Blog 25: Mentorship

Literal 

• Mentorship Log
• Contact Info: Matt Mogk  Phone: 310-266-1868  email: mogk@zrs.me

Interpretive 

The most important thing I have gained from this experience was the ability to communicate with others. For example, I had to communicate with all of the radio show hosts, zombie fans and authors, my partner Luke Boyd and mentor Matt Mogk in order to raise money for the once existing George Romero Star Campaign, get the interviews/ interview proposals done, and update the ZRS blog. Another important thing I gained from this experience was the ability to understand what it is that zombie fanatics like to see. I have learned that zombie fans would rather prefer to see articles that they could connect with through humor and those about a popular zombie film, book or video game. Most of the fans on the ZRS page absolutely adore George Romero for Night of the Living Dead, Max Brooks for his book World War Z,  Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg for their film Shaun of the Dead. I have also learned to be patient when it comes to setting up meetings with other people because often the people I'd work with would often have a busy schedule. 

Applied

My experience has helped me answer my essential question,"What is the most important factor for successful zombie fiction?" by allowing me to view for myself what it is that interests zombie fanatics. Helping Luke Boyd and Matt Mogk run the Zombie Research Society blog allowed me to see which movies and books were most popular and why. For example, when the novel World War Z was adapted into a film, Max Brooks himself admitted that he wasn't too sure that the film would fulfill World War Z fans. He even claimed that the only similarity between his book and the film was the name and that he had practically no involvement with the making of the movie so he can't guarantee that it'd be good enough to live up to his fan's expectations. This helped me realize that if an author isn't involved with the making of a film adaptation, then the entire story behind it will be distorted and may have a less chance of becoming as successful as the novel due to the different interpretations. 

May 19, 2013

Here is the first ZRS blog update I helped contribute to:

High-End Zombie Baby Dolls

May 15, 2013

Today I received my ZRS membership shirt and ID card through the mail. I can honestly say that these shirts look really amazing. I'm excited to wear it for my presentation. It feels great to officially be known as a member. 

Blog 24: Exit Interview Questions

1. What is your essential question? What is the best answer to your question and why?
My essential question is "What is the most important factor for successful zombie fiction?" My best answer is central message and theme. The reason why a work of fiction's central message is important is because it is what defines our society and culture. The things we find interesting in media are those that we can relate to as a society. For fiction to be successful, it must contain a central message we all understand and value.

2. What process did you take to arrive at this answer?
At the beginning of senior project my essential question was originally, "What makes zombie culture so popular in today's society?" Upon performing days of research, I came across various answers that were just too general and in all honesty quite obvious. Then I realized I had to change my essential question so that it could pinpoint to just one solid answer. From then on out I didn't really know what to do, so I asked my mentor Matt Mogk (head of Zombie Research Society) and he told me I should research cultural anxieties. I wondered why cultural anxieties, and after doing what I was told, I realized that was what zombie fiction was all about. Then I figured that there must be more to what makes zombie culture popular. I thought that in order for zombies to become popular in society, they must be portrayed throughout some sort of media such as cinema, literature, and gaming. This finally led me to my current essential question, "What is the most important factor for successful zombie fiction?" Since most successful works of fiction aren't those simply about zombies but about something more meaningful as my mentor said, cultural anxieties, it has become my best answer.

3. What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?
Some problems I faced were getting the first interview done on time. My mentor was out of town at the time to go speak on behalf of Zombie Research Society at a convention known as Infect Scranton which takes place in Pennsylvania. In order to resolve that issue, I contacted Matt multiple times to remind him about the interview and followed up on the day he was actually able to be interviewed. Although it was a bit complicated to get done at first, I eventually got it turned in so I'm proud to say that I managed to make it through. Another problem I faced was figuring out what to do for Independent Component 1. I asked my mentor once again for advice and to my surprise he had a project set for me to work on. He assigned me the George Romero Star Project in which I was to help raise money to try to get George Romero a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I was to have this done by contacting thousands of zombie fanatics and spreading the word of this campaign. All had been going well, the Zombie Research Society and I raised around $17,000 out of the $45,000 that was required. I had even gotten an article published on the LA Times Hero Complex to support our campaign but unfortunately the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce weren't too happy that the price to maintain the star was announced. So the project had to be called off and we are as of now trying to come up with a new way to honor George Romero for all of his great work in advancing the zombie genre into what it is now.

4. What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?
Two of the most significant sources I have used to answer my essential question were
-First Interview with Matt Mogk because it helped me find my first answer and get everything to fall in place.
-The Living Dead by John Joseph Adams because it helped support two of my answers: central message and characters.

