Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or

 challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and 

ancillary tasks?

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Question 4

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Forms and Conventions

Question 1 – Forms and conventions

The zombie genre evolves depending on changing dynamics in politics, social issues and popular culture and often highlights or challenges established norms and social ideals. Our film highlights the idea of passive learning in schools and how it changes students into mindless ‘zombies’ (if you will) with no free thought of their own.

In the genre theorist Rick Altman’s 1999 piece ‘A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre’ he states that in the new millennium, films of the zombie genre have taken on new Semantic and Syntactic forms. Semantics being the study of meaning and Syntax the study of various signs which appear in a system and the possible arrangement of those signs. Contemporary zombie films have evolved from the B-movies uninterested in a deeper narrative and wider meaning to films centred on social and political conflict and exploring the human condition. This questioning of what makes us human is popular amongst film makers as zombies are humans who have been forced into their most primitive state and stripped of all emotion. Though even this idea of emotionless zombies has been challenged in such films as ‘Day of the Dead’ (1985) and ‘Warm Bodies’ (2013). This is a clear example of how this genre is constantly evolving and changing.     

Zombie films traditionally have no fixed narrative which gives the film makers the freedom to blend other genres with the zombie one including; romance, farce, parody, comedy, human drama, social realism etc. In our film we have included a romance sub-plot of a love triangle which runs alongside the apocalypse and survivor plot. For inspiration we looked at trailer’s for teenage romance films such as ’10 Things I Hate About You’ (1999) and found that the romantic hero and heroine’s story is set up in generally the same format. At the beginning of the trailer the guy is seen looking longingly at the girl. Later there is a shot-reverse-shot shown of them looking at each other and then near the end of the trailer they are seen together in a romantic way in the same shot. We have followed these conventions which our shots depicting Sam and Sebastian. We have also followed the convention of having a heterosexual relationship with the man who does the longing after the girl as this complies with both Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ and the patriarchal society within which our plot is set.

The majority of modern zombie films are designed to tap into the post 9/11 consciousness as much like zombies; mass terrorism is a threat against the people of the western world and its Governmental structure.

‘Night of the Living Dead’ (1968) had a black male lead that was mistaken for a zombie at the end and shot. The closing scenes of the film show him being carried away on meat hooks and burned. Many people believe this to be commenting on the slave trade and/or treatment of black Americans at the time as Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated (shot) the year the film was released. ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (1978) is based mainly in a shopping mall and is Romero commenting on consumerism and how it has taken a hold of society.  

Unlike vampires and werewolves, Zombies undeniably human. A Zombie is a human who has been stripped of humanity in a way and so is the most basic and instinctual form of us. Like the phrase, ‘We are our own worst enemy’, Zombies are scary because they are us. Unlike vampires, zombies are rarely ever considered ‘evil’ but rather unfortunate.

Common conventions from zombie films which we have used are;

• We have shots at the beginning of the trailer which establish equilibrium and ‘The calm before the storm’
• Our Zombies are wearing a variety of different outfits so suggest that people from all walks of life and situations are affected by the virus. This coincides with the ideal that Zombie films are anti capitalism.
• We have a male protagonist who though the film fights for the safety of his female love interest. This confirms Laura Mulvey’s theory of the ‘Male Gaze’.
• We have shots of a hoard of Zombies to show the gravity of the situation and how the virus has spread. In Zombie films, Zombies usually outnumber the humans and we have shown this in our trailer by depicting the majority of the characters in our trailer as Zombies with only a few humans.  
• Action shots of running, hitting, eating, panicking etc. which highlight the action element present in many Zombie films.
• We have used an eerie soundtrack at the beginning and a more dramatic action soundtrack during the apocalypse scenes which become increasingly dramatic and fast, building up to the climax at the end. 
• In some shots we use a hand-held shaky camera. This is a convention in Zombie films and mirrors the panic of the characters and weak foundations which humanity and society are resting on. 

Our protagonists also follow common stereotypes found in Zombie films and also laid out by the media theorist Vladimir Propp.  

An anti-hero is not villain but there simply to be compared against the hero and cause minor conflict with them. The anti-hero is not outright bad but does have a lack of heroic or moral qualities. Many anti-heroes join forces with the heroes to fight against the villain.

In our trailer Sebastian is the hero and Jason the anti-hero. Jason joins forces with Sebastian to fight the zombies and to keep Samantha, the final girl, safe.

Samantha is an interesting character as she carries attributes of two very conflicting stock characters, the princess and the final girl. The princess is a female character who needs saving by the Hero, much like Samantha is kept safe by Sebastian (the hero) and also Jason (the anti-hero). Though she can also be considered as a final girl as she is the last female character alive within their group and has an androgynous name (Sam).

The character of Sebastian does not follow the conventions of a traditional hero, though in many modern films we are seeing the rise of what is called the ‘Nerd Hero’. This is a character who is considered ‘nerdy’ or ‘geeky’ due to his awkward social skills, general manner and dress. However the Nerd Hero is gifted at using technology has a fierce moral code and is considered a nice person. The rise of this character follows how the world is becoming more and more dependent on technology and so those who create or use it become more powerful and important within society. Examples of Heroes with these attributes are Columbus from Zombieland and Robert Neville from I Am Legend. Through his dress and mannerisms, Sebastian has the attributes of a ‘Nerd Hero’.        

