Dawn of the Dead

Dawn of the dead

At the start of the opening titles, you can see a group of religious people praying in some kind of mosque. From this particular scene I can suggest that they are praying for foregiveness as a few seconds after, you see a detailed zombie which could link with why they are praying, they might be begging for survival of their friends or family.

You can clearly see that the outbreak of infection is spreading and the new reporters are telling the report globally, advising the population to evacuate the area as soon as possible. In some of the clips, the reporters are actually experiencing the attack while they are reporting it, which suggests that in most areas it has become over populated with this new species. A zombie is defined as an unrealistic human who thrives on flesh, and something like this we wouldn't see everyday, and that's why we would be frightened of them as its an unnatural behaviour of a human.

Setting: This setting is effective as it shows people trying to escape from large groups of flesh craving creatures and they are gradually gaining power. This is a perfect example of a zombie outbreak because it shows the effects of what could happen in the worst circumstances, and in this case they do this by getting the audience on the edge of their seat by making them feel isolated as if they were part of the catastrophe.

The editing in these opening credits is very common in the case of zombie films. They are disorientated and this could create a picture of all of the people left trying to escape desperately. As they are in such a mad panic, this could emphasise the disorientation as they are not thinking about what they are doing as all they are worried about is survival. The opening credits themself are actually edited so when they are moving out of the shot, they symoblise a line of blood which suggests that its a violent, but the colour red symbolises evil in my opinion, so this new species isn't a kind that they can co operate with.

Analysing film opening credits: Walking dead - Season 3

Setting: The opening credits of Walking dead symbolise that the film evolves around survival of the characters and escaping the area. The lonliness of the city shown in the credits make the audience want to watch further as they begin to wonder why the streets have been abandoned. The picture on the left shows that the city has evacuated and the whole road is blocked up with empty cars in which people had abandoned to escape the zombie like characters.

Props: A couple of seconds into the video you can see a piece of newspaper which is blown away by the wind, and underneath it is a police badge. This would seem frightening to the audience as the police would normally succeed in taking power in a situation, and seeing the badge left on the floor can suggest that they have failed and there is something much more powerful which is trying to take control of the city/area. This emphasises that the entire popultaion might of evacuated from this "new power" which is trying to take control by fighting the police off. Also, there are bullet cases on a rock and we can infer that there has been a case of murder or attack as the bullet cases and the police badge interlink as this shows the police tried to fight the other species off with a 9mm pistol. The arrows are also seen as a weapon of harm, and in this case it might have been used incorrectly to try and injure a person, or maybe an unknown species.

Effects: A zoom lense is used to make one specific item important in the scene/shot. In this case, the police badge, the watch and the arrows in the tree are focused on which means you can suggest that the police are involved in this programme. The same applies for most of the objects throughout the opening credits. The time of the day is editied so that it going fast throughout the day, which shows that there is no activity happening during the day. When the time is sped up, it shows a variety of houses and areas which seem empty and deserted after this devastating outbreak, and this creates emotion as when the audience are watching this programme, they might wonder how it feels to be isolated or in a situation where you are still alive in the city and everyone else has vanished.

Lighting: In this particular opening, you can see that it is mostly high key lighting as you can clearly see that there is no sign of a life form anywhere close, which enforces the feeling of emptiness. When parts of the opening credits are sped up, the shots are partly disorientated which could suggest that if you were looking at a city from this perspective, you would be confused about how you would be able to survive/cope in an environment like this.

Google Drive Questionnaire

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1bN_AUJFFYFicUATxWI__ZMdbe7lpTyJZcmUSXxk1DG8/viewanalytics

This link shows the average of what my results are for my questionnaire named "Horror questionnaire" which gives a few grid questions and closed questions to get a basic analysis of what people like to see the most on a horror scene/movie.

If you would like to answer my questionnaire, click the link below!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1bN_AUJFFYFicUATxWI__ZMdbe7lpTyJZcmUSXxk1DG8/viewform

Preliminary task: The Solus Script

‘The Solus’ script

*Looking at man*
Persona: “What have we done…?”

Man: “We?!”

*Looking at persona*
Persona: “Yes… we… (smirks) you didn’t stop me”

*Looking at man*
Man: “I shouldn’t have to stop you… you should know when to stop”

*Looking at persona*
Persona: “But we like it”

*Looking at man*
Man: (lashing out) “You like it! (echoes)

*Changes to both but man is alone*

*Back to looking at persona*

*Looking at man*
Man: “You’re insane”

*Looking at persona*
Persona: “We’re insane”

*Looking at man*
Man: “Leave me alone”

*Looking at persona*
Persona: “We’ll never be alone… never”

*Looking at man
Man: “No!” (echoes)

*Changes to both but man is alone*

END.

Preliminary task: Editing with Harry Clarke (Completed)

We are currently working in our AS Media class and Harry is sorting out each part of the scene into chronological order and then he has rendered each of the clips. The video above is the completed preliminary task, there are some things we need to improve such as the sound quality and we could of included many more shots to create more meaning.

 Also another fault of ours was that we forgot to crop some of the clips so there is an outtake in the last clip. At some points, the camera was canted and slightly blurred, but nevertheless this created a stronger scene as the scene was meant to create a dark and mysetrious effect.

The dailogue didn't flow effectively as the transitions between each clip were't smooth and they weren't cropped as well as they could of been, and when the clips were being recorded, the length of some of the clips were quite short and difficult to edit.

 However, Harry's use of editing and audio made the preliminary task more eye cacthing and effective as he used a variety of effects and transitions.

In progress of completing our preliminary task

During our preliminary task, we had to consider many different factors which could affect how effective our editing would turn out.

Throughout creating the task we had many outtakes as we had realised that we had recorded for a time which was too short or we were trying to contain our laughter. We also had a problem with the lights as they were difficult to control because they kept switching to fast and we wanted one individual light over the table and not three flashing lights. Also, the camera was a little out of focus at some points so that the image in the scene is sometimes blurred, but it is also effective even though it was a  mistake as it blurred the character who was the "Evil" one.

Our positive factors of creating our scenes were the we positioned the camera so that we have the shot/reverse shot, match on action and 180 degree rule. Throughout the time we were taking various photographs to show what we were doing while recording each section, and some of these are shown in this blog (to the left).

Preliminary Task

For this particular task, we have to record a character who walks into a room, sits opposite another character and then exchanges a couple of line of dialogue. We also have to include a reverse shot and a one hundred and eighty degree angle.

We have thought of two main ideas. The first idea was a game of cards, with a comedy side to a serious game. We would let them exchange money while the characters are focused from each side of their shoulders when addressing each other.

Our second idea we expanded on a lot more, which was a man with two personalities. We drew on some flash cards to show each individual scene. The first scene included the man slowly opening the door in silence and as he closes it he sees a man who looks similar to him on a table in the corner of the room and he is tapping his fingers against the table. For this part of the scene I am using a diegetic sound. When he gradually goes over to the character, he realises that it is himself. To do this effectively we would have to switch the camera angles so that the other person is only seen from the back of the head. To do this we are making sure that the other character which we are using has a similar hairstyle to the character who is being seen. He begins to remind him of when he killed someone with the murder weapon and the character begins to realise what he has done, and when the camera slowly moves out, he is the only one who is sitting around the table and he realises that he is the psychopathic character who was sitting opposite the chair, which represented his self conscience.

In these pictures, you can see that we took a photo of each camera angle and included Mise En Scene. In these particular freeze frames, you can see the setting of where the dialogue is exchanged and when the main character (Ryan Clarke) is walking into the room. We have shown that the scene is low key lighting and the setting symbolises that it's a horror/psychological film.