RESEARCH: Horror

 RESEARCH: Dawn Of The Dead

Dawn Of The Dead

Year: 1978

Genre: Horror

Director: George A. Romero

Writer: George A. Romero

Opening Two Minutes.

We first see a red, rough background; at this point we can hear a loud low pitched note being played, which then turned to a high pitch. There is also synchronous diagetic sound of people shouting and talking. The camera then zooms out and pans from left to right to reveal that is the corner of a room. There is a blonde haired lady sitting curled up in the corner; it is clear that she is having a nightmare, she is moving her head and cry quietly. The movie title then appears on the screen in a white font “DAWN of the DEAD” the words “dawn” and “dead” being in capitals are putting emphasis on the fact that this is going to be a horror film. The blonde haired lady screams loudly, making the music abruptly. A male character is introduced and an over the shoulder shot is used when he talks to her “are you alright?” . the camera then cuts to a bird’s eye view shot of the room, showing us that we are in a studio for a television centre, people arguing can still be heard outside.

A two shot is sued now to show a conversation between the blonde haired lady and another lady, they are watching a television screen on a news reporter arguing. The situation is shown to be very stressful “still dreaming”, the situation seems to be unreal.

There is a jump cut to a mid shot of the man leaving the studio to the busy space outside, which is an operator room. You can hear a significant change in volume from everyone arguing outside. Another lady walks into the studio room and gives the blonde a drink. They discuss the situation and show that they are concerned; you can see their body language that they are worried.

Match on action is used as the blonde haired lady leaves the room, and enters the operator room where there are a lot of people, running around, shouting and on phones, everyone is very busy and look stressed. When the blonde haired lady leaves the studio the high pitched tone starts playing again, here is also diagetic sound of people having conversations, the camera slowly panned down from left to right, and focused in a mid shot on a man and a woman who are having an argument.

The camera focuses on different television screens, before jump cutting to a news reporter having an argument, they are discussing the ‘living dead’ showing that it is a horror film, by discussing the cultural meme of the ‘living dead’.

The camera jump cuts to a long shot of the television studio, in the background the news reporter can be seen arguing.

We then jump cut to a long shot of the operator room, at this point the main sound being heard is the high pitched classical tones. Match on action is used as the blonde lady walks over to an older man to find out about rescue station. They discuss inoperative rescue stations, and show their concerns at them not being in use. This shows that there is a big worry being mutually shared, this is drawing the viewer in wanting to know what they are all so concerned about.

The camera then uses several different jump cuts to show close ups of peoples different arguments in the operator room; with the sound here being a mixture of voices and the high pitched notes.