Film Studies Essay- sorry about the lateness

Shaun of the Dead


How does cinematography and sounds used during the start of ‘Shaun of the Dead’ create the effect that characters are like the undead?

Shaun of the Dead is a comedy horror film about a man named Shaun who decides to turn his pointless life around by winning back his ex-girlfriend (Liz), reconciling his relationship with his mother (Barbra), and dealing with an entire community that has returned from the dead to eat the living. Shaun’s best friend (Ed) helps him along the way as they carry out their plan to save Shaun’s friends, rescue his mother and head to the safest, securest place where Ed can smoke (the Winchester).

The sequence I have chosen to analyse starts from the very beginning of the film at the opening scene 0.00.00 seconds to 0.08.13 minutes into the film just before Shaun enters his workplace. The essay will discuss the cinematography and sounds used in order to analyse how they link with my question.

Even before seeing a picture the sequence opens with a non-diegetic soundtrack which audience can hear with the production tiles. The track has an eerie feeling to it as if something’s not quite right sort of creepy and sci-fi like by using techno instruments. This track then fades out slowly to reveal another soundtrack that begins with sirens. This also portrays to the audience that already something is not quite right as sirens are a sigh of trouble and emergencies. The track then builds up using guitars with a drumming motion as the first picture in the film is shown.
The shot is of a middle aged man with what looks like a bar behind him. It is a close up shot enabling the audience to easily see facial expressions and to see what the character is feeling. The man has a worried expression on his face as he is staring at the camera but as the soundtrack progresses our perception of the scene changes as he picks up a beer glass with his cigarette and starts to drink. We hear a bell ringing as the bar man behind shouting “last orders” which helps to make the audience feel more at ease as the character is in a clam and normal environment.
The character is then introduced by a woman who calls his name as if to ask a question. We see this woman sitting opposite ‘Shaun’ but she is placed on the right hand side of the shot in order to see both characters. She is shown as the camera slowly moves outwards from Shaun allowing more people to enter the scene with an over the shoulder shot. Shaun then answers the woman and the shot changes to looking over Shaun’s shoulder as the woman is talking.
She then introduces another character as Shaun’s best friend and talks to him using his first name so the audience knows him as Ed. The camera jumps from one over the shoulder shot of Shaun and the woman as they talk about Ed but when she talks to Ed the camera firstly goes back to Shaun where we see his head turn to the left hand side of the screen as the camera pans that way in order to introduce Ed playing on the fruit machine.
We then see all three of the characters in the shot with the camera showing Shaun and the woman sitting at the table and Ed behind them on the machine. In the background the audience can hear the sounds from the machine Ed is playing on, people ordering drinks from the bar and general conversation from the other customers which are all diagetic.
Shaun and the women continue to chat whilst the camera uses the over the shoulder shots, Shaun then introduces other characters to the film in the same way the woman did with Ed. They say ‘it’s not that I don’t like
you___’ then the camera shows the audience who they are as they reply. In Shaun’s case it is with the woman’s flatmates David and Die who are introduced in a shot with Shaun and the woman sitting closest to the camera and the flatmates in the background. This was similar to the way Ed was shown but in the opposite direction and angle being used.
The starting scene of the film is used to introduce all the characters to the audience. The way in which they are introduced is by describing Shaun’s life, and also one of the main plots to the story, through the characters as they tell the audience all of Shaun’s problems in life. They talk about how Shaun and his girlfriend’s relationship is lacking in variety, how they are spending too much time with friends and how the relationships needs to evolve by introducing Shaun’s mother to his girlfriend. This scene then develops with Shaun saying to his girlfriend (later shown as Liz) that “things will change, you’ll see”, which was meant to mean the relationship but with the sci-fi spooky sound track from earlier being played again, the audience are then lead to believe that he wasn’t just talking about their love life. This links with my question of how the cinematography and sound used creates the effect that the characters are like he undead, although this part doesn’t make you think the character are like the undead, it just makes the audience feel that something bad is going to happen (leading up to my question).
After the characters have been introduced the scene finishes with Shaun again drinking his beer. The camera slowly zooms in to his face to emphasis his worried expressions along with the spooky sound track, and then the screen goes black so as to change the scene.
A long shot then begins with a trolley man pushing several trolleys in a supermarket car park. You can tell that it is a supermarket car park because of all the typical signs such as parent and child spots, zebra crossing places and the gentleman’s uniform. This shot is also panning to the right as the man is walking with his trolleys. The man doesn’t seem like anything special to the film and is in a very docile manner, as if he is in an automatic, robotic or zombie state whilst he is doing his job. This docile, robotic state is exactly what makes the audience believe that the gentleman is one of the undead or a zombie as my question above suggested.
The start up sound track continues to play. The music is a sort of alien like sci-fi sound like we heard at the very start of the film (such as a space ship landing) which again makes the audience believe that this film is going to be abnormal.
The titles are also coming up at the bottom of the screen in a bold style font and in a white colour. The white colour could be used to create a gooling and ghostly effect. The music then gets more up-beat and comical by introducing a keyboard and trumpets although the same background notes repeat throughout. This is so the music fits in with the comedy genre but also with the sci-fi music to add to the feeling of abnormality.
The next shot is a medium shot of several women at checkouts, possibly at the same supermarket as the gentleman before. They also look very docile while doing their work and are all being very repetitive in what they are doing (there all moving in the same way at the same time in a sort of ‘in-humane’ way). They are all wearing a typical uniform of a supermarket like matching blouses and a name tag.
As the next shot is introduced the camera keeps moving to the right keeping to the same sort of angle but the closeness of the shot changes for each character.
From the women at the checkouts the camera keeps panning to the right which brings a blue lamp post, and to some people standing at a buss stop. The shot is a medium one as we can’t see the people’s feet. They are a random bunch of people, all different heights, ages, etc. They look as if they were either on there way or coming from work as they are wearing casual, smart clothes such as shirts, polo top etc. They fit with the others people beforehand with the fact they are also docile and not moving a lot but also dot seem anything special to the film. As the shot continues some of the people go to pick up their mobile phones at the same time too whilst one man just stands still constantly with his mouth open (a bit zombie like). The movement of the character, the actions that take place and the soundtrack in the background again make the audience come to conclusions that the people being shown are not quite right and are not like the normal ‘living’ people. This therefore creates the suspicion amongst the audience that the characters are like the undead.
The camera then continues to pan to a long shot of stone walls some metal railings and a group of teenagers. You can tell they are teenagers because of the clothes they are wearing such as huddies, jeans, backpacks and general scruffy attire. They are walking while listening to their earphones and bobbing their heads, with their necks at a slant and with hunched backs. The teenagers move at the same time in a very slow, docile manner with their arms by their sides, this is in the same way zombies are portrayed as moving in films. To finish the opening credits scene the film title is also introduced below the teenagers centred at the bottom of the screen.
In conclusion the opening scene and credits try to show that although the characters may be normal people doing their day to day routines, those routines occur so regularly that they become automatic and so we as an audience can relate to the film because we operate in the same ‘zombie’ like way when doing our day to day tasks.