Post-Apocalyptic Film Opening Research

   Having references is something extremely useful for when it comes to creating anything from scratch. It can be from your own personal experience or from an outside source. For our film opening, we looked to several films we have already watched and we wanted to use their techniques as references. In this blog, I will go over two films that we used as inspiration.

I Am Legend, 2007

   I am Legend is an excellent movie to refer to for our film opening. The idea of this movie revolves around the idea of a sole survivor for the disease that ended humanity as he searches for the cure. The main character, Robert Neville, has to face the loneliness of humanity in New York City, the place that was once filled with life. Throughout the film, Neville is shown to scavenge for supplies and experience the heat of being by yourself in the big world. The setting for this film is excellent and extremely well done. Everything is broken down and has a run down look. As I was reading for my research, in post production, they made sure that the set seemed completely empty and seemed as if the infrastructure was about to collapse. It was essential that everything was empty and overgrown as if it was not cared for. The post-apocalyptic exhibition for this film is an excellent example for us to follow in our film opening.

The Road, 2009 

   The Road is another film that we got inspiration from. This movie is able to create an extremely desolated image throughout the whole piece and it is a feature we need for our film opening. During the production, John Hillcoat, the director of The Road, make sure to select abandoned or decayed locations to film. For example, Hillcoat selected Conneaut Lake Park which has a building that was destroyed in a fire. Not only this, but he made sure to film during the winter since it would be bleak and abandoned. They also used areas that were destroyed from natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. The research I acquired from this film is that the location is essential for the mood you want to create in any film piece. It can really manipulate the emotion of the audience and change their view of the scene, which is something I will discuss more on my next blog. This research really gave me a better understanding of the whole apocalyptic theme we are going for.