Photo Montage- Game Over

Project Summary 
For our second project we had to create a three to four minute photo montage.  For this project we could create anything we wanted letting us be more creative with our work.  We were recommended to tell a personal story as is a common theme with other photo montages we watched in lectures.  In the same group we collaborated and decided we wanted to create a intense story with action to make an entertaining photo montage.  We came up with the idea of a zombie apocalyptic world, as this story is entertaining to the viewers, we knew it would also be entertaining for us to film.  We also wanted to embed a sub story into the main story of survival, so we also planned to include a love story within it.  We also needed to to create our own sound track to play over the pictures, we knew because this is a story we would use a voice to speak over the pictures.  We also knew we would have to create our in sound effects.

Narrative
The Story starts with the main character 'Guy' sitting in a shed pointing a gun at his own head.  He goes on to tell the story of the zombie apocalypse, within his story it tells the us of his journey including how it started and how he survived.  A major point in his story is how he fell in love but how she was taken away from him and how he had to kill his friend.  The story ends with him giving up and wanting to 'end it all', but he chose's to fight he way out and the story ends a mystery.


Genre
The main genre of his story is an Action/Drama as shown by the intense scenes, but there is a sub genre of romance as is told by Guy in the story.

Inspiration
We had all seen zombie dramas before but not in a short, we needed some guidance to do this.  When looking on short of the week we came across '5 minutes', a interactive short film.  When playing it we took from it the narration of his journey and the element of his being trapped in a shed.  We thought these features would be perfect because we could compress a story into it.  

Mise-en-scene
Setting/props- The film was set in various locations but a common setting was outdoors, we thought this would suit perfectly with the survivalist storyline.  Other settings such as sheds, abandoned houses etc were also well suited to the survivalist theme but were not as often as outdoors.  For props we chose items that were commonly used in zombie drama's, these included Guns. sharp and blunt weapons.

Costume, hair, make up etc- Again we wanted to link in with the survivalist theme so we looked at other zombie drama's and noticed that thin jackets with hoods were a popular choice so we chose them.

Facial expression/body language-  These would change throughout the scenes due to the actions taking place.  These mainly included scenes of sorrow.

Lighting and colour- Because we filmed mainly outdoors natural lighting was used when filming. We did often use a reflector to make the scenes darker to suit the genre of the short.

Positioning- We tried so focus most of the attention on Guy as it is his story, but, again, because we were outdoors there wasn't much to position as it was naturally done.

Shot types/Camera Usage
We used a variety of shots when shooting.  We would use close ups to show specific objects or facial expressions, mid shots to show the surroundings and long shots to show the characters from a distance.

Signs, Codes and Conventions
Before and during filming we knew we had to stick to typical zombie drama codes and conventions. These included short intense stories which keep the viewers invested, the intense decision when one is bitten and the horde of zombies eventually winning.  Also we stuck to survivalist conventions by keeping the film mainly outdoors and the clothing which the characters wore.

Theory
We wanted to keep to the three act structure again.  The set up is Guy sitting in the shed about to tell his story, the conflict is when the bandits take away his friend and the resolution is when attempts to fit his way out.

Props Narration theory could also be applied here:

Hero- Guy
Villain- Bandits/zombies
Heroine- Evvie
Helper- Alex
Doner- Media Coverage

My Role
My Role in this short was the production manager.  As part of this role I had make sure all the paperwork relating to the short e.g. health and safety reports forms, were corrected and in on time with our tutor.  I felt I performed this role well as the paperwork was correct.