D.B: Opening Sequence Analysis - Dawn of the Dead (Snyder, 2004)

Genre:

·         Dawn of the Dead is of the sub-genre zombie-horror. All of the conventions and expectations of the horror genre are met in this opening sequence through the use of the montage. There are dead bodies, deranged humans with blood and gore on multiple parts of their body. The location of a hospital features with a bloodied body suggesting that the character has suffered from a severe disease. There are multiple clips of carnage and worldwide panic in the montage creating verisimilitude by putting the infectious zombies into real life situations.

Form and style of opening:

·         The opening is a montage that creates foreboding from the sense that a long period of time has passed throughout the entirety of the sequence. An extreme close-up of a manic, bloodied mouth is shown screaming into the camera, a voice over of the head of disease prevention speaks about the fact that there is no hope for a cure from the disease. The juxtaposition of the close-up of the head of disease prevention and the deranged body suggests that the disease has caused the crazed body.

·         The title presents the idea that the present day and moment is surrounded and associated with death. The title uses alliteration to become more memorable. The dawn of a new day is often association with a new beginning and hope but the ‘Dawn’ in the title is the new-coming of the dead.

Film language – telling the story:

·         Mise-en-scéne

-        Non-verbal language - News reporters show how globalised the problem has become from various presenters and news channel publishing the story. The character used facial expressions to show the urgency of the situation and fear that the presence of the disease and death has caused. 

-        Character blocking- large groups of people are closely spaced together. Conventionally people, especially two or more people that don’t know each other intimately, would not stand very close together. The clips of the rioting and large groups of people shoving closely against each other presents the change in normality the disease and chaos has caused. The large amount of people also presents the wide scale that the epidemic has spread to.

·         Sound

-        Speech - A news reporter sounds over the top to present the scale and attention that people are giving to the outbreak of zombies. The dialogue context is about how the outbreak of disease has become incurable and there is no known way to stop it or prevent it, creating hopelessness. This anchors the images by presenting context.The dialogue is important in establishing the prominence of the issue through the shouting and fast paced reports.

-        Non-diagetic sound - An upbeat song is played over the top to show irony and provides a comic relief. The graphic shots can be seen as very dire and depressing so the upbeat song adds some entertaining qualities to the otherwise repulsive and unappealing content.

·         Editing

-        Typography - Red credits smudge like blood connoting that the outbreak of disease has not only caused death but has caused manic violence and pain. The credits show that the pain and distress is completely serious and that the film has some relation to a gory outcome.

-        Lines flicker over the shots of public chaos to show lack of signal and the little importance on the quality of the pictures over the dire nature of the situation. The quality imitates the same quality of the everyday news reports seen in real life to create verisimilitude and disguise an otherwise ridiculous and unrealistic situation seem possible by introducing everyday people, setting and props amongst the zombies.

·         Camera

-        Handicam increases panic and severity by distorting the image and creating more movement in the shot rather than just the running of the people within the shot. The clips are often supposed to be news reporters which would often be filmed by someone holding the camera so the handicam effect creates verisimilitude. It places the audience amongst the chaos.

-        Tracking in to the head of department of disease prevention to present the importance on what he has to say. As he pauses to announce that there is no hope for any cure the camera tacks in to a close-up to divert all attention on his actions.

None of the characters in the narrative of the film are shown in the opening sequence. I think that a montage of contextual shots would be an interesting idea to take from this shot rather than creating a character narrative that has relatable characteristics that the audience can understand.

Narrative:

·         The audience is positioned as an outsider with no information or context towards any of the character in the story of the film. The protagonist is completely alienated from the audience given that they do not even know what they look like. The audience does however understand the creation, existence and characteristics of the antagonists: the zombies. This identification is created through global news reports and images to relate to the zombies.

·         Tension is maintained through the constant bombardment of flashing images of the zombies. Often the flashes of clips are of extreme close ups of the zombies screaming into the camera as if they are targeted and screaming at the audience. The audience then feels as though they can position themselves with the panic a terror faced by the other people within the sequence.

Representation & Ideology:

·         The audience is mainly positioned with the American population, a culturally marked construction made by Hollywood that the American point of view and way of behaving is the most interesting and important story to tell. The sequence produces American culture with a hegemonic status above other cultures. The only language spoken by the news reporters is American English belittling the fact that the zombie outbreak is supposedly global and other culture would have been affected.

·         A residual ideology about a stereotypically Muslim country is portrayed through the clip of a large group of Muslims praying in a mosque. The residual ideology is that everyone from that country has the same religious values. This is neither a negative or positive stereotype but it is regressive to the extent that it does not challenge the consensus view.

Media Audiences:

·         The film is targeted at the conventional audience of males aged 15-24.

·         There can be several different readings taken from the opening sequence. The probable preferred reading would be that there was a disease outbreak which caused people to turn into zombies and crave the taste of human flesh. The disease became highly contagious and the zombies should be greatly feared. A possible oppositional reading would be that the zombies were created and mistreated by humans to an extent that they rebelled against them, alongside some human supporters, causing worldwide chaos and rioting.

Institutional Context:

·         The film contained stars such as: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber and Mekhi Phifer.

·         The film was produced by Zack Snyder and it is an industrial mainstream film, as most horror films are.

·         Dawn of the Dead was meant to be released around the same sat as Shaun of the Dead (Wright, 2004) but due to their similarities in names and plot line the release dates where separated by 2 weeks. The film was a remake so it already contained a fan base and people who wanted to watch the film would already have knowledge about the plotline. Most people were pleasantly surprised by the film calling it ‘A kinetic, violent and surprisingly worthy remake of the horror classic’. A sequel was planned but later cancelled.