Casting For Deadline

Charlie Hopwood as Shaun

Steven Power as Matthew

Mikey Masher as Ray

Tom Brown as John

Audience Research/Feedback

For our audience research we have found out that the key audience and our main audience target is teenagers aged between 15-19.

The gender for our film 'Deadline' would be male because it has features in the film that would mainly attract a male audience to go and watch the film, for examples guns and zombies.

We asked these questions to 3 people and the feedback for them follows:

1. Are you male or female?

A) Male
B) Female
C) Male

2. How old are you?

A) 17

B) 17

C) 16

3. Do you prefer English films or foreign films?

A) Foreign Films

B) Foreign Films

C) Foregin Films

4. What genre of film do enjoy best?

A) Horror

B) Comedy

C) Action

5. What would you expect to see in a horror zombie film?

A) Guns

B) Death

C) Blood

6. What did you think that 'Deadline' has that makes its opening sequence?

A) The Music

B) Sound Effects

C) Sound Effects

7. Do you think the time length for the opening sequence is too long?

A) No, it starts and stops in a mystery

B) No, i think it needs to be longer

C) Yes, it could be shortened

8. What do you think could be improved?

A) The pace of the character running

B) The use of clothing and props

C) The length of time

9. Is there anything you would add to make the opening sequence better?

A) Add a zombie into the sequence to show what they are running from

B) Make the running scenes shorter

C) Have more angled camera shots

10. Is there anything you would take out of the sequence to make it better?

A) Some of the running scenes

B) Some of the running scenes

C) Some of the running scenes

Feedback from teacher (Miss Whittaker):

There are some things about the opening that need to be improved, a selective piece of text needs to be removed otherwise the opening sequence may look like a trailer, the amount of time that the text has to appear on the screen, the length of time that the production logo has to appear and the text that appears during the opening should be placed in the corner instead of being in the lower centre of the screen.

We have improved the video by removing the selective text so the opening does not look like a trailer, we have lengthened the amount of time that the text scrolling scene has so the text can be seen clearer, we have also lengthened the amount of time that we see the production logo and finally we have edited the text so it appears in the corner of the screen instead of being in the lower centre of teh screen.

Recce

Gate

Gate

Corridor


Safe house


Pathway


Pathway


Door To Safe House


Desk In Safe House

Production Logo

Here is are company Logo it is called Bunny hell productions. We decide to use a scared bunny has some viewers would find the bunny cute to look at. We used the back ground of hell as it was called bunny hell productions. We called it this as it is similar to bloody hell and we wanted it to sound like a commonly used phrase but with a difference.

Typography

Our film is a zombie, horror so for our film we have been looking at the typography from Dawn of The Dead, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Diary of the Dead, Land of the Dead, here are some typography examples for our film Deadline. We chose to use the 3rd typography because it has most characteristics of a zombie film to the others and this typography also has a dark and gloomy effect to it.

Shooting Script

Media horror presentation

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Meeting Minutes

Start Filming - 13th - 17th January 2011

Filmed the sequence on the 13th then added the footage onto iMovie to edit, then we realised that we needed more footage in the sequence so we hired the camera for another day and we filmed the last part of footage that we needed.

Edit Footage - 17th - 24th January 2011

We edited the footage in iMovie, this took a while to do because we had some footage that did not fit in with the sequence so we had to alternate the footage and it turned out to be ok when we finally finished it.

Add Music - 24th - 31st January 2011

It took a while to try and find the right music that we wanted for the sequence, at first we wanted to use heavy, loud music but we then tried an alternative of a quieter and suspenseful music which turned out to be better than our first choice of music soundtrack.

Add Sound Effects - 31st January 2011 - 3rd February 2011

The sound effects were added in the last stages of the editing sequence, we added sound effects that have a loud and scary vibe to them that also give off an effect of horror. There are a few sound effects that are the same but it builds the suspense of the film by having a repeating effect.

