Post apocalyptic & Social realism films By Chris Anscombe

I am legend (2007) Narrative: The film is based on a 1954 novel by Richard Matheson. The narrative of the film is set in the future where a cure for cancer has killed over 90% of the population only 600 million survived some had a natural immunity and the virus had no affect on them, the rest of the survivors were mutated into ‘Darkeseekers’ who are basically violent, aggressive zombies of the human form. Locations The film is in New York City. Lots of empty streets and abandoned buildings, there is also abandoned cars and lots of rubbish everywhere. Most buildings in the film have a lot of damage done to them which emphasises the fact that the human race has come to an end and there is no chance of survival. The area looks as if a riot has happened. Settings: Within the film there is a lot of New York shown, some building are nearly untouched and still look as they did before the apocalyptic event happened. Other buildings though are abandoned and have had a lot of damage done to them.

Characters: A male Protagonist played by Will Smith who is alone except for his dog. Throughout the film he has to face the mutated humans and fight for his life with violence. Later in the film he meets a woman and a child he stays with them to help them survive and protects them. In the case of this film the main character is working on a cure for mutants. In the end of the film the main character ends up dying alone whilst looking after the woman and child. This film uses a man and his dog instead of a gang of people which is more typical for this genre. Editing: At one point in the film the film isn’t shot full screen only wide screen to make what you are seeing seem like a news report. The sound of a news report is in the background of scene which makes the shot like you are watching a news report. The lack of non-diegetic sound emphasises that Dr. Neville is lonely and there is no one else around. A camera pans down in one scene using a fish eye effect which almost singles out a building showing it could have something to do with the narrative.

The road (2009) Narrative: A man and his wife wake up in the middle of the night to a flash of light. Soon the man, his wife, and his child are survivors of an apocalypse that has banished the sun and left dark dust in the air everywhere. Rather than continue on, the wife kills herself. for love of his child, the man is unable to make himself follow her, and he and his son begin the business of surviving in a new and hostile world. The apocalypse has wiped out a large amount of the population. Characters: The father in this film is a typical protagonist and uses violence toward others to protect himself and his son from the cannibal humans, the son teaches his father to be human again and not to kill. At the end of the film the father dies and the son finds a new family who look after him. The son in this film is the main protagonist because he is the hope that normal civilisation still lives on. When a group of cannibals find the father and son for the safety of himself and his son he kills the cannibal although his son try's to stop him, this shows the hope that the child still is ‘human’. Settings: The road is set along the gold coast, everywhere in this films Is abandoned. Most of the buildings and vehicles are damaged, everywhere is dark due to the unexpected cataclysm. Most of the spaces are empty, all trees and vegetation are dead along with other living species.

28 days later (2008) Narrative: After 4 chimpanzees are freed from a research facility by animal liberation activists they have a disease called ‘rage’ which is highly contagious and then infect the activists by biting them, almost instantly they are turned into infected zombies. They then spread the virus around London nearly wiping out the whole population of London. 28 days after the virus first started spreading a bike courier wakes up from a coma and finds himself in a abandoned hospital, when he ventures outside he alerts a group of the infected. Whilst fleeing from the infected he is saved by two people who then look after him. The find some other survivors (a cab driver and his daughter) they let them spend the night, the cab driver then shows them a radio message telling them of survivors with a cure. The group then travel toward Manchester where the other survivors are. Along the way they meet a group of army soldiers who try to kill the men and rape the girls, but they escape although the main character is injured and falls into another coma. We then join the main character and the two girls at a cottage where they see a airplane, the airplane sees them and also the infected lying on the ground dyeing of hunger. Characters: Jim is the name if the main character he is a bike courier who awakens from a 28 days after a virus has spread turning most people in London, New York and Paris into zombies. Jim then meets two people who save his life they are Selena and Mark who look after Jim and take him to see whether his mother and father are still alive/not infected. When he finds they aren’t they stay there for the night, that night Mark is infected and Selena kills him. When the leave Jims parents house they discover two survivors in a block of flats, a cab driver and his daughter. They make there way to Manchester to find other survivors and on the way they find some army troops, the army troops try to rape the girls and kill the men but they eventually escape.

Social realism films

This is England Narrative: a group of young adults in 1983 just living there lives and are shown through what life was like in that time. The group make friends with a younger boy and the boys starts to like the things they do and the way they dress. The young boy then gets introduced to one of the group’s friends and he starts to influence the boy into doing the wrong things. Characters: there are many characters in this film; one is Woody, who first becomes friends with the younger boy and takes him under his wing and introduces him to his other friends. Another is Shaun, he is the young boy who meets woody he is a 12-year-old boy. Location & settings: England, 1983

Dirty pretty things Narrative: this film is about two illegal immigrants who work in a hotel with other illegal immigrants in London who are forced to do illegal things so that they are not ratted on by the immigration. Characters: Okwe is a Nigerian taxi driver during the day and a hotel receptionist during the evening. In Nigeria Okwe was a doctor and the owner of the hotel uses this to his advantage to help him with a secret operation. Senay is a Turkish woman who works in the same hotel as a maid. Location & settings: London

Kidulthood Narrative: the film follows a few 15 year old teenagers for two days, the teens come from a mixed income area in West London. When a girl from their school hangs herself because she is being mentally and physically abused the pupils are given a day off for mourning. Instead they plan a party, on the days off three teenage boys go to a boys house, Sam who is the school bully and stole something of one of them, when they get there Sam isn’t in but they tell his mum they are there to pick something up and she lets them in. When the three boys go into Sam’s room Sam’s brother and his girlfriend are in there. One of the boys grabs the brother and puts a sock in his mouth to stop him from shouting. Whilst two of the boys try and find the Gameboy that got stolen from them the other starts flirting with Sam’s girlfriend, the boy and Sam’s girlfriend have sex on Sam’s bed. Just as the boys go to leave Sam comes home and holds a baseball bat up to two of the boys, the other boy picks up a computer keyboard and hits Sam in the head with it knocking him to the floor they then run away from Sam. They have now annoyed Sam and he wants to kill the three boys. Trife finds out also that his girlfriend Alisa is pregnant by him but the baby could also be Sam’s. Trife sets out to kill Sam and is highly influenced to do so by his powerful uncle. Characters: The story follows three boys, the main one is Trevor or ‘Trife’ and is also the main character he is a 15 year old who is going to school. Trevor’s life is leading toward leading toward gangs and crime because he thinks he wants to work for his uncle who is a very powerful man in the drugs and gang world. Trevor has a girlfriend Alisa who becomes pregnant in the film, she is told by Trevor’s friends Jay and Moony that Trevor wants nothing to do with her or the baby and to get out of his life. Trevor is later on killed by Sam when he hits him with a baseball bat and critically injures him.

Settings: Kidulthood is set in a mixed income area of west London. Most of the setting in this film are not sets they are actual places in west London, this makes the film look as if it is actually there real life and makes people concentrate more on the storyline and narrative rather than the settings. The locations that are used in this film are not expensive areas of London which tells the audience more about the characters background and that they are seen as normal people living there lives. Editing: In this film lots of slow normal cuts are used when there is dialogue or no action happening. This makes it easy for the audience to keep track of what is going on, if any effects were in the film or between cuts then it would have taken away the factor of the film being just some teenagers normal life's. The editing becomes a lot quicker during fight scenes or in chase scenes to add excitement for the audience.

Screen shots This is a establishing shot to show what the location is. This shot also shows what the character looks like. This shot shows all the characters, it also shows what time the film was set because of the fashion.