Shaun of the dead opening analysis

Research: Shaun of the dead opening sequence analysis.

Shaun of the Dead is a 2004 British comedy film starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. It is a 'zombie apocalypse' film where the main set of characters get trapped and surrounded by zombies in a pub.

It received $30 million at the box office.

The narrative of the opening is a montage of people acting 'zombie-like' with a fairly up-beat non-diagetic soundtrack. It then fades into a high-angled shot looking down towards a pair of feet stumbling forward in a 'zombie-like' manor, with the diagetic grunt of what is thought at first to be a zombie however the camera tracks up a man's body to a medium close- up and we see that it is just an average man yawning (This is mainly for comical effect). Then the camera cuts ta a wide shot of the same man walking into a messy living-room where there is an over-weight man playing video games. He looks like the stereo-typical 'low-life slob'. The first man then joins in without any dialog.

Character Analysis

The first main character we meet in this the opening sequence is Shaun. We know straight away he is the main character as he is the first character we get a close-up of. He is represented in a negative way; at first the audience think he is a zombie as he is walking like one and makes a grunting sound. However we know he isn't as we then see his face and he has clearly just woken up and is yawning. It is still a negative representation as this is the first thing we see in the film so we have nothing else to go on. Secondly, he walks expressionless into the next room and ignores the obvious mess and- still expressionless- joins in with a video game. This is negative because it connotes what we stereo-typically think of as a 'slob'. Most people would get up and straight away get ready for work but we assume he has nothing better to do than play video games.
The only other main character we meet is Shaun's friend, Ed; he is represented in a similar way to Shaun. He too is expressionless and just sitting their playing video games. Ed is represented as even more of a slob though because we don't even see him leave the sofa or move for that matter.

Settings Analysis

In this opening sequence there are only really two settings; there is the montage of different areas in a slightly run down area of a town, and there is the down-stairs in what appears to be a shared house.

In the montage, there are a range of wide shots which track zombie-like characters. These are here to show us that this is a fairly run-down area which is a convention of zombie-apocalypse films however not usually comedy films, there is not much going on, the colors are dull, connoting a dull area. 

Inside the house, the dull color theme continues, there are the denotations of litter and beer bottles surrounding Ed, representing the 'low-life' attitude he has through-out the film.

Titles

The titles come up at the bottom of the screen while the montage of wide shots are shown; they the idents for companies are involved such as Universal Pictures, WT Productions and Big Talk Productions. It then comes up with the title 'Shaun of the Dead'. This is conventional for all genres of film.