2. How does your film represent particular social groups?

This is a screenshot from our film opening, showing the lead character in "Immunity" Calum and his clothing here is plain and he is not styled in a particular way; this helps people to relate to him more easily which is essential in any film. He is dressed in a pair of white overalls and a respiratory mask.

I am going to compare our character out of "Immunity", I am then going to compare him to someone of a similar age from a similar film. The character I have chose to compare our survivor to is Columbus OHIO from the film Zombieland.

In our film, the character is aware of the virus spread across the country, this is why he is wearing protective white overalls and a respiratory mask to prevent the chances of him becoming infected. He is also carrying his belongings in a bag what is around his shoulder which may have a weapon. Our character is in his late teens which is a stereotypical horror film character just like in other horror films in the US, however not many British horror films have teenagers playing the main role. For example,  Shaun of the Dead had Simon Pegg who was in his 30's at the time.

In Zombieland, Columbus is a very unusual survivor of a zombie apocalypse. He is a bit of a nerd/geek who meets another group of survivors and ends up being reliant on them in order to survive. Our film is different to Zombieland because Zombieland is a comedy/horror. As our film is based purely on horror. Columbus survived by sticking to a series of rules he created for himself in order to keep him alive.

The comparasson of the two characters is that Columbus is very relient on other people keeping him alive as he isnt the most confident of characters. Our survivor in "Immunity" on the otherhand appears to be very independent. As he walks across the field, he is heading towards the town centre, where the zombies are likely to be. It seems unlikely that a character like Columbus in Zombieland would be so confident and go alone in a situation like this. So our character could be heading to the town for anything for example....

He walks confidently across the field towards the town, perhaps towards the zombies and kill them himself? He could be heading towards a safety zone in the town centre and be with other survivors? He could possibly heading to the town to find survival equipment and help keep himself and perhaps others alive?

So overall, our film represents social groups when the riots on going ahead at the beginning of our sequence becuase of the outbreak of the virus in the town and the community are not happy which seems to be the youth of today. We did the riotting scene becuase we wanted to show how the country would react in this situation. Would they work together? Or would it be a big free for all against each other?

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your film and why?

Well with our film being a British horror film, I have looked at who distributed other horror films similar to ours. Obviously 28 Days Later is the best example, 28 Days Later was distributed by DNA Films. Other British horror films I have looked at are the two Descent films. Both of these were distributed by Celador Films, so maybe they maybe intrested becuase our film is very similar. Film 4 also maybe an option since they are a British film company, however I don't think they have distributed any horror films, so I don't think they would fit into our film genre. 

I also looked at Pathe Films as a potential distributor, however their genre isn't really on the horror side. They have done 127 Hours which is more of a thriller, which obviously doesnt fit into our film criteria.

Overall, I believe we would be stuck with two choices, either DNA or Celador. Both of these have had success with other British horror films. DNA had a huge hit with 28 Days later what took £52 Million at the box office. Meanwhile the Descent was also a success at the box office.

I think that our main audience will be British, so its very unlikely that an American distributer would be intrested in our film becuase the American audience wouldnt be intrested in a low budget British film.

4. Who would be the audience of your film and why?

I would expect "Immunity" to appeal to the ages of between 15-30 year olds, as our film would be a 15 or an 18 age certificate. I wouldn't consider our film to have a lower age certificate because children under the age of 15 could get upset and frightened because of the scary content later on in the film.

I would expect "Immunity" to be appealing to all ethnicities since its an English film, I wouldnt expect foreigners to be intereted in our film since its a low budget English film, but I would consider Americans as a target audience for our film. I expect Americans to be interested becuase English horror films in the past have been successful in the US. 28 Days Later was a surprising success in the American box office with it taking $45 million dollors despite it only having limited release across the country. The Descent was another English horror film what had success in the US, on its debut weekend, The Descent grossed $8.8 million dollors and finished up taking around $26 million. This shows that Americans enjoy watching British horror films. But only if they have a decent budget. I wouldnt expect a low budget to appeal to Americans.

I would suspect that we would have more of a male audience as women prefer their romantic comedies. I think men would like our film becuase it has a suspense atmosphere in the opening sequence and in most horror films they have a similar sort of atmosphere. Women on the other hand probabily wont be interested. Women prefer to watch feel good films with a happy love story as men prefer more negative storylines.

I dont think that any other European countries would be a target audience becuase again they would probaily prefer big budget American films with well known actors. As ours on the otherhand has none of these.

We have used a young British male which may attract a bit of more of an audience as it will attract a female audience. It is also a safe bet because other males like to relate themselves to other males and see themselves more superior than a female taking a lead role in our film.

5. How did you attract/ address your audience?

To help attract our audience, we added music and background noises to our film. The music used in our opening sequence Prelude 3.0 by Slipknot. We chose this song because we felt the lyrics to the chorus fitted in the situation of our film. As our film continutes, a static clips and sounds then end the song suddenly adding to the suspense effect. As the static clip ends it shows a town centre deserted. This builds a suspence atmosphere, background noise of whistling winds also helps build this.

