Dawn Of The Dead Analysis

The start opens with the logos of the distributors. We already get aspects of horror due to the jumpy music played over the top. It then proceeds to show a Ana Clark, the main character in the story, doing her shift in the hospital, we gather from the way that doctors instruct her that she is overworked and unappreciated. Ana and the sectary start having a conversation over a patient who was suffering from a bite attack. This is the first clue the viewers get on the infection and fits in with the convention of a zombie horror. Ana finishes her shift and leaves the hospital, as she steps through the doors she sees an ambulance parked up and the back doors wide open with two feet hanging out. At this point the audience have suspicions of the person being one of the infected. As she approaches the ambulance she calls out and the driver wakes up. Just as this happens, the radio in the ambulance asks the paramedics to respond to a bite attack. This is to tell the viewer that the bite attack up in the hospital was not a coincidence and that they are connected to the infection.

As she is driving home she flicks on the radio which is currently doing a news report. The report said “it is not an isolated incident” Ana then without any interest switches the radio onto another channel. Throughout the scene the viewers are given little hints such as the radio, the bite incidents and the thoughts of the paramedic being infected.

As she drives through her neighbourhood to her house a high birds eye view shot shows her route. This shot has not been used not to show isolation but to show a heavy population of what can potentially turn into the infected. The reason this method is done rather than the isolation technique is to allow the viewer to imagine the danger she could soon face. Just before she pulls into her drive she pulls over to talk to a little girl called Viviane, who’s her neighbour and is roller-blading on the road. Because she pulled over to talk this shows that Ana has a good relationship with her neighbours. Ana says “maybe tomorrow after work i will do a few backward laps around the block with you ok?”. This is ironic as we have a good idea that buy that time tomorrow Viviane and a large majority of people will be infected. From the moment we meet Viviane we can see that she and Ana have a very good bond, almost like mother and daughter.

This is a detailed narration of the opening 4 minutes of Dawn Of The Dead. I believe that the opening location was very stereotypical because the whole storyline involves a medical outbreak, in which the opening scene is set in a hospital. This set would have been chosen to portray the outbreak as an undetected and unstoppable virus, we know this because the one place you would expect the virus to be identified is a hospital, but the virus was undetected by hospitals, hence the spread of the virus.

The lighting in dawn of the dead is mainly all natural, although in some scenes the lighting is low to portray an essence of evil and danger. Zack Snyder and Mark Abraham, the directors have used lighting very well and have gained maximum effect it the attack scenes with the zombies.

In dawn of the dead there is diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The music used in dawn of the dead is very deep and contains a lot of bass. The music itself gives the impression of evil, even sometimes before it arrives. In the scene where Viviane approaches the Clarks bedroom, the suspense based music starts before we even see Viviane in a clear form or even in here blood drenched zombie form. As the music so does the suspense until she finally steps from the shadows into the doorway. As Viviane reveals herself the music reaches its peak as there is aloud quick paced beat. This is one of many examples in the way in which the music has been used to build the suspense in dawn of the dead. Through out the film the viewer would pick up on this and come to realise that with the start of that type of music means the start of danger.

The location used at the start of dawn of the dead is the hospital and the residential area. The hospital is mainly used to fit in with Ana’s character. the second location used is the residential area, this is a well chosen set as it gives maximum effect as the virus spreads into a populated area which therefore will create maximum amount of danger.