What have you learnt through Audience Feedback?

What have you learnt though audience feedback?

Throughout creating our Trailer, Poster and Website we constantly had our target market looking at our work and commenting on it. Our target market being male and females aged 17-21.

Through audience feedback we learned that in the first cut of our trailer we had not made the romance element in our plot clear enough. We later shot more scenes with the characters of Samantha, Sebastian and Jason to fit into our trailer.

After completing our final cut of our trailer we had a showing where our target market could fill out the questionnaire afterwards. This included the questions

• What ages do you think our film trailer is intended for?
• What gender do you believe this film is intended for?
• What genre is our film?
• Is the storyline clear?
• How are the zombies created? A nuclear explosion, virus, science experiment, animal bite, aliens or divine intervention?
• What is your favourite bit?
• What is your least favourite bit?
• What effect do you think the music has on this trailer?

From the audience feedback of 15 questionnaires we concluded that everybody understood the trailer was for 17-21 year olds and also for both a male and female audience. Everybody also understood that the genre was horror/zombie; they all agreed that the storyline was clear and understood that the zombies were created through a science experiment. The effect that people felt the music had on the trailer was; it built tension, builds suspense, was scary, increased pace, was dramatic.

The majorities of peoples favourite part was the shock ending of the zombie coming at the screen. Other popular moments were the love story, the zombies in the field and the zombie make-up. 

We also used Facebook to post a link to our trailer.  The function of the like button allowed the audience to 'like' the video if they enjoyed it.  They could also post any of their comments on the video there two.  This feedback was 100% positive.  

We were very happy with the feedback from the questionnaires as the results supported our intentions for the trailer.  

New Media Technologies - Evaluation question

New media technologies were crucial to the overall creation of our film trailer, poster, website and blog. Without them this task would have been impossible. The use of a camera (The Cannon EOS 600D) in the construction phase of our trailer meant that we were able to capture the shots designed for our trailer in high quality. This particular camera also had greater zoom than if we were to have used on of the school's cameras.
we used our camera phones in the planning stages, when were were location scouting. The fact that camera phones are easily portable and often with a decent mega pixel camera allowed us to take a photo of any potential areas that looked desolate enough to have been through a zombie apocalypse. The apple macs were a new media technology that was vital to the success of our trailer, website, blog and poster.
 The first application we used was Safari, to access the Internet. the Internet was useful as it allowed us to gather information and research. we used Youtube to research how to create effective wounds., which greatly aided the quality of zombie movie. We then used the Intenet to create various pages on social networking sites, including; Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook as well as Blogger. By creating and updating these interactive social networks we aimed to connect with our ideal target audience, teenagers.
By using the macs we were also able to use Imovie. This allowed us to upload our footage to the computers as well as edit the shot. We could cut the clip, change the speed, change he colour saturation, as well as flip the image and rearrange the shots until we had reached the desired product.
I move also allowed us to add music to improve the atmosphere of our trailer. We used Youtube converter to download a royalty free piece of music that added pace.
However for the first part of the trailer we wanted non-diegetic low strings to build tension. But we could not find the sound we wanted on Youtube or in the pre-recorded section of Garageband. So we used the keyboard and using a cello sound we made a sustained minor chord.
Using Iphoto was fundamental to the development of our ancillary tasks. On the homepage of our website we had alternating screen shots from our trailer. We used it for the same purpose with the blog and for the poster.
When creating the poster we also use Microsoft word on the computers a our Apple macs didn't have photo shop or an equivalent photo editing software.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

As part of our promotional package for the fictitious film ‘X Y DEAD’ we created a website and movie poster. In order to make the texts relate to one another effectively we followed the same themes in the ancillary tasks as in the trailer.

Throughout the package we have used the same title, the red writing resembles blood splattering and dripping which translates well from the zombie horror genre. This is used in the trailer, poster and front page of the website and creates a clear combination between them. The use of the same title is found in most promotional film packages, for example, Django Unchained, a recently released film from Quentin Tarentino film. In the poster, trailer and website the title is the same, in this case they have also used the logo of the chain which appears in each item of the package.

Though our package doesn’t use a clear logo in it, the zombie in the poster features many times in our trailer, so it is the most recognisable image. Especially because of it's eyes with only the small pupils. This is why we chose to have this zombie for the poster rather than any other.

 The eyes of this zombie is an image shown in the automatic slideshow on our website. The image is made more powerful by the vacant expression of the zombie, mixed with the blood on the face, and the treatening eyes, an effect made by iris-less contact lense. The empty eyes are a feature found many times throughout the package, as in the film they are the most recognisable feature that distinguishes the zombies from the humans.

In our trailer we used a colour filter to make the shots more eerie and so to build a mid-apocalyptic feeling. This was done by increasing the exposure and contrast as well as enhancing the blues. We also did this for our poster so that the same effect is achieved when looking at the poster as watching the trailer.

In the poster the reds have also been intensified to bring out the blood on the zombie. By doing this the blood becomes the same colour as the title further tying the trailer and ancillary texts together. This deep red colour represents blood and so is present throughout the whole package. The colour scheme of the website is black and deep red as it is on the title on the trailer. This colour clearly represents the zombie genre and highlights the huge amount of blood and gore associated with it.

Shown together it is clear that the trailer, poster and website relate to each other strongly and work together to create a desirable film package.