I. Genre and Audience-
It's the fourth movie of the Resident Evil Film adaptation based on capcom's survival horror video game series Resident Evil. The genre is science-fiction, action, and horror.The main story is about zombies, but not usual zombies; they're beyond that, death and scary. Therefore the genre is science fiction and horror. It's also an action film because the female heroines faces physical feats, continuous fights, and frenetic chases. Other work that might be related is The Ded Next Door (1989), 28 Days Later (2002), Lara Croft Tomb Ride (2003), Rise (2007), Salt (2009). The creator of Resident Evil: Afterlife is Paul W.S. Anderson. One of the main reason he created this film is because he is a fan of the Resident Evil Games and he thought that the story would be successful in a film and therefore he started to write the script. Paul W.S. Anderson is an English Director who mostly works in science fiction movies and video games adaptions. He and Russel Mulcahy have produced and directed The Resident Evil film series. Mulcahy is a Australian Film Director and it's easily recognized by his use of fast cuts, tracking shots, and use of glowing lights. He has not only directed films but music videos as well. This film fits within other films of Anderson such as Alien vs Predator and Death Race. Resident Evil: Afterlife along with these films share Magic Realism and Death persecution and are action films. Both aliens and zombies required visual effects and a good make up work. Also in the 3 films; all have actions scenes and are cut in similar ways. The theme of film film would be to never give up and to never lose hope; the protagonist Alice even though she lost her power she keeps fighting hoping that there are more survivor like her. The target audience is anyone that likes horror action films or are fans of the resident evil video games. The technology such as filming it in 3D cameras is sucking the audience in and also brings audience unrelated to the story. Institutional Factors
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II. Historical and Institutional Factors
Resident Evil: Afterlife was financial/economic successful because the Gross Revenue was $296,221,566 worldwide. However, it received negative review from critics and wasn't nominated to important awards recognitions. Phelim O'Neill of The Guardian said "always look good and have well-staged action, but they don't have one iota of originality or imagination", The New York Times commented "Afterlife is more moribund than its thronging undead", and David Edwards of the Daily Mirror said "only fans of the series will care with the film looking suspiciously like a series of barely connected action scenes and unimpressive 3D welded to a who-the-hell-cares? plot". The important institutional factors are Paul W.S. Anderson, Jeremy Bolt, and Constantin Film; the director has worked with Jeremy Bolt a lot and they shared the idea of bringing science-fiction stories into films, as for Constantin Film; it's a German film production with record of Magic-Realism Films. During the time Resident Evil:Afterlife was released there have been similar movies to this one, but without 3D Fusion Camera System. Therefore people expected a different, original and using this technology as a powerful tool in order to create a good film. In history it was the first film after Avatar to use this technology and the first action movie in real 3D.
III. Social Cultural Context
This film especially dresses a catastrophe of the T-Virus that escapes and spreads all over the world creating zombies. However, the important thing here is how society reacts to this and how the cultural fact influences the reaction. It's modern time in Tokyo and the science advances every day, but what happens when a virus escape and is spread out, everything that the audience watches is very similar to what could happen in the real wold. Now from a country like Japan; they tried to end with the Virus and even though Japan has the most advance technology it wasn't enough. The few society that is left only cares to survive and hopes that somewhere in the planet there are more people with no infection. This situation is towards audience that likes science/technology and wants to know what would the few uninfected people such as Alice would do to survive and try to find the antidote.
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IV. Narrative
This film is the continuation of Resident Evil: Extinction and the narration somehow explains the story from the beginning so audience who is unfamiliar to the story understands it, but in many scenes things are not explained and new characters are introduce without a reference which makes the general audience confused. However, the plot is organized, every scene is well placed leading to the climax and resolution. Whatever the narrator (Alice) says it gives the audience an idea of where the story is. The story is developed not only throughout the narrator, but throughout events that occur and decide the course of the story. As an audience our engagement with the story or characters is to accompany the characters, especially Alice, in her way to find the cure and more survives. To experience with her all her fights with the zombies and learn whatever clue that might help her to end with the T-Virus.
V. Film Language and Representation
The characters are represented by situations and issues, for example the character of Clair is very suspicious because she lost her memory and she doesn't trust anyone. As for Alice throughout her actions the audience can clearly see that she's the heroine, trying to save everybody. The issues are shown by images of the antagonists such as Albert, the zombies and other ambitious characters. The acting in this film is not so intense or deep because there are no emotions that show the character's weaknesses. On the contrary all the characters are strong physically and mentally. Therefore the performances the actors do require a great physical condition to do high kicks, throw punches and more moves. The meaning that it's created by the different camera angles is more intense, more detailed and more suspense. There are shots like LS, MS, CUS, and over the top, along with 90 degree angle. However, the camera movement is very important in order to create the feeling that there is a fight and what the characters are feeling; usually the camera would fallow the actor and do a little bit of zoom in. The editing is very smooth, there are movement match, eyeline match, direction match, reaction shot, and master shot sequence are some editing concepts used. They create the scene very intense and along with slow motion the audience can appreciate the details of the fight or simply create suspense. The sequence is also part of the outcome of the scene, it's cut in some part fast, but mostly in others slow. The lighting is natural to the place they are, but the shade defines which one it the antagonist and the color or brightness shows the protagonist and heroine. It shows the dark and bright side of the story and its conflicts. The sound and music is very important, you can hear the rain, the sound of the shot guns, the kicks and pouches; all digetic sounds. As for the music, it goes along with the scene fight, it creates the feeling of death, Alice and Clair's life is in danger and the audience knows that by listening the music. It also stops when the antagonist is on laying on the floor like giving the feeling that it's over, but when he starts to move the music comes back saying , it's not over. The location of the scene is fantastic, it adds another element; the water, which makes the scene more spectacular. The walls are destroyed and almost all the set as well. However, all the scenes were performed in front of a green screen because the final design was done by computer. Some symbols are guns representing power and the chance of survive. Also the light that come from the window symbolizes hope; that after this fight some positive things would happen and that they would be able to find more uninfected people. Because the film is based on a video game the entire film is mostly created by animation and computer work, one of the challenges was the green screen and the 3D Fusion Camera system. There were many special effects and most of the film was based in that. Also the Costume was part of the time characters experience, Milla Jovovich designed her own custom and as audience can notice there were only few costume changes because of the situation she's in. As for the Zombies the production team specially the make-up was great, it looked real, zombies were horrible and also the dogs and the monster as well. The set was an important factor that contributed to the final film.
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