Research in to Effective Film Openings

Micro- In this horror film there are lots of different shots used but most of all there are long shots and there is also a close up of the characters eye at the start of the film, this shows that it is from his point of view but also that he is very possibly one of the main characters in the film. They use lots of establishing and long shots of London to show that the city is empty and this also shows the audience that there is something wrong and that the city is deserted apart from the character we see at the start and apart from the antagonists in which the audience do not know are there yet. There is diegetic sound right at the start where he says ‘hello’ and there is background music which is non diegetic and also adds a sense of tension. As the character finds the posters and realises that there has been an evacuation the non diegetic sound gets more intense and builds up more tension. .



This picture shows an example of a long shot of the London setting as well as the main character, the protagonist in the film.


Macro- The iconography used is a lot different to in saw 2 because it is a different sub genre, saw 2 is a splatter film and has to focus a lot on the gore at the start of the film to shock the audience whereas 28 days later is a zombie film in which they do not need to focus a lot on the gore. The setting is deserted London and is not dark to add tension but is very quiet and still to show that something is a miss. There is a bit of make up used on the zombies to make them look a lot more scary.