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

By Ellis Byrnes

NarrativeTo establish a plot, each member of our group created a storyline for a potential film of any genre, after we read through these plots we decided to choose one based on the majority group vote. This led to us choosing to create a horror, more specifically, of the zombie genre. After this, we worked together to develop a script and we based this script on the previous research we had done on zombie films and conventions of the horror genre. We made sure that the storyline within our sequence would be Linear as we wanted to add a dimension of reality for the audience, with them seeing the storyline from David’s perspective. To write our script we used Celtx as it allowed us to put in descriptions and directions for the actors as well as the script itself.

Our story features a man called David awaking from a coma in a post apocalyptic environment, after exploring he comes into contact with Steve and Sarah, two other survivors, these two then take David and interrogate him before the group is attacked by Zombies and all three of them run for their lives.

Film TitleThe title of our film is Epidemic, which means ”a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time.” This allows the audience to understand that the film is in fact about an infection and it relates to the storyline itself. We came up with this name through group discussion and we chose to have a name that would more or less summarize the narrative of the film without spoiling anything. As well as this we didn’t want to involve the word “Dead” or “Zombie” in our title sequence as zombie films commonly have this word within their title, for example, “Dawn of the dead” or “White Zombie”. We wanted to draw away from this convention and make our film title distinguishable from others. As Well as this, I think that our film title will intrigue viewers as it doesn’t specify anything else about the film other than it is about a virus.

For our title sequence we wanted to have something that represented a broken down society and the slow piano used within the title sequence gives it an emotional feel. We looked at numerous title sequences and took aspects from each, an example of this would be the static and the extremely quick shot of a zombie. We took this from the introduction/title sequence of the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, as well as this our film also took the way in which Dawn of the Dead used static and screen breaks in order to emphasis the way in which the virus is making things go wrong and bringing about panic in our own film. The logo for our title sequence was inspired by Danny Boyle’s 28 Days later, It is also the hazardous symbol for an epidemic.

The title for our film was placed on a black background with a white font, this creates a direct contrast and makes it easy for the viewer to see the title. The typography in our film was minimal, we used a thin lightweight text with no serifs on the text. We added a glow onto the Epidemic title at the end and we did this using Adobe’s After-Effects.

The Setting/ Location

We decided to keep the same overall setting ( not jumping from place to place, sticking within the same building) within our starting sequence as it solidifies the location and it doesn’t confuse the viewer, it also shows that there is no large passage of time after the start of the film and the events in our starting sequence take place within a single day.

We chose the setting of a hospital for numerous reasons, One of these reasons would be that we wanted to place our character in an unfamiliar situation, the situation being waking up a period of time after the downfall of society in order for the audience to see how one would adapt in this post apocalyptic environment. It’s also quite a common location for productions of this genre, TV series like “The Walking Dead” and films such as “28 Days later” both begin in hospital settings and these turned out to become successful franchises and this was one of the main reasons we chose this setting. We particularly took influence from “28 Days Later with the introduction of our character being very similar to the way in which it was done in Danny Boyle’s film. The convention that hospitals should symbolise curing illness and being safe are reversed in our film, this is unnatural for the audience and therefore it will be more likely for them to be affected by our opening sequence. The location is abandoned and this makes the film more creepy, There is no use of high key lighting which reflects a real life situation and this realism makes it a more intense viewing for the audience because it allows them to place themselves within the characters shoes.

Costumes, Makeup and propsFor our main character (David) we wanted him to be easily distinguishable from any other characters therefore we dressed him in hospital robes and bandages, not only does this give him a unique, almost iconic look, it also shows the character that he has been in hospital and has suffered some sort of injury.

Other characters’ costumes (Sarah and Steve) were made plain, both in a very similar style to show that they work together and their dark clothes adds a sense of mystery as it is in our two minute sequence it isn’t established whether or not these characters are good or bad which brings about a sense of uncertainty to the film.

Finally, We used a lot of makeup when creating our zombies, we had them dressed as regular civilians and this is because this is most likely what it would be like in a real life scenario, people would be caught off guard and wouldn’t have time to prepare. The use of fake blood and gore tells the audience about the genre of film as this is a common aspect of Zombie Horror.

Camera work, Editing and Continuity.

In Epidemic, we decided to focus on the use of point of view shots, this is because it allows the audience to relate to David and also this is something that I have never seen predominantly used in this genre of film so we decided to use it to see if it would work effectively. The use of a handheld camera for these parts creates a frantic atmosphere and reflects the feelings of the character. We also used wide angle shots and panning shots which introduced scenes.

Originally, We wanted to create smooth slow motion effects within the film however the camera didn’t have a high enough framerate for it to work effectively, and although we still placed it within the film it doesn’t look as good as we intended it to. 

We used jump cuts to cut out what would otherwise be boring movements in a dragged out shot. We had a couple of difficult shots involving being very close to the camera and the camera swinging to the side, these shots were used to show that the character has been hurt or punched from a first person perspective. At more frantic or dangerous points in the film we used shot takes and fast paced editing whereas we used slower takes when the character first wakes up and is getting a hold of what is going on. A particular two shot was used in order to display to the audience which character was in control.

As for continuity, overall we did rather well and the majority of our sequence remained smooth throughout, the only major aspect I noticed that broke continuity is between 1:50 and 1:53, of our 2:55 second long sequence, It can be seen in the background that a cup on the corner of the table disappears between the two shots.

Genre

Looking back in our film, We established a plot through the use of a current “Epidemic” or “Virus” and this is because this follows one of the main conventions on how other films from out genre (Zombie Horror) produce a narrative to work from. “I am legend” (2006), “Dawn of the Dead” (1978, 2004) and “Return of the living Dead” (1985) all have their plot established by some form of virus taking hold of people. In order to establish this we used a news/Media announcement which is similar to what happens at the start of “I am Legend” and it is easy to tell that this is a zombie film because of the use of blood, isolated environments and also of course, zombies. There is no aspect of the film that points to it being a positive happy film, in fact the way in which the character walks around in a delusion as soon as he awakes shows the audience that something bad has happened.

The sounds effects we used were high pitched whistles, zombie groans and sounds of discomfort (Heavy breathing, throwing up) and all of these are quite piercing to listen to, further pointing to the film being of the horror genre. This is also accompanied with short periods of silence which represents the idea that the character is alone. There is also the contrasting use of heavy rock music during the confrontation scene and a soft, emotional piano track during the title sequence. This was done for the purpose of juxtaposition so an immediate comparison can be made between the two tracks, with the heavier track representing a high intensity action scene and the softer track reflecting the realisation of the character.