5. What is your product and why?
My product is the ability to communicate with others more effectively. I can now arrange interviews very easily due to the fact that's practically what I did the majority of the time during my mentorship. Besides having to set up interviews for senior project, I also had to set up interviews for Matt on radioshows. I was required to contact every talk show host on a specific list to set up an interview regarding the month of May- Zombie Awareness Month. I have also gained connections with a few zombie authors (Matt Mogk, Jonathan Maberry,Don Roff, John Joseph Adams, Steve Hockensmith).

Blog 23: 2014 Interview

1. I interviewed Cesar Lopez, a student in South House.

2. Cesar: I am thinking along the lines of "what it takes to run a successful business"..Something like that. I've always kind of wanted to own my own little business of anything. Or like go into some kind of business area.

3. Cesar: Well, for career day they had someone come in to Pang's room and I was going to ask to see if he could be my mentor. I haven't kept in touch with him but he gave us a card and everything, so I'll get in contact with him as soon as I can.

4. Cesar: Well I'd like to see something in the architecture parts, business parts, engineering maybe, something along those lines. Maybe even culinary arts.

5. Cesar: Do you actually have time to complete your mentor hours and take young scholar classes?
My response: Well, I don't take college classes but my friend Amanda does and she said she's taken two classes and yeah, it was a bit stressful but it wasn't that bad. So you have time for that.You can take classes, but you just have to manage your time wisely.

Blog 22: 3 Column Chart

3 Column Chart

Blog 21: Independent Component 2

Literal 
a. I, Leslie Lopez, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
b. In order to complete my film analysis, I used the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) to find out who the films' directors were and when the films were released. I also used Box Office Mojo to provide the amount of money the films have made in total. I referred to "Considering Blackness in George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead: An Historical Exploration", a thesis written by Jennifer Whitney Dotson to justify the central message within Night of the Living Dead and provide a clear example on what a successful film contains. I also used this article within the Los Angeles Times Hero Complex in order to gain an idea as to which films I could watch and analyze: Top 10 zombie movies at the box office: Zombies not a monster draw.
c. Independent Component 2: Log of Hours
d. In this Independent Component I watched a list of several different zombie films in which I believed were well known and successful enough to evaluate and analyze. These films were:

• The Evil Dead
• Resident Evil
• 28 Days Later
• Dawn of the Dead
• Shaun of the Dead 
• 28 Weeks Later
• Planet Terror
• Return of the Living Dead
• Zombieland
• Night of the Living Dead 
• Land of the Dead 
• Rec 3 
• Aah! Zombies!! 
• Fido
• The Crazies 
• Warm Bodies
• Diary of the Dead 
• I am Legend
• The Horde 

The film analysis I completed for each film asked for the title of the film, director and producer, release date, genre, important moments within the film, the atmosphere of the film, mood and look of the film as well as many other factors. This form could be viewed below. 

Interpretive

Everyday beginning March 31st up until April 18th, I have watched and analyzed one zombie film a day on the list above. I made a blog to post my opinion and analysis of each film I had watched along with its theatrical trailer. I also made sure to spend the majority of the time watching the film and researching the ways different camera angles, lighting and music could be used to establish a certain mood or look for a scene. Adding onto that, I've researched several different types of central messages films provide such as the racial and war commentary in George Romero's Night of the Living Dead.  

Here is the link to all of the film analysis I have completed: http://lesliesblogofthelivingdead.blogspot.com/

Applied

This component really helped me support my first answer, central message, for my essential question: What is the most important factor for successful zombie fiction? Upon completing an analysis for each film, the results showed me how important it is for a film to contain a meaningful message that everyone will remember. I have learned that if a film lacks a central message, such as the films Planet Terror, Aah! Zombies!!, and The Horde, then the film will not be as great as all of the others because the film 's ability to be easily forgotten. Films like 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, and  Land of the Dead, on the other hand, are memorable due to the fact that they send a strong central message. For example, in 28 Days Later the inhumanity in man is highlighted along with the increase in violence in our media. The central message in both Dawn of the Dead and Land of the Dead criticize our consumer culture and our need to take advantage of the products around us. "The central theme of Dawn of the Dead is shifted from the evils of consumerism to the issues of trust and goodwill between men." (Dawn of the Dead, Then and Now). In Night of the Living Dead, the central message relies on racial conflict and the conflict of a group being unable to work together which causes them twice as much trouble and even their lives.  This component has also made it easy for me to pinpoint the factors these films all have in common and differ with one another. Using what I know about the successful and well written zombie films, I could apply those same factors to the least successful films in order to improve them.