Genre: The genre of the short film is clearly comedy, the short itself is imitating the 'infomercials' of 1950s / 1960's, this is shown by the fact the whole film is in black and white and often features static. It's pretending that a new threat is at large to the general public - Zombies, as we all know, Zombies are fictional creatures and this whole short is based around the reign of terror they would cause if they were real, and possibly how they may act in society and gives them comical jobs such as businessmen and car merchants. It's also comical in the fact that it tries to justify zombie behaviour and pretend that they're innocent, when really it does a really bad job of covering their behaviour up and shows them thinking about brains.
Style - Textual Analysis: The film begins with a black and white image of a studio logo, with electrical static over the image as we can hear the noise of the static. We see the big, bold, white font which says, 'This film has been declassified' which makes it seem like it was the footage was meant to be restricted because of its importance and has now been released to the public as the threat is imminant to everyone. Trumpets sound in a fan-fare fashion as we see a black and white title image of clouds with small white font over them saying "Guys Guide To", then large, black, bold font saying "ZOMBIES", much like the horror films of the 1960's about sea monsters and aliens, where the main point in the title is emphasised, followed by "A public safety film," making it seem like the film will be beneficial to the public. It then jumps to a curtain with white bold font over it saying "They're already here!" making it seem like zombies already walk the earth.
We then see archive footage of army tanks racing across a sandy desert, a convention of classic infomercials. The images have static playing over them so they look old and worn out and give it that retro feel as film making wasn't as technologically advanced as today.
We hear the non-diegetic sound of an male American adult, giving a voiceover to the film as we see an animation of zombies walking in a line into a house, then a close up of a cartoon zombie face as the man describes the threat that zombies are; voiceovers / narrators were also a convention of 1950 - 1960's infomercials.
We see a animated poster of a traditional boxing fight, with a picture of a zombie on one side, and a young teenage boy on the other, opposing each other and the narrator states that they, "Dont need to be our enemies" as a banner saying "CANCELLED" in bold white letters rolls over the poster.
A cartoon dollar bill then falls into the shot, with a picture of a zombie in the middle instead of a president, the narrator states that the "Zombie Dollar" is an important part of their economy as the zombie on the dollar bill winks.
A newspaper scrolls down the screen as it reaches an advert for zombie labourers, the "Romero Brothers" who are zombie plumbers, again giving the undead comical jobs that they don't have in real life, the narrator states that zombie labourers are also crucial to the functioning of society.
We then see a large, bold, white font title saying, "They eat brains dont they?" This leads to an animated close up of a teenage boys face in shock at the zombies, which leads to a left pan to a couple of zombies smiling wearing suits as the narrator tells us that zombies "Are just like you and me" and not a real threat at all, this is clearly part of the comedy element of the film, as zombies are meant to be nothing like average people.
He goes on to say that even famous individuals are zombies, and we see cartoon images of these actors slide onto the screen, and we hear the diegetic sound of a clicking everytime the slide changes, like an old fashioned slideshow; including Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Reagan, these two celebrities were popular in the 1960's, linking to the 60's feel of the short film.
This leads to a mid shot animated scene of a zombie sat at a table as images such float around his head as the narrator reads them out, for example, the narrator says that zombies want a good job and financial security like the rest of us, as a cartoon briefcase and a dollar sign float around his head, along with a image of a human brain, as this is what they're meant to eat.
These all appear under the American flag as they're meant to be the basic "Zombie Rights".
We then see images of zombies stood at gas pumps, stood teaching a class (the comedy element here is that the teachers name on the board is "Mr Ughhh", which is the way in which conventional zombies are meant to speak), and performing dangerous Hollywood stunts. Obviously these jobs have been given for comedy effect, to make the audience imagine what life would be like if zombies really did have these job roles.
We then see a animated map of america, with zombie symbols in every state, this fades into the American flag as the narrator says that we should respect the rights of "Each and every person, whether they be living, dead or somewhere inbetween".
The title "Your will - is not your own!" appears, as a file with "Top Secret" written on it appears and an image of a zombie and a brain falls out as a romantic harmonic tune plays in the background.The narrator explains that our brains are our private property and nobody is allowed to take it from you, discussing the fact that zombie brains function differently to ours as they think of brains 52% of the time, and that is quite a lot while the narrator tries to pretend that it's not!
This is followed by an animation of cells, where a white blood cell is being surrounded by zombie cells, the white blood cell becomes frightened and gets into a car made of other cells and drives off, but is eaten by the zombie cells, which corresponds to the behaviour of conventional zombies as we hear a shrill screaming noise.
The tune changes to become more upbeat and faster paced as the title "Living with the Dead" appears, this fades as we see a horizontal pan of a zombie walking down the street, as the narrator says we shouldn't abuse the undead, instead, commit kind acts, this is followed by images of these acts; such as the young boy from earlier on handing a zombie a cake and then taking him to a Baseball game where the zombie gets hit on the head by the ball and falls over, (this is a slap-stick humour element).
As the narrator goes on to talk about the public voting for zombie rights and to have them in the population, an image is shown that if you vote against zombie rights, you're sacrificing the freedom of your nation, as we see two members dressed in Klu Klux Klan uniforms collecting all the anti-zombie votes. Addressing all the individuals that vote anti-zombie, the narrator calls you a communist and then we see archive footage of armies marching and archive footage of Joseph Stalin waving to the crowds.
The video ends with an abrupt static sound and the screen goes grey with electrical static over the top of the image.
Form: The short film is definately in a narrative style, as it's meant to inform the public about how to treat zombies and what the life of an average zombie consists of (even if it is fiction), there is a narrative throughout the short film that we should get to know and understand zombies instead of rejecting them from society.
Audience: I believe that the audience would be anyone from the age of around 11-50, this is a broad audience age range, but zombie cartoons and comics are still very common today and I feel that most children know what zombies are and would enjoy the cartoon element of the short film, showing that zombies could do ordinary jobs. I also believe that it can be watched by adults and older adults as they will know what is meant by communism and they will understand the Klu Klux Klan and Stalin references that children may not. Also older adults will remember infomercials from the 60's era and know what the style was like, so they can relate to how this fictional infomercial compares to the real infomercials of that era.
No comments:
Post a Comment