Analysis of a Student Film From Previous Years - Infected

Infected

The genre of this student film is immediately clear to be a zombie apocalypse horror, in the vein of movies such as 28 Days Later. This is because of the name of the title, with the word "infected" having connotations of zombies and the diseases which they carry. In addition to this, the tracking, shaky camera movement is used in order to connote the nervousness of the female protagonist, which again suggests that the film is part of the genre of horror.

The editing of the opening is fairly slow paced for an action/horror film, because it is made up of lots of long, tracking shots. However, this builds up the tension in a better way than it would have been built up had they decided to edit it into fast shots - it is a good use of defying the genre conventions in order to make the product unique. However, there are some points within the film opening where this technique of long, drawn out shots begins to affect the piece in a bad way, for example near the end when the 'zombies' are running towards the camera. This clip should have been cut about 2 or 3 seconds before it was, because the film begins to lose some of its tension and verisimilitude due to the unengaging length of the shot. There are also some badly placed jump cuts when the protagonist is shocked by the zombie in the classroom window, as it is obvious that all of it hasn't been filmed in one shot due to the little jumps between each clip where they have been edited together.

The sound used within the clip is typical of a horror movie - it is an ambient, frightening soundscape which is made up of creepy sounds and a piano played slowly. The way in which the sound builds up as the film reaches its climax is very effective, although could have been made better with the use of more diegetic sounds which were made by the zombie characters - this would have made the film both scarier and more realistic for the audience.

The camera angles used in the film are fairly straight forward close, mid, and long shots, with the occasional tracking shot. However, they still seem to be effective because of the way that they have been edited, which is to keep each shot going for a long time. A negative point about the camera angles which have been used is that they sometimes get a bit boring, and it would have made the piece more interesting if they had experimented with the height of the camera shots more - a birds eye view shot of the zombies chasing the teacher would have been very effective.

The mise-en-scene of the film opening is very well used, because it is a contrast of the zombies with the school. This juxtaposition is what gives the film it's uniqueness, because quite often films within this genre are set in a location where it is obvious what is going to happen. This use of mise-en-scene sees the zombies dressed as school students, which is an interesting choice of costume because it again develops the genre and takes it to another level. However, there is also a negative point to this, which is that filming it in school and having the characters wearing school uniforms does make the film look like it has been filmed without consideration of costume and location. In addition to this, the use of lighting could be much better, as low key lighting would create shadows which follow the zombie characters as they chase the teacher - this would make the film look much more eerie than the high key lighting which is being used in the film.

The titles are written in a great font, which is closely associated with the zombie-horror genre. However, the colour white doesn't stand out very well considering the high key lighting within the film, and isn't a colour which is really associated with the genre. Because of this, it probably would have been more appropriate for the students to give the writing a red colour, as this would make it stand out better and would make it more suitable for the genre. The ordering of the titles is very good, although it could have been made better by having the names of the cast appear on screen individually like the names of the crew do, as this would make it more realistic to an actual media piece.

The positives of this film are clearly it's focus on genre and sound, because the soundtrack is so focused on putting the film into a certain genre that it has been perfected in order to match the action which is happening on the screen. However, there are also some negatives to this film opening, namely the length of shots and dubious muse-en-scene consideration. Whilst the mise-en-scene choices are good at juxtaposing the usual traits of the genre, it would have looked like more time was spent considering the mise-en-scene if they had added some makeup to the zombie characters, in addition to the school uniforms. Studying this film opening has taught me about the importance of considering how effectively mise-en-scene is used within my own opening.