Because of our low budgets, I think we struggled to attract an audience. For example our character would have been better if he had a weapon, or something along those lines to make him more intimidating. Also a better budget would of meant we could of used better effects and better props and costumes.

In our opening sequence we used the same sounds throughout the film, after the music had stopped and the static cut to the traffic lights. We used the same sounds becuase we felt it created more of a scary, tension atmosphere. Origianlly we had Slipknot running throughtout the sequence, however we werent too keen, as it dampened the atmosphere and the tension as it didnt go with the film.

At the beginning of the sequence we introduce two production companies. "Horizon Productions" and "Pendle Hill Films." For Horizon Production we used an upbeat tune with it as it had a bright, positive feel to it. Pendle Hill on the otherhand, is more negative, becuase it has a negative, black and white filter on it. So we added a thunder as background noise. This brings us to relaise that it is a horror film.

Because of our low budget we are obviously struggling to add other props to our film. We would love to add some CGI, but obviously we cant do that. If we were to have a bigger budget, I would add some better effects, a better costume/overalls for our character and perhaps a weapon for him to. I feel this would make our film so much better in many ways, however, I feel our film is decent considering its low budget.

Obviously the mise en scene had to be rather negative to give a negative feel towards the film. The dark, dingy shots of rubbish outside the building didn't really answer whats happening in the film, but it does suggest that this what happened after the riots. In the scene with Calum, who plays the survivor. We shot it at eye level to help our audience relate to him. However I don't think its a shot for the audience to relate to, to much, because I don't think it give anything away regarding his personality. So therefore, I think the audience wont be able to relate to him.

 

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process ofconstructing this film?

We have been using Adobe Premiere Pro to edit our film as you can see from the photos. We used this programme because this is the software provided by the college. We learnt a lot using this editing programme. I don't think any of us have any previous experience using editing software. Despite this I say that we have learnt quickly as we found it very easy to use once we got use to it.

As You can see In the photo below, It shows the tripod and camera in view. In this shot we filmed the final parts to our opening sequence with Calum walking through a deserted field. We used a Canon Md325 video camera. We used this camera because this the equipment the college could provide, neither of us had better equipment. I have learnt that equipment can make a huge difference. I think a better video camera for example a HD camera would have made a huge difference to our film. It would have made it look more professional and more clear as the audience can see what's going on.

Throughout this task, we have been consistantly been using different forms of media to help construct our film. An example would be youtube, we used youtube to view other film opening to see other students media projects. Since our film was a horror, we looked at other horror films opening sequences such as 28 Days Later. We also posted our opening sequence on YouTube because of the millions of users it has daily. Hopefully we get plenty of views and hopefully some feedback, positive and construtive.

We have also been using other websites too, we have been using Blogger to talk about the progression of our film other the last few months. On my blogger I have talked about certain aspects of our film such as, where we had filmed recently, how we filmed, what we filmed etc. I also posted photos and videos of our group filming to provide evidence and to make my blog look better and more effective. After hearing we had to keep an up to date blog as part of our coursework, I immediately downloaded the app for "Blogger". I find the app better than the actual website, as the website can be very frustrating when adding photos to the blog, we found it difficult to roam the photos around the blog post. Obviously the app also has it down falls, but overall I found it easier to use.

So overall, I feel as a group we have learnt a lot, after a slow start in learning how to use the editing equipment, we picked it up quickly after playing around with it and our tutor helping us out. We knew what were getting in the quality of the camera, the camera wasn't bad, however I don't think its a camera to use to produce a film. The camera was easy and friendly to use and did a good enough job in what we wanted to do. Obviously we had to use a tripod to keep the camera when filming. The tripod we used was also decent, but it was at times a bit "dodgy", this is just down to it being quite difficult to erect, however it did what it had to do.

Immunity Storyboard.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final product?

I feel I have learnt a lot in this process, however in our preliminary task put a bad picture towards my acting skills as our ex cameraman James starting filming when I wasn't ready. Because of this, I wasnt allowed to be an actor and James was later sacked!

In all honesty I believe that as a group we have learnt a lot. We now have a variety of camera shot ideas when we were filming, and generally know whats best for our film. As at the beginning we just didnt have a clue.

I feel that we learnt quickly when using the editing software in the editing suite. At the beginning of the coursework we were always asking for help regarding the editing software. Mr McGiffen would prompt us and suggest what we could do to make our film look better. But now and towards the end of our film we knew what we could do to make it better.

I think if you compare our two videos (prelim and Immunity) you can see the difference in terms of the quality of how it was edited and in term of the acting. (However there isn't much acting in Immunity). In our prelim video which you can view in one of my previous blog posts you see Calum walking down a corridor and opening a door in a close up shot. The camera isn't very stable, as a tripod isn't being used. After viewing this we noticed that a tripod is a very important piece equipment because it keeps the camera stable and makes the film look less amateurish..