1. OCR Media Studies J526
Production Portfolio in Media Studies B 324
Planning and Evaluation: Commentary

2.  I worked in a three : Piers Harrop, Nick Nelson
and myself
 I took responsibility for post production and
props. I also provided the camera, a Cannon
550D
 We made a thriller film opening entitled Dead
Capacity
 Our film is a hybrid-genre. It has aspects from
thriller/horror movies.

3.  Zombie film analysis – Dead Snow The clip I chose to study is a fight scene from the
zombie-horror Dead Snow. The scene opens with two mid shots of a pair of protagonists. A
two shot reveals they are by a lakeside, in a cold, snowy environment – probably in the
mountains. The codes and conventions suggest violence, gore, horror in the monsters they
are facing and small moments of dark humour. The entire scene was shot handheld, with
many close ups of both zombie’s horrifying expressions and the heroes reaction to the
situation.
 Shaun of the Dead
 First weekend - £1.6 million in 307 cinemas in UK
 Since release had made $30,039,392 has been earned worldwide.
 Its average audience would be young adults and teenagers, probably mostly male but
perhaps with a decently sized female audience as well due to the comedy.
 28 Weeks Later
 $28.6 million in the US and $35.6 million in other countries, bringing worldwide total to
$64.2 million
 1.3 millions DVDs sold in USA
 "fresh" rating of 70% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 182 reviews (128 fresh, 54 rotten)
 Opening in 2000 Cinemas across USA. $3.8 million in first weekend

4.  Audience profile: our target audience is likely to have both
genders but favours a male audience of a age from teens
to young adults. Zombie thriller films are not a niche
genre; they are very popular according to research
 In the last twelve months these viewers are also likely to
have seen ‘Zombieland’ (Dir. Ruben Fleischer, released
2009) and/or ‘Shaun of the Dead’ (Dir. Edgar Wright,
2004), an extremely popular zom-com. Despite it’s release
date being seven years ago, it’s immense popularity
means viewers are likely to still be watching.
 Box office returns for films similar to mine show the
following figures (source box office mojo) 28 Days Later
$45,064,915, Shaun of the Dead $30,039,392

5.  Opening – I downloaded the Lionsgate horror logo from YouTube. The opening sequence
of Dead Capacity follows, in which ‘coffee guy’ finds his brother James transformed into a
zombie and begins running from the post-apocalyptic situation.
 Titles – after extensive experimenting with possible title fonts on our laptops, I used a font
in Livetype which matched it closest. The font used was called Chalkboard, and I kept this
font for all opening credits. The film name was displayed in a basic san-serif font against
complete TV-static.
 Mise-en-scene – The set typifies the zombie genre: night (connoting the vulnerability of
being outside in the dark), isolated house, mysterious alley ways & sheds, & lonely forests.
 Costumes – For James, played by both Piers and Charles Harrop, a black t-shirt and any
trousers. The reason for this was to make the hand-stab effect as easy as possible in the
edit. Coffee Guy’s costume was a simple t-shirt and jeans, with a red hoodie. The colour of
the hoodie was chosen deliberately, for its dangerous connotations and the link with the
colour of blood.
 SFX – Many SFX were used in the following order; post Foley of dogs barking, the entire
hand-stab, post Foley of bushes rustling, all TV-static effects, colour correction on almost
every clip to enhance the image, post sound FX of the stick hitting Nick-zombie and
snapping as it impales him, and the distorted effect on Charles’ face as he acts the role of
James at the end. Finally we used zombie contact lenses.