Production Schedule

1. Create blog and post our meeting minutes, production schedule, a questionnaire, a written script, evidence of what we have researched our horror, institution research, typography. we filmed our continuity piece so that we could get use to the equipment(camera, tripod, how to put the dv tape in safely) we recorded our continuity piece and the took the film to the mac room so we could edit it and get use to the imovie programme.

2. For our planning evidence we looked at other movies from our genre such as dawn of the dead, shawn of the dead, land of the dead, diary of the dead, zombie land and we also looked at a foreign film called dead snow. we also looked at the typography from other films and we went to da font to play around with different titles.

3. We drew our storyboards and started to snowball ideas. when we finished this we then hired out our equipment and started to film our final decision.

4. After our filming this is when we started to edit, this is where cut unnecessary clips and added effects using i movie. we added our sound effects in from garage band.

5. This is our final step where we decided if anything needed changing with sound text and more cutting.

Production Treatment

Narrative Plot: 4 teenagers survive an airborne virus that has accidentally been released into England by the military. The boys (John, Ray, Matthew and Shaun) hide out in there school for security, but zombies eventually find them and break into the school. Which leads to John and Shaun running away from the zombies after retrieving something that could help them survive.

Target Audience: The target audience for our film 'Deadline' would be male aged from 15-18, we feel that this is the right age to target because of the blood, the dialogue, and the maturity of the film. We also think that people from 15 years and up can relate to the four teens.

Media Languages: The style of our opening sequence would be to try and make the sequence as tense and also as questionable as possible. The lighting was set to be dark at some points in the sequence to represent the darkness of the zombies but also bright to show that there are no zombies about and they are safe. There is an enigma in the sequence, at the end of the scene where we see John, Matthew and Ray inside the safe house, Ray asks John 'Did you get it?' Which John replies 'Yeah'. This leads onto an enigma because the audience at this point in the film do not know what they are talking about and that they could have got anything.

Institutions: The distributor of out film is Columbia Pictures because they have distributed many other horror films before such as Zombieland, which hit the box office at a good standard rate. Our production company is called 'Bunny Hell Productions' because we wanted to think of a phrase that is commonly used and alter it so we sound unique.

Representations: The characters are represented as a group, where we have The Leader (John), The Hard man (Shaun), The Smart man (Ray) and The Brave man (Matthew). These representation are good for the characters because of the roles that they carry throughout the film.

Genre: The codes and conventions of the film are that everything is suppose to be horror and scary because the boys don't know whether there may be zombies near by and if there is danger around them. The text is very dark and gloomy and the title of the film 'Deadline' is shown in a very dark and horror text whilst being in a dark red colour representing blood and death.

Production Brief

Production Brief: To create the titles and opening sequenece of a new fictional film.


Project Name: Deadline


Length: 90 Seconds - 2 Minutes


Deadline: Friday 11th February


Group Members And There Roles:


Mikey Masher - Actor, Director
Tom Brown - Actor
Steven Power - Actor
Charlie Hopwood - Actor


Brief Overview: 4 teenagers survive a biological weapon released by the military, the weapon transforms everyone but a certain blood type into zombies and the 4 teenagers try to survive from the zombies and also try and find help.


Target Audience: Age 15 - 21


Scheduling: Our film is aimed to be released during the Easter holidays so the people who are aged 15 -18 can have more of a chance of seeing the movie during the holidays as they are our main target audience.


Research: We have researched films such as Dawn of the Dead, Zombieland, 28 Weeks Later and The Crazies.

We will test that the product is successful and accomplished its intended effect by screening it and getting feedback from people so we can see what parts of the sequence went well and what parts could be improved.

Institution Research

Media Institution Research

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Continuity Piece Evaluation

What did you find difficult about this task?

We found it difficult getting the lighting correct because the main lights were too bright and without that much light was too dark so we used a lamp which was not best quality but it was still effective.

What new skills have you acquired or developed?

I developed skills in using my initiative when it comes to trying to use and alternative from what we thought we could have used in the film to what we did use.

What worked well?

The setting worked well because we needed a setting that was quiet and dark, which the drama hall was at an effective rate.

What could you or your team have done better?

Not break character as many times as we did.

Continuity Piece