Evaluation question 4

Evaluation question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

 

Whilst researching into possible companies which may want to distribute our film I discovered Bounty Films. Bounty films are a good example of a company that would possibly want to distribute our film. Bounty films deal in small and independent films that are made on a low budget.

On the basis that our film is made on a low budget, and uses unknown actors, there would be no interest from huge production/distribution companies to have involvement in our film. It’s the first film and not a sequel, so there is no previous evidence or sales figures to go on, or to attract any investors. Bounty films specialise in small movies (that can sometimes be controversial) such as the human centipede.

Any small distribution company may be interested in our movie, as its fairly low risk involved in distributing it. Bounty films do specialise in the zombie/horror genre of distribution, and if the film sold well, would do the same for any sequels made (as they distributed the human centipede 1 + 2). Our company name of “dead cell productions” tried to fit in with the codes/conventions of the horror theme, both in its naming and its design.

Evaluation question 2

 

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The main character in our media production is named Alex mason. He is the survivor in a zombie apocalypse and works for a chemical company that created a cure for the disease that is turning people into “zombies”. The character that he represents and is compared to is Robert Neville (played by Will Smith) the leading role in the film I Am Legend.

Robert Neville: The character in I Am Legend is the supposed to be the last survivor on earth after the “infection”. He travels alone and carries with him just his gun and his dog for company. He wears just simply light clothing, a t shirt, open shirt and jeans. This character is very strong and independent, since he has nobody to take orders from; he is his own man and can do what he wants. He is very intelligent and is able to know when the infected come out, what to do and how to survive in the post apocalyptic world. The city that he is in is completely uninhabited and he is the only survivor.

Alex Mason: Our character is similar to Robert in many ways. He is also intelligent and knows how to handle his environment. The key difference in the two stories in that in our film, the zombie apocalypse is fairly premature, whereas in I Am Legend the world has been post apocalyptic for years. Alex doesn’t carry any guns or weapons, he works for a chemical company and his strong point is his mind. As you can see from the screen grabs below, the characters are dressed in a similar way. Both Alex and Robert have the whole storyline of the films based around them, with very little interaction with other characters.

Make up test

Before we went out filming we tested the acrylic paint we had got, to see what effects we could do with it. Lauren tested it out on herself and created a zombie bite mark on her neck. The great thing about acrylic paint is you can build up texture and layers (which is why we got 3 colors) as opposed to just buying the cheap fake blood and letting it run everywhere. So Lauren applied the paint in layers using the different colors and came up with some pretty cool effects.





The wound looks fairly dirty and messy which fits in perfectly with the movie! So with this done, the zombie outfit made everything was all set to shoot the film scene of the movie!

My zombie outfit

When creating my zombie outfit to wear i tried to stick to the conventional zombie look of Torn and tattered blood stained clothes. I didn't have a big budget to do it on however, unlike most movie makers.
So before creating it I looked around the internet and found some images of people in homemade zombie outfits to see if there was anything I could re-create.



Whilst looking I found this image which I took some inspiration from, I thought it best to use scissors and cut up some old clothes and add some blood, and try to make it look as good as possible.

I managed to create this, although not perfect i tore up an old t shirt and added a small amount of blood splats, when we went out filming I did add some dirt and some mud to this to make it look more realistic. 

Props

So with the final scene needing to be filmed shortly we had to a quire some props and make up to make me look like a zombie. Based on our research we found that zombie films often included Blood, and lots of it. so with this in mind we wanted to try and create a fairly realistic looking wound/blood splats on my face and neck area. To do this we decided it would be good to use some acrylic paint, as it was easy to work with, and wouldn't be too runny, meaning we could create some realistic looking effects.

After we had the paint all I had to do was create a zombie outfit to wear, then the final scene could begin.



Here are the tubes of acrylic paint we got, we thought that to get the best possible effect we should get a dark brown and 2 shades of red.

Ideal audience member

We decided to sit down and think about what our ideal target audience member would be and build up a character profile of them.

We related things to horror movies and what other interests a person may have and came up with:



Young adult/teenager. Aged 16-24.
Interested in heavy music, band such as Bring me the horizon, Slipknot and My chemical romance.
Enjoys seeings horror films with friends, likes things such as comics and Tv shows like Supernatural and Buffy the vampire slayer. Enjoys going to see live bands and uses social networking sites (tumblr, twitter, Facebook) often.

Using this information it helped us in thinking of ways to advertise our movie, and also helped us with our choice of music in the film. We had chosen to use a song by bring me the horizon which are a very popular, and recognizable band on the music scene.