Evaluation question 1:

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Title of the film

Title of the filmThe title of the film ‘devour’ was decided fairly early on in the planning and production process. I decided to use this title as it reflects the narrative of a zombie horror. It would also foreshadow to the audience that there would be a large amount of attacks and killings; mainly by zombies. The title also follows the conventional themes of my genre. This is evident in the films ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and ‘Dawn of the Dead’ which both indicate to the audience the presence of zombies. However my title is unconventional in the way that it is only one word; rather than a longer title. I think that the word ‘Devour’ is fairly self explanatory and doesn’t need to be explained further to the audience; they can interpret it themselves.

I took inspiration from the films ‘World War Z’ as I thought the red typography on a black background was very effective. I then found that the combination of red, white and black was even more effective, so I added this onto my title in the programme ‘Live Type’. In terms of the way it appears on the screen, I wanted it to ‘creep’ onto the screen slowly, to produce the atmosphere of tension. In addition to this I cut all of the non-diegetic soundtrack that was playing from the previous scene, to also keep the atmosphere of tension.

CreditsFor the credits I decided to follow the same typography as the titles, due to the fact that I thought the original typography was effective and should be used throughout the entire opening. I found that this was generally conventional in my chosen genre of zombie horror films, apparent in the films ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and ‘Night of the Living Dead’, two of the three films I researched at the beginning of the project. I was inspired by these examples as I thought the typography should remain the same all the way through the opening to keep the atmosphere created by them throughout.

In addition to this, I needed to choose where and when the titles should appear on the screen. I decided, taking inspiration from the initial research I completed, to place some titles on screens alone, and then some onto shots in the film. These could then be positioned in the shot, so I placed some in the middle and some in the left hand corner, or at the bottom, in response to my target audience feedback.

In terms of what credits I put onto the screen I used the timeline I created earlier in the process, taken from watching the film ‘Legally Blonde’. This helped me to see the vital elements that I needed to include in my credits such as editor and director as well as cast.

Characters

I researched conventional protagonist characters, as seen in the image on the left (Julie from Warm Bodies). I specifically looked at this character because it was specific to my sub-genre of zombie horror films. This is also why I chose a female to play the part of the main protagonist.In addition to this I decided to only have one protagonist in the opening sequence to make the chase scene seem more desperate as the young female is clearly all by herself.

Settings/locationsFrom research I found that the general common settings and locations in horror films, specifically zombie horror films, were remote areas such as woods, But in addition to this, they took place in deserted cities or towns (e.g. in 28 Days Later). I thought that this was effective, but it wouldn’t be possible on a low budget film. So from this I decided to go down the route of using a remote location, specifically for the chase scene to emphasise the danger the protagonist is in.

If I was to create my film on a high-budget scale to a tent pole audience, I would utilise the idea of a deserted city or town, as this would create a bigger impact on the audience in terms of the scale of the zombie attacks. This is also one of the reasons I created a range of establishing shots to indicate to the audience the scale of the zombie attacks.

CostumesFrom research I found that costumes for zombies were mainly ‘normal’ common clothing. As my zombie character was a young woman I found that common clothes of this age range was t-shirts and jeans. I also decided to use a white t-shirt for my zombie so the blood on the t-shirt was more easily visible.

In terms of my protagonist character, I also followed the conventions of zombie horror films by dressing the young female in a shirt and jeans with boots. This followed the conventions of protagonist characters, as seen in the image below. I wanted to present the character as an ‘average teenager’ as this would make the chase scene more dramatic as it would show the audience ‘this could happen to anyone.’

Camera workFrom research I discovered that the camera was used conventionally in existing zombie horror film openings to establish the location or setting of the film. For example in the opening of the film ‘World War Z’ the camera was used in a static position to show various locations in the opening sequence. As I thought this was an effective way of establishing a narrative I decided to follow the conventions of horror films, specifically zombie horror films.

However to enhance this further, for the opening of my film I decided to use a pan left and right in my establishing shots, so it would give the effect to the audience of the scenes being ‘revealed’.

EditingIn my opening I decided to use a dual narrative, so the use of editing was vital. To represent the change I used a ‘fade to white’ video transition, whereas for establishing shots I used a cut between each scenes.

The editing in my film was used to create a quick pace, with many of the shorter shots being cut straight next to each other. Rather than using a longer transition in the action sequence (the chase scene) I used basic cuts as this would help the audience to focus on the narrative, and the fact that it is all sequential, with no large gap in time.

The image below shows an example of a video transition I used to create the idea of a dual narrative. (Fade to white)