Document/ Image-Personal Evaluation

Because there was a problem with loading pictures onto the blog alongside the images, I have taken screen shots of the original pages with the images.
Nonetheless I have put the text beneath, without the images:

Media Studies                                                                      El Long Self Evaluation of my Two Minute Film Opening; Game Over The initial concept of my film was to really lay out the genre of the film (being a sci-fi action) which would have included a variety of different effects and shots: These would be shown through the use of her goggles, which I was hoping to emphasise as something that would be considered iconic for her character. She would have used them during the Virtual Reality Simulation, which in itself I was to emphasis her going into by creating an animated scene where she fell into the back of a portal. I had the initial clip of the portal which I decided against putting into the film, using a simple effect of fading the scene out to white, before then introducing the title of the film.

Title For the title I wanted a somewhat retro look to it; I wanted a dripping animation of blood for a foreshadowing effect/ dramatic irony of the title perhaps hinting that the character who has just been seen is to die later on. The retro idea came from the initial sound track that I came across, spurring the entire idea of my film, so instead of using an animation programme to attempt a dripping effect, I went to the basics and used a combination of Microsoft Word’s font style and colouring alongside the edited blood drips on Paint in a series of 6/7 images put next to one another to achieve a cheap-ish looking effect of blood dripping from the title to show the more gore-ish side to my genre. (In a way it makes it look too horror-style, so I was to include a shaking element to the shot with a digital background, but decided against it… mainly because every time I attempted it the programme would freeze along with the fact it looked a little odd.) To go with this I included a title to the side, saying ‘based on the book ‘Zero Zero’ by El’, which is partially true since I wrote a story for fun, loosely based on the idea for the film, which on a personal note made the creation of my film easier since it felt I knew what and how the character would be feeling. Everything I wanted to include in my two minutes I didn’t put in whatsoever; be it the special effect shots, the location shoots (which I will come too in a moment) and a scene showing more than just zombies as an enemy. I shot way too many scenes, not having a desirable concept of timing, and also not wanting to fall too short of the initial two minutes which I ironically fall after by about fifteen to twenty seconds. But this doesn’t matter.

I used shots which do not break the 180 degree rule, I showed a variety of shot lengths, positions and transactions to go alongside with editing which I must admit I enjoy (the moment where my male zombie is shot, coinciding with the music choice where the singer says the word ‘blow’, which I found ironic considering he’s just been supposedly shot in the face.) but most importantly I included all the titles that I planned:

Before I introduce my title, the shots are particularly dark so I used the coloration of the opening credits to e white, to stand out and be readable. But I found out that keeping them white was not to be an option as after I filled the titles in for the second part of the two minutes, the white was not viable due to the lighter areas of the shots, which I decided to keep in the upper left hand corner, somewhat out of the way, but equally as noticeable considering I then changed them to black (I was initially debating blue, but the look of the black front just looked better- it seemed to be basic and that’s what I wanted- it also looked llike a general computer font which I found effective considering the main character was seen using a computer beforehand, hopefully implying she is in a V.R. simulation/ computer programme.

Location My locations were mainly set in school and coincided with my initial plans for classrooms, corridors, doorways etc, but for my final scene I wanted it to be shot in a car park. I finished my risk assessment and eventually decided against it because not only did I not particularly fancy my main character’s actor tto be flattered by a passing vehicle, but I wanted her to be carrying a gun, which would have been awkward to explain of caught holding some form of weapon (even if it were fake) around a public area. So I went with the final shots to be take in school, keeping in theme with the beginning ones. Rather ironically, considering these were my favourite shots, I could not include them because the shots I had already put together formed the two minutes I needed. So instead I am planning to briefly put them together in a short teaser trailer style to upload alongside my other work, but only if I am allocated the time to do so. It would follow the same pattern of my two minutes, with fading out sections to oth bacl and white for example.

Music As mentioned before I was inspired by a retro sounding song put together from a variety of games, modified in a way that made them sound upbeat yet old-school i.e a SNES style music. As I began to put a basis down for my film and the desired out come, I decided that the target market would do better to be pandered to if I put in something a little more well-known, so I went with Plug in Baby by Muse.

In the end though for music, it came to my final days of editing when I came across a song called Party Poison by My Chemical Romance, which was upbeat and I found matched the overall rhythm of my shots rather than the somewhat slower in companion version of Plug in Baby; I didn’t want to alter the music too much so used this other song. Then again I found that not having music for the beginning was exceedingly boring and made the shots themselves seem somewhat mundane to watch, so I found a song from the internet and added a few cymbal sounds to the background for emphasised dramatic effect (and as a better fading out feel to the main music than just a simple ‘fade out’ effect.) I asked a few people in my class alongside those who I am to further use for my Evaluation the different styles of music, be it Muse or MCR’s track, and they all agreed that the latter worked better, so with that in mind I edited the music and shots together. Costumes As mentioned earlier I wanted something iconic about my protagonist, which during her initial sketches I decided to give her a pair of goggles (which were conveniently placed upon my shelf at the time, subtly hinting the idea to me) and her clothing is just an adaptation on some which I have myself. But these were just the designs anfd the reality of that meant that it was highly unlikely that everything I could see oh so clearly in my mind would turn out to be reality. Which it didn’t. But there was no worries for my willing actor had a nice set of black attire in which to clad herself, and as said before I supplied the goggles. I was supposed to give her a handheld game controller, but scrapped the idea because it would only look too confusing considering I’d already done a variety of shots of her using a (Ipod) lead to plug in at the beginning (and a USB). The zombies required a little more work though. Since I’d had previous experience in dressing others as zombies, I only needed a few bits and pieces to make their main frame; some old school shirts and some fake blood. Doing a bit of basic research into these zombies, I got the simple idea of what was needed, and worked from there. I was planning on, if I were to have created the rest f the film, to have had a ‘gore setting’ which the main character could increase within reason, making the zombies seem more realistic with each level (hence the excuse of they don’t look very real because her setting would supposedly be very low, which in itself is a reasonable excuse since for example the game Left 4 Dead, a cliché example of a zombie game, included a lot of blood, but since its released in Australia, the game’s blood content was minimised along with its overall colour having to be changed from red to a very unrealistic green colour. The whole basis to my film is on the ideas or reality, hence the V.R simulation and then world-wide apocalypse.) The only problem with this was my shirts didn’t fit all of my zombies so we went with the whole rugged idea of teenagers rebelling with having their shirts not done up properly during school.

Next time…. I’m not all too sure what genre I would use for the potential ‘next time’ aspect of things. I wouldn’t mind doing a romance because it seems fairly simple enough and is without all the hassle of recruiting willing actors to play out members of the living dead. Saying that though, in my initial research I came across a fifteen minute French film, which title I believe was something along the lines of Trip to the Moon, or something along those lines. It was a silent movie and seemed fairly basic, which intrigued my deeply. Previously research from another task had lead me to discover the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, also a silent film which used over-the-top facial expressions alongside gothic styled make up. (The whole idea of black rimming the eyes somewhat inspired my attempt at making-up my zombies, but I didn’t particularly wish to get cheap make-up in their eyes, so avoided getting too close to achieve my initial sketch designs.)