Creating the final product has been a long possess, lasting a number of weeks going through several stages and phases from researching the preliminary task to filming and editing the final product.
The opening preliminary task asked me to create a short peace of film following three basic rules and while this small bit of film has nothing to do with the final product I gained valuable ideas as to what I wanted to achieve in my final work and if nothing else I knew I wanted to create a film entirely from the point of view of one character.
I viewed the openings to several films including Cloverfield and Blair Witch Project and while I enjoyed the personal terror of each character that seemed to be felt by the subsequent audience particularly in Cloverfield I felt that there could have been more shock value in the realisation of what has happened.
In planning and scripting the film I had in mind something of a gore fest in the style of the crossed comic series, using complex character drama and brutal combat scenes. The opening two minutes would involve a group of survivors already in the midst of the apocalypse, gathering supplies. The survivors hear something from another part of the building and investigate, finding a bloody scene and a stranger standing on the other side of the door way. Only once the opening two minutes were scripted and planned the idea that would be eventually used for the final peace came to mind.
I was on Youtube simply browsing for personal entertainment and on a whim searched: top 10 post apocalypse films, I found the following video:
The video while somewhat immature and less than entertaining mentioned a film called The Road. Grabbed by the sound of this “realistic and gritty story” I wanted to watch the film. Even two and a half minutes into the film I knew that this is what I want to do, a gritty found video style film of f the daily struggles of survivors in a new world
I thought through the whole idea again, I would only use one other person. I also decide against using any blood, the reason being that I was filming in a relatively rural area, the outskirts of a city where it is only busy in the city centre. On the other hand if I had filmed within my home area or a larger city such as London or even Bristol I would have made the meis en scene a lot darker and more gritty as the fleeing population would have surely made more of an emendate effect on the abandoned area. Another reason for the lack of blood effects and other horror staples was the fact that I didn’t want to make it obvious within the first two minutes that the world had changed so dramatically. Had I been given the chance to film the rest of the film I would have perhaps confirmed the end of the world fifteen minutes into the film with a gory spectacle such as the killing of a cannibal.
Finally I edited the production with Final Cut having been relatively pleased with my production after being somewhat unsure of how the final creation would turn out.
In creating my media product I knew I wanted to challenge standard conventions. Having watched film like the Cloverfield and Blair Witch Project I knew how effective and potentially terrifying the fixed point of view can be as well as being more personal to the audience. I wanted to open with something unexpected, most horror films start with some form of prologue that creates the primary sense of fear within the audience that isn’t revisited until twenty minutes into the film and while the idea I had originally planned was along this idea I soon realised I wanted something different. The opening two minutes of the film are filmed in a kitchen and while there is a sense of urgency the audience is unaware of the situation as is uncommon in films where the audience and character have similar points of view to have such a gap in knowledge. In Cloverfield You know at the same time as the character that something has happened and in my opinion this almost softens the blow, what was so unexpected is suddenly not all that scary. I scrapped a tried and tested horror convention to create a more subtle horror that would come as a shock to the audience when they found out the full extent of what had happened.
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