Evaluation question 1

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

We followed many conventions of real media products, in that we followed the same processes when creating the product. All film makers test different camera angles and shots to see which they prefer, similar to how we created a short preliminary task to try out shots and angles. We created a story board for each part of the film opening which is exactly what must be done for real media products. We also researched into existing media products to draw inspiration for our own, and spent a long time choosing appropriate locations and music to fit with the film opening.

In a real media product the opening scene must do a number of things, including introducing characters, establish the setting of the film and make it clear of the products genre. We established the main character, mainly due to the fact that despite the infected zombies, he is the only character remaining, and is thus the focal point of the film. The zombies can be identified by their messy domineer, ripped clothes and animalistic behaviour and movement. This is a key convention of the zombie sub genre. We did however challenge some conventions as in many zombie films, the zombies themselves are slow and sluggish and we decided that to have a more intense chase scene the zombies needed to be quick and agile. I feel that this worked very well and made our product stand out to others all ready in existence.

The setting was created in our opening scene to appear lifeless and desolate. We did this by only having Dan in the shot, and no traffic or members of the public. The music also helps the audience to feel the settings isolated and dead environment. Many other film openings use either fast or slow music to help set the scene and create an atmosphere. We used the atmosphere of the scene to make the genre obvious to the reader. The slow music at the start creates an atmosphere of isolation and desolation, typical of the post-apocalyptic genre, which is a sub genre of horror. The zombie scream and zombie characters themselves, who are covered in blood are typical of the horror genre, again making it clear to the audience. We developed this by using fast music during the chase to create a build of tension and amplify speed. This makes the scene more intense, again typical of the horror genre.

Overall i would say that our Film opening certainly follows conventions that existing film opening follow, however we have challenged some of these conventions by trying things differently and experimenting during pre-production and production. We also developed conventions of existing zombie films, for example making the zombies faster, in my opinion making the product better and therefore will become more successful.