First 15 minutes of 28 Days Later

First 15 minutes of 28 days later
 

 

28 Days later is a post apocalyptic thriller set in a desolate London town based around a group of survivors trying to outlast the infected. The story of 28 days later is typical of a post apocalyptic film as the iconography used such as a dystopian environment and blood are commonly used in this genre. The film is similar to ours due to the fact that the cause of the outbreak is down to DNA problems.

 

At the start of the film we see a lot of rioting on several TV sets conveying aggression to the monkey strapped to the bed viewing these horrible acts of violence. The aim of this was for the doctor to cure rage through some sort of treatment he had came up with and to aid this ape he had to show the monkey aggressive acts. Once we see this, we see several other animals caged up in other containers like lab experiments gone wrong. Meanwhile, the animal right activists enter to witness the monstrosity of what the doctor has caused. As they stroll around the laboratory taking photos of the wrongly abused animals, the confused and frightened doctor witnesses the animal rights activists taking photos and tries calling security to help him self and prevent the research from escaping. However, this becomes too late as one of the activists opens up the cage to one of the infected apes and starts of the disease of the infected by getting menacingly bitten transmitting their DNA through saliva and blood. The rage infected humans infect the non-infected and the rise of the infected begins. Throughout this scene we see a lot of close ups of the peoples faces and also the apes faces to connote to the viewer the animal rights activists shock contrasting to the apes uncontrollable rage.
 

 

After this scene, the camera fades to black and films 28 days later, where the storyline cuts to the main character (Jim) lay vulnerably on a hospital bed unbeknown of what's happened in the world. We first see Jim at a birds eye view looking weak and helpless as the camera is looking down on him. As Jim gets out of bed, he aimlessly wonders around the hospital to see if he can find anyone to help him and tell him what is going on. Whilst Jim is walking around the empty hospital ward we see the hospital basically turned upside down with the amount of rubbish everywhere and beds turned over. The main theme we see here is consumerism as Jim is going around collecting more drinks than he needs when there is a much bigger problem at hand.
 

 

In the next scene, we see Jim head outside to an empty, lifeless London with the loudest noise being the wind whistling through the cracks in the now run down buildings that used to be so full of life a month ago. As Jim is walking through London he occasionally shouts "Hello" to see if anyone responds and helps him with his curiosity and well being. Furthermore we see even more consumerism as whilst he is trying to find people, he is picking up money off of the streets which he doesn't need at this moment in time. When filming Jim walking around the desolate London town, there is a lot of extreme long shots used to infer to the viewer how empty such a busy town should be which therefore enhances the tense and suspenseful atmosphere that something is not right.

After venturing around the lonely town for a good few minutes of the film he finds a load of news reports about the infected and this is where the main character finally realises what is going on but not entirely sure how it's happened and why. Once he witnesses these shocking news reports he heads to a church only to find hundreds of bodies on the floor all looking lifeless and mutilated and the 15 minutes ends at the point where he finally meets one of the infected.

Throughout these first 15 minutes we see a lot of post apocalyptic conventions such as desolate towns, blood, the undead and loneliness emphasising how much of an impact the infected have had on humanity. 28 Days Later is successful as a post apocalyptic horror because of its detailed yet fast approach to the matter in hand and the storyline follows what was happening in modern day times at the time the film was made. We will use both post apocalyptic conventions and a meaningful start to recreate something similar to 28 Days Later as our film is quite similar to this film.