Evaluation

Question 1 is:
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Below is a nine-frame analysis that compares my influential scenes with my main task.

Note: these influences are from 3 different scenes:
The opening for Children of Men (2006)
One of the first few cutscenes from The Last of Us (2013)
Quantic Dream's tech demo 'Kara' (2012)

Below is the nine-frame analysis of the same areas in my main task.

1. Titles: In Children of Men, there is a hard cut to a back background with the title in white. This very simple technique is used in a way that is quite shocking for the viewers, due to events preceding this (a bomb explodes in a coffee shop). I tried to do something similar in my task because I liked this technique so much. At the end of my teaser, there is a bang in time with a cut to black - the title then fades into view, almost as if coming from darkness. I feel that this keeps the scary atmosphere going for a little longer.

2. Settings/locations: Also in Children of Men, the opening scene is in a bleak coffee shop. This makes the scene feel very drab and a little threatening. I have tried to recreate the same sort of feeling, but through a different style. Instead, I have chosen to film in a big garage - making there seem like there is a lot of empty space around (therefore a threat could be anywhere in the garage, and not be seen).

3. Costumes/props: In The Last of Us, Joel is wearing a simple jeans and T-shirt combination, this keeps reminding us that his character is more 'down to Earth' than some others and makes the story seem more realistic (as we are used to see in this combination in our own lives). In my film, I have tried to do the same thing - both Jack and Anna have very simple costume designs, to keep their characters more 'down to Earth' and realistic. In a zombie-apocalypse, you wouldn't really be wearing high heels or a suit or something similar...

4. Camerawork: Throughout Children of Men it features a handheld camera style, giving is a 'shaky, realistic' effect. I loved the way that the camerawork made the scenes feel so real, so I have incorporated this into my task, by using handheld camera movements and keeping the camera close to the action.

5. Story 'setup': In The Last of Us Joel's daughter, Sarah, dies after a gunshot wound to the stomach. This scene is very emotional as Joel has to deal with the death of his daughter right in front of his eyes. I wanted to re-create a similar feeling from my film, and so Jack has to deal with the fact that Anna has died from a zombie bite and he has to stop her from turning into one of them - which he fails to do. These scenes are very emotional and set the tone of the story extremely well.

6. Genre: The Last of Us's genre is defined by the creatures in the rest of the game, and the gameplay featured throughout. However, in this scene, a big influence is the state that Joel and Sarah's clothes are in - they are covered in spots of blood. Another big factor in this scene is the darkness - people are usually a little afraid of the dark. In my task, I have played on this, by keeping the room slightly darker and having both characters with blood on their clothes. This hopefully conveys the horror genre quite quickly to the audience.

7. Characterisation/representation: Joel in The Last of Us is a strong and independent character, however in this scene, he's weakness is exploited and he is broken. Sarah dies and Joel breaks down in tears. I wanted to re-create a similar scene in my task, and so Anna dies and Jack starts to break down. I feel that both of these scenes are extremely emotional and memorable for viewers.

8. Editing/effects: When watching Kara, I noticed that there were longer takes being used throughout the demo. Not to the extent of Children of Men (where a whole scene could be one take), but I felt they were longer than average. Especially when the scene started to get quite emotional towards the end - extreme close ups on Kara's eyes and mouth add to the emotion here. I felt that the longer takes could then allow me (as a viewer) to settle into each shot a lot easier, and focus more on the performance and emotions, rather than the different shots and techniques used. I tried to introduce this into my film - making many shots last much longer than I usually would have filmed them for. We even did the whole scene in one take a few times, so that I could experiment with that idea - however, I didn't like the final product and it didn't show off many editing skills on my part. My favourite shot that ended up in the final cut, is the final shot. This is due to the fact that it runs for a long time and simply follows Jack as he stands up and turns around to face the post - it then continues around the post to reveal the re-animated corpse of Anna, standing behind him. I feel that the shot is quite long and so the audience members can 'settle into' the shot type quite easily and really focus on the events that have just unfolded in front of them.

9. Music/sound/dialogue: When the bomb explodes in the opening scene of Children of Men, a high pitched 'ear ringing' sound is heard - this re-occurs at various points throughout the film. This is initially due to the sound of the bomb going off and is trying to give the effect that we are also affected by this explosion. However, I feel that it also translates to a situation of high levels of stress, due to the use of a similar effect in The Dark Knight (2008) - Harvey Dent wakes up in hospital to find that half his face is burnt off and his fiance has died. He then screams out in anger, but all we hear is the non-diegetic sound of a high pitched note. Both of these scenes are extremely hard hitting for different reasons: Children of Men because of the shock of the explosion; The Dark Knight because of the emotional stress that has been put on Harvey. I wanted to try and incorporate a similar feeling in my film, so I manage to get an 'ear ringing' sound effect from the internet and turn the sound down from the footage. I also incorporated an echo effect. This made the scene feel quite alien and strange, but this was because I was trying to make the scene about the stress that Jack's mind is going through at that time. I feel I managed to achieve this with the strange feelings that the sounds created - because Jack's life has changed dramatically and so what will happen in the future for him will be quite alien.



Question 2 is:
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Question 3 is:
What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Question 4:
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?