Horror: Zombie - Camera angles

Camera angles in Zombie films

CAMERA ANGLES

Various camera angles are used within this genre and I will be naming just a few of the key angles used that effect the quality of the film.
Camera work is an important element displayed in Zombie films. Through this convention, the audience can easily be understood to what the film is trying to say. Weird angles and canted camera angles are most common within these films as they create a sense of disorientation and nervousness. Also, they of often use extreme close up, point of view shots and shots from handheld cameras in order to make the audience feel more involved, to build tension or even to express fear. An example of this type of camera work would be the fast paced, blood and gore helicopter scene from 28 weeks later.





As well as this, a lot of establishing shots are used in these types of films in order to show the destruction that has occurred in the setting or to show the amount of antagonists in the scene. It is mainly used to show the audience the setting in which the film is taking place, this is to avoid confusion within the scene. This type of shot is used in films such as World War Z in the Jerusalem scene.

15- 20 seconds into the video, an establishing shot is used.

Another common type of camerawork are short takes, Short takes are very fast shots taken with the camera, usually lasting less than a couple of seconds. These are important in Zombie films in order to show fast paced, intense shots and build up the fear factor within the audience and are also used in the fight sequences that occur to show the intensity of the fight. These are the experiences that viewers want with these type of films. Short takes are also used to show chaos and desperation as shown in the following scene from Dawn of the dead, In which the bus crashes through the streets while one of the passengers is accidently and brutally killed.




 In addition to these, there are also long takes, which are longer, more held out shots and these are used to build up emotion and tension within a scene. In zombie films these are usually used to reflect the realization of the situation, being the apocalypse, this is seen in 28 days later as numerous prolonged shots of the abandoned city are shown to reflect that the city is deserted and frozen in the state it was left in.

In this establishing shot from 28 days later, it shows how abandoned the streets are with a long take.

low and high camera angles are used to show the position of the characters within the zombie genre, this type of shot usually applies to a character looking over the dead, or vice versa. This is to represent which of the characters in in the more power, this can be used with both zombie and human characters and it reflects the constant battle of the living and the dead throughout these films.

Another thing to take note of is that in a lot of lower budget zombie films, kills and deaths tend to occur more off camera, or at least showing minimal gore and visual aspects of the death, this is mainly due to budgeting but there is still the impression that a death has occurred, which may be something we will want to take into account during our sequence.

In conclusion, there are various types of shots and camera angles that are used in the zombie sub genre, they share a lot of aspects with those from the genre in which it splits from, the horror genre. This is because both of these genres of film are made with the intention to inject fear into the viewer and to make them scared and one of the surprising ways to do this is the choice of camera angles and takes, This is why in our sequence we will look carefully into the cinematography we use in order to have a greater effect on the viewer.