decided to adopt and make use this convention of zombie film as we have stated repeatedly throughout the process that we want it to be funny.

For this question, when I talk about George A. Romero's conventions of a traditional zombie film I will show a clip of the zombies from Day of the Dead:
[insert clip]

And again, when I talk about Zombieland, I will show a clip as an example of the new generation zombies featured in Zombieland:
[insert clip]
When I talk about our versions, I will show an example of traditional zombies in our first draft and new generation zombies in our second draft:
[insert clips]
_____________________________________________________________________________

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS MEDIA PRODUCT?

We used a range of technologies to create our film opening such as the film editing software, sony vegas and adobe premiere elements, both of which i have used before for my own personal projects, but which everyone else was new to. We also used audacity for the voice over bits, the last time we had used this was at least three years ago so it took us a while to get to know it again. While using this, we learnt that you need to be very close to the microphone to get any kind of noise and also that it is better to make the noise loud in the first place than have it quieter and make it louder because it distorts much quicker as you turn the volume up. We also learnt that there is a very noticably difference between high definition and standard definition, which is apparent when you look at the quality of the first draft of our film and the second.

For this question, I will show screen prints of each piece of software I talk about, sometimes in context of my blog:

 

The points that I will talk about for the joint question are:

• organisation
• time scale

EVALUATION

As the end of our project each group has to complete seven questions for their evaluation. These only have to be completed once between the group and they can be presented using any form of technology, be it a jing, a prezi or a little film. The examiners would prefer us to use more than one type of media and in my opinion, the best way to do it would be to use a type of media that doesn't require explaining to the class, soemthing that speaks for itself.

Keeping this in mind, my group and I have decided to answer each question in person in front of a green screen which we will change post production to be our film with our blogs coming up when we need to explain something. This means that we have prerecorded us speaking and it will not need to be said again when showing the class. The end product, we hope, will be something like a weather reporter talking in front of a map, or a sign language translater in front of a television programme.

Here is an example of an evaluation from last year who have let it speak for them rather than explaining it in front of the class: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubhs_TwgtpY

We have divided the questions between us, but because there are 3 of us and 7 questions we are each going to answer 2 questions and we will share answering the final question:

ERNIE'S:

• Who was the audiene for your media product?
• How did you attract/address you audience?

TAS'S:

•  How does your media product present particular social groups?
• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? 

MINE:

• In what way does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this media product?

The question we will share is:

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

REFILM 11/03/12

On Saturday the 11th of March, we refilmed our zombie film opening.

We decided that in order to fit in all of our filming and a fair amount of editing we would start early, at 11 o'clock.

We had 4 outside actors as well as Ernie and Tas who were two of the zombies. The other actors were:

• Alec Cook - a human survivor who died at the end
• Richard Baron - a human survivor who lived
• Micaela Fernandes - a zombie
• Jonny Kruip - a zombie who died

In total it took about an hour and half to do all of the makeup. We decided to add more to the humans this time as in the last one, they seemed a little un-phased by the zombie apocalypse. This time we added dirt, blood and bandages to them.
For the zombies, we decided to use Dolmio bolognese sauce instead of bake beans as it is thicker and more obvious on camera. Overall it was much mroe effective.

We put all of our bags and things under the stairs in the bottom of a block of flats in which one of our zombies lives. This way there would be no chance of us catching them on camera.

We used Tas's camera this time which appears a little more technical than the Sanyo camera we borrowed from the school last time, however I have not compared the specifications yet so I don't know the actual differences. The only thing I would say is that the image doesn't appear to be as clear as on the first camera.

We had finished filming by 3 o'clock and we cleared up and went home. Ernie and Tas came to my house at 4 o'clock to start editing. This time we used Adobe Premiere Elements rather than Sony Vegas for the simple reason that my free trial had run out and I had not bought it. However, in my opinion, Adobe Premiere Elements is just as good as Sony Vegas.

It took 9 hours in total to edit the film. We are very pleased with it and the only thing left to change is the title board at the end. Ernie is in the process of emailing the GIF to me so that I can add it to our piece.

This is our final draft of our zombie film opening: Not Quite Alive But Definitely Kicking

After showing it to our media studies teacher and getting some very minor suggestions to make it even better we made the following changes:

• We made the word 'productions' more visible on the production logo
• We added sound to the production logo
• We moved the title board to the middle
• We changed the title board to the official one
• We moved all of the actors names to the middle
• We decreased the volume of the narration
• We decreased the volume of the wind

I also wanted to make a Jing to experiment with using and editing it So I made one showing the my adding the final touches to our film opening, checking it and putting it on Youtube.

Here is the draft that we hope will be our last that we will present to the class tomorrow. Any further suggestions will be taken into account and we may or may not be able to make the changes accordingly.

PRODUCTION LOGO

This is the first draft of our chosen production logo. Ernie thinks that the colours can still be improved but I disagree and think that they are perfect. Overall I am very impressed with this and think that the composition and the images really work. My only criticism is that the production in the bottom of the second E could be bolder, at the moment it is difficult to see.

REFILMING 05/03/12

On Sunday, we had arranged to refilm in order to eliminate the mistakes that we have listed. However, on the day, after arriving and setting, 8 of our 9 actors contacted us saying that they could not make it. This was due to a mix of problems such as too much of their own work and the poor weather.

We used the time that we spent there productively though by experimenting with the makeup. The original makeup consisted of white facepaint with dark eyes. However, we felt that this was not subtle enough.

Our revised makeup consists of yellow facepaint with red around the eyes and latex 'gory wounds' pasted onto the skin. This is much more effective we feel and now that we have had practice, when we do actually refilm, it will be much more efficient for us to do the makeup and give us the maximum length of time for filming.

We will be refilming on Saturday and this time we will nto make the mistake of choosing actors who are unsure of whether they will be able to make it or not. 



NARRATION

We have started deciding on the narration for our film opening.

It has to be in the style of a wildlife documentary so below is an example of David Attenborough narrating the wolf section of Life Of Mammals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UH-6r5jrGI

We are going to use this to draw the similarities between the wolves featured at the start and the zombies throughout with the narration mirroring the zombies actions. It will emphasise the animalistic nature of the zombies.

Here is our first draft of the narration. we are basing it on our first draft of our film opening so we will adjust it and fine tune it once we have edited our draft again so that it fits the action exactly.

We have also been looking at sound effects for the beginning of the film. It was suggested to us that we could use bird sounds or car sounds as ambient noise before the music starts. However, we feel that this would be contradicting the dead nature of the surroundings. So we have agreed on having some wind noises. This also has the connotations of a wild west in empty shots of the deserts with some tumbleweed and wind sound effects and this may bring more comedy to our piece.

This is an example of the type of wind sound that we will use however, we will spend more time looking on the internet until we find one that is of a better quality.

FACEBOOK EVENT

In order to recruit actors, I have created a facebook event.

So far, I have only stated the dates and the time and how many we need so that those who want to do it and those who can do are seperated.
After we have organised who is acting as what, we will send out a list of requirements concerning constume and makeup etc.

However, despite the event being live for just over a week, we have had no responses so we are going to have to start ambushing drama classes and trying to recruit actors this way.