The Crazies

The crazies

-Characters

·      Timothy Olyphant as David Dutten

·      Radha Mitchell as Judy Dutten

·      Joe Andersen as Russel Clank

·      Danielle Panabaker

-Setting

The setting is a small town called Ogden Marsh, which is fairly isolated, and the town is a fairly close knit but it is not very heavily populated. The town is a typical small town, which means that the audience can relate to the characters more, as it is chaos amongst an everyday situation.

-Mise en Scene

The characters in the opening are wearing normal clothes, as the event hasn’t happened yet. Because of this, we get the feeling of normality. Couple this with the people walking about the streets and the use of daylight as a source of light, the audience feel quite safe in their ideals of normality, and routine. Also, the titles are slow to start, and black/dark colours are used with them, which sets the film up to be dark and grim.

-Edits

Throughout the opening, the most predominant edit used is a straight cut. Because of this, the audience helps to get a feel of rhythm, with straight cuts being used quite quickly, moving camera shot at quite a fast pace. The use of the Straight cuts also helps to create verisimilitude, helping to increase the fear of the situation; creating realism helps reinforce the safety the audience feels about the situation, and thus helps add to the fear that will be prevalent later on in the film.

-Camera shot/movement

Through the clip, a variety of different shots are used. At the beginning, when we see the wreckage of the town, a number of shots are used which are low down to the ground. These shots are used to show just how bad the carnage is, as we are almost looking out at the scene from the position of where a body would be, and the lack of camera movement from these shots goes to suggest this. In the scene after, there is very little camera movement, but plenty of different camera shots. While we see the man in the car, we get a close up of his badge, helping reinforce his identity, and we see a close up view of his hand, showing a ring; him being married obviously an important point. Numerous long shots and mid shots follow of the city and it’s residents, all amalgamating to create a sense of place.

-Sound

The opening uses a strong non-diegetic sounds, playing a song by Johnny Cash. The song is quite upbeat, but at the same time the song is quite dark, which helps to fit both tones of the film, the more normal, cheery tone at the beginning, and the darker foreshadowed plotline. As well as this, there are the normal diegetic sounds of the city, which create verisimilitude and help to reinforce the safe feeling of the city.