6.  Atmosphere – I tried to be inventive in building atmosphere post-production. This was primarily
done using visual & audio effects e.g. radio static interference sounds which accompany a visual
distortion of a radio; as if the viewer is watching through a bad TV. As ‘coffee guy’ turns off the
radio this suggests something is very wrong with the universe. Mise-en-scene also builds a
heightened feeling of suspense – a dark house, in the middle of the country; isolated, it’s dark, it’s
dangerous. It’s all the conventions of an apocalyptic zombie world.
 Sound –mostly ambient; recorded with the in-camera microphone. However some sounds were
recorded by Macbook Pro’s built in microphone for post sound such as the stick impact and
screams. Other sounds, such as the dog barking and rustling bush (which was actually a very short
section from Ilife’s heavy rain sound effect) were taken from Ilife Foley . One example of
ambient/post sound is the radio; we took the original diagetic sound of radio static and in post
production we enhanced it.
 Music – for the Dead Capacity music I used five musical soundtracks; three purchased, one
composed by myself on Garageband. One of the two purchased was from Harry potter and the
Deathly Hallows part 1, (‘Bathilda Bagshot’). The second is an Assassin’s Creed soundtrack (‘Flight of
the Brotherhood)’. The percussion in this enhanced the heavy strings heard in the chase sequence.
The Garageband track is a mixture of shrill, tense whistles heard throughout the first half of the
clip. The last one was a three/four second extract from a Zombieland soundtrack used to enhance
the horror of the moment when the hand-stab happens. Finally I used a Muse song as ambient
sound playing from the radio.

7.  Enigma – The mystery in this opening, used to complete the thriller codes, is the
question ‘why is the dog lost, and why is James lost too... What’s getting them?’
This is set up by the one-by-one loss of first Rufus the dog then James. In the
chase sequence this is broken, but is replaced again by another question – how
will ‘Coffee guy’ survive? Dialogue is also limited to thirteen words in the whole
sequence. Mystery is typical of thriller films, and our functions as a proper thriller
having made use of enigma.
 Camerawork is also extremely important in this sequence. The audience has been
positioned to follow the initially brave protagonist ‘Coffee guy’ who is looking for
his lost brother. Tracking shots and zombie-POVs keep the narrative on ‘Coffee
guy’, and the audience follows him this way. When the chase sequence begins he
is also placed in danger; so the audience is also placed in danger. Audiences who
go to horror films like to be scared, so we have positioned them in a position of
jeopardy to help complete this effect. The camerawork is also extremely
successful in giving a narrative flow and suggesting Coffee guy (and at first,
James) are in danger. A few of the camera angles used include tracking shots,
panning, establishing, long, mid, close up, extreme close up and POV.

8.  We sought audience feedback by uploading our video to YouTube -
https://www.youtube.com/user/VenturayProductions#p/a/u/1/azftb1Liqgw. Audience
feedback was largely positive. By 28.03.11, three or four weeks after the initial upload of
Dead Capacity, we have around 300 views. Although the version uploaded on YouTube
at the moment only have 115, an older version had 200+ views. There are also 7 ‘likes’
and 6 comments, 5 praise and 1 constructive. I also requested my parents to email the
link to work friends, and many positive comments have come in via emails. The only
negative feedback was that the hand-stab was too dark, and the intestine eating effect
was too obviously string or spaghetti. Audiences praised the film with comments such
as ‘AWESOME!!!’, ‘Heyhey. I have the shivers...’, and ‘This is really fantastic! The
technical side is amazing with the radio static shown in the visual distortion and the
titles fit really well. The zombies, bloody hand and stake through the body are really
convincing. Fantastic sound effects!’. Constructive comments from the YouTube page
were also taken into account.
 My colleagues also created a Facebook page to advertise and promote the video. The
page has screenshots from the film, aswell as the ULR posted onto the wall repeatedly.
The ULR is ‘https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dead-Capacity/196469513716850?ref=ts’

9.  As a film opening, the feedback suggests good
understanding of the narrative, and also
confirms the suspense and atmosphere gives a
chilling effect. The sequence provides all
necessary titles, and would capture and
audiences interest with how the narrative plays
out. Enigma works as it should within thrillers;
the audience is hooked. The soundtrack, events
such as when the viewers will see James’ eyes,
all contribute to building suspense.

10.  As said before, I feel the whole project was a
success. Despite having numerous and over-
whelming issues, such as losing team
members to appendicitis and suspension, we
triumphed nevertheless. We were able to
produce the required work within the time
limit – we made a high quality film opening
and evaluated it along the way, producing
numerous bits and pieces for the appendix.