We looked at the openings of 'Scream' and '28 Days Later'. The former follows a restricted narration as we are only following one particular character in the scene. This helps to create suspense/tension as we only know what this character knows and nothing else. This means that when an event happens it comes as a shock to the character and viewer and makes the scene scary.
Likewise, this is evident in the opening to '28 Days Later'. We again follow only one character therefore creating ellipsis in a way, meaning we are scared and get shocked when something happens to the protagonist.
In 'Scream', the character we follow appears to be a stereotypical American teenage girl. This adds the scene as it makes her seemingly vulnerable and in need of protection. The fact that she is alone in the house also adds to this tension.
This sense of helplessness is shown in '28 Days Later' too because we get very high angle crane shots when he is wandering around the deserted London because this gives us the idea that he is small and vulnerable in comparison to the huge buildings around him.
In the same movie, the non-diegetic music that is played at the start creates a gloomy/eerie mood which again suggests that this is a horror film in contrast to a comedy or action film.
In 'Scream' however, we do not relly get any music, diegetic or otherwise. This is effective though and creates tension and achieves the same effects as the other film opening as the lack of music in the scene connotes a sense of being alone and helpless.
In 'Scream' we do not get much of an introduction to the protagonist other than her name and some other general information about her. This gives the reader the impression that she is not a very important character and that she is about to meet her demise. This, again, connotes a sense of fear and builds up tension in the scene as the audience is wondering when she is going to be killed and where.
In '28 Days Later', however, we get various close-ups of the main protagonist to show the audience that our attention is on him and he is the one we will be following throughout the story and that he wont die straight away but instead we will learn more about him later on. We also discover a little about his character through his actions on screen, however we don't learn much about him again connoting isolation along with the deserted city streets
No discussion of the titles themselves
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