1. Post apocalyptic evaluation
Question 1- in what ways does your media product,
use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
2. Mise en scene- location
For my location in my post apocalyptic film we used mostly scenes in the woods as this
is where most scenes are filmed in post apocalyptic films such as ‘The Book Of Eli’ or
apocalyptic based tv programmes such as ‘walking dead’ .
Forests and woods are good for this theme as it is
The easiest to look abandoned or derelict plus it is good for many scenes such as;
getting food, Keeping warmth, setting camp etc. This worked well as it was easy to film
and we could edit the film a lot better as there wasn’t much contrast between things so
we could make all things a little bit darker but we did also use some open field scenes for
the travelling as you could easily differentiate the locations instead of all being based in
woods and easily see the characters, it also helped show that there was no people in the
world left as it was a big open place with just
2 characters. The only problem I had with this is making it darker which I feel doesn’t give it a creepy feel
that you would see in other post apocalyptic films such as the book of Eli but it does give an isolated feel.
3. Costume and makeup
In our films, we used very dark clothing as it is very camouflaged especially with the scenes in
the woods. I used this as this was the common theme in majority of post apocalyptic films such as
‘the book of Eli ‘ dark clothing was an easy way to make our outfits fit with the theme without
spending out or ruining clothes. We also used very modern up to time clothing as our film was set
In 2017 as I feel the film was then more relatable to our audience,but I feel like there could have
been more effort put into the appearance of our characters to create an apocalypse feel.
4. Camera angles
I produced many camera shots/angles to
get the best out of my film opening.
Establishing shots were good for getting
an apocalypse feel as scenes that
involved no people highlighted that the
actors were isolated therefore even
though it was not a professional set it
still set an apocalyptic theme.
This was a low angle shot and a
point of view shot which gave a
feeling of fear and portrays an
element of danger than if it was the
camera filming the attack from a
distance as this would be quite
boring and would show much action
as what is shown in the point of
view shot and the low angle shows
this character is being attacked
rather than it being an equal fight
and shows this character is in
danger.
Even though these are 2 totally different shots they are
both point of view angles. This gives the audience the
view of the character seeing what they see which
allows the audience to sometimes connect more to the
character and allows them to feel like the character.
5. This was put on my blog as part of my research
into women's roles in film . It showed that there
was not much equality in
this business as there was less roles played by
women and the roles that were played by
women were very sexualised and didn’t have
much of a speaking role. Our film contributed to
them statistics with us only having one woman
playing a role and her only having a 1second/3
second cameo.
characters
The majority of our characters were male and
rather young to fit our audience and theme of a
modern apocalypse.
6. Title- sequence and design of text
For my titles and design of text, I wanted a found footage feel and a kind of slight horror theme as ive
always been interested in that genre so I used many ideas from different horror films/ games and selected
a final design template idea
These were some of my ideas that interested me when looking for templates for my film title most of the colour scheme are
earthy (brown ,orange, blue) or biohazardous colours ( green, blue) which both give the apocalypse theme. I like how
some of them were very bold and textured and how some were glitchy and blurry like found footage would be so I felt like
I could incorporate all this into one final text. My final title sequence ended up with the text being a textured green to
represent bio hazards, sewage etc and in the sequence I made the text glitch and move around for the found footage theme
and then I decided to incorporate a virus symbol in red for blood.
7. Music and sound effects
I wanted my music to be ominous and devastating, so the audience could have different emotions throughout the
film opening, I did incorporate sound effects but has the music slightly over riding it, even though this tempted
to the line of it being a trailer many times I went over it a lot of times tweaking it but I wanted it to be loud and
then for the music to drop at the end and leave the found footage tape speaking and then if the film was to carry
on it would start everything from the beginning without the music and whether this will show to the examiner I
don’t know but I wanted to take the risk to keep the emotion and tension there.
Narrative sprints
It takes a lot of time to tell a story. Maybe you need
to show the downfall of a powerful company -- you
could do in a series of scenes where employees
frantically shred documents, FBI agents raid their
offices, and interrogate its CEOs, but if you want to
condense that time, you might want to use a montage
in which all these things happen in mere seconds
rather than minutes.
Gestalt
This is a theory that essentially says that if given
small bits and pieces, we will form them into a
complete whole. Kind of vague, I know, but think of
films that boil an entire relationship down to small
snapshots from their time together, like in Annie
Hall, or a road trip in which you only see the
highlights. Even if you only see several short clips
from a character's experience, you will be able to
understand the entire thing as a whole based on the
tone each one of them carries
I found these on a blog
explaining different kind
of montages and why they
would be used.
8. How is this like a real post apocalyptic opening scene?
My opening scene can be seen as similar to a real professional post apocalyptic opening
scene as the beginning stereotypically explains the situation the main character is in and
how the apocalypse happened, but on mine I cut bits out of footage such as the
explanation of what happens when you catch the virus, I did this in order for the viewer
to imagine the result of the virus themselves and it creates interest because they don’t
know the full story.
On the other hand I made my film opening to have a slight theme of horror as I have
always been interested in horror and do have more knowledge on that genre therefore I
feel like my music and sound effects have more of a horror theme rather than the usual
suspense music etc that would be found in an apocalypse film opening.
My opening scene can also be seen as similar to a real opening scene in some ways
because I used footage from the end of the main characters story in the beginning which
I have seen in many films not just apocalypse. I did this in order to give the viewers a
sense of mystery as they have got the beginning and seen the camera shot at the end and
they will want to know how and why that has happened.
