Viewing Log: I Am Legend (2007)

Director: Francis Lawrence
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Robert Neville (Will Smith), a brilliant scientist, is a survivor of a man-made plague that transforms humans into bloodthirsty mutants. He wanders alone through New York City, calling out for other possible survivors, and works on finding a cure for the plague using his own immune blood. Neville knows he is badly outnumbered and the odds are against him, and all the while, the infected wait for him to make a mistake that will deliver Neville into their hands.

• The film opens with a news report so that the context is introduced immediately
• It then moves 'three years later' - 
• The time setting is revealed as being 2012, so is set in the future

• Establishing shots present the audience with the familiar setting of Times Square in New York yet in a way we're not used to seeing. The setting is free from any human beings, and there is only natural light. The buildings appear to be run down and derelict. This makes the audience aware that something is severely wrong
• The sound compliments the visuals in a way that distorts our predisposed idea of what New York is like. There is an absence of dialogue to connote the absence of human presence. There are only a few quiet diegetic sounds such as birds chirping and faint ambient noise.
• The use of sound and visuals enhance the post-apocalypse genre as they present the world as though the population was almost completely wiped out.

• Robert has flashbacks to when they found out about the virus and had to evacuate the city. These flashbacks are usually juxtaposed with Robert laying peacefully in bed, in the quiet world that remains. In these flashbacks, the soundscape is much heavier featuring loud sirens connoting danger; and crowds which emphasise the state of chaos. Being set during night time, it shows more artificial lighting, yet the darkness still involves a sense of fear.

• The film's antagonists are the zombies who have been infected with the virus. Although they aren't a direct threat to Robert who is immune from the virus, they are threatening to the rest of society. The use of make up creates a horrific appearance: the zombies appear to be human but with no death, and decaying skin. They don't speak any language, they just roar, making them seem to be more like animals than humans. This is a trope of the post-apocalypse genre, in which humans are the binary opposition of the 'other'.

Overall I'm inspired by the contrasting use of the past and the present, which I'd like to use in my own narrative. I will put into consideration the use of a 'virus' that wipes out a large amount of humanity and think about the antagonists that I will portray.