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Post-apocalyptic (PA) films are a genre on their own, so many of our favourite films today are PA films (Mad Max 2, Blade Runner etc.) PA films are set after the devastation has happened. Usually PA films do not generally focus on the devastation itself, it usually follows the main character in his survival on the dangerous world he once knew and are usually horror based. These devastations could be natural (earthquake, meteor, virus) or manmade (war, nuclear disaster). • Some examples: • Post Zombie Apocalypse – Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later 28 Weeks Later. • Post Alien Apocalypse – Monsters, War of the Worlds. • Vampire – Daybreakers, 30 Days of Night. • Now PA films aren’t always horror, some can be action, like Mad Max or The Book of Eli. Some can be comedies like Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland. Some can even be light hearted family films/animations like WALL-E or Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The film Reign of Fire crosses future PA with medieval theories of dragons, where it is set 20 years in the future and dragons have taken over the world and few humans remain. • Tzvetan Todorov had an idea of the narrative theory of Equilibrium and Disequilibrium. • There are five stages: • A state of equilibrium (all is as it should be) • A disruption of that order by an event • A recognition that the disorder has occurred • An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption • A return or restoration of a new equilibrium • Some of these could be put into the PA genre, the first three stages wouldn’t really work as the disaster has already happened to break the equilibrium, so it would have already have started as a disequilibrium. Usually there are characters who try and repair the damage but it would take a while for a new equilibrium to build.
Character Conventions In PA films the main character's goal is usually just to survive. They go around the wasteland trying to find food, water, shelter or just to escape enemies (e.g. bandits, zombies etc.) They could have someone with them like a child (The Road) or they could just be alone. A frequent convention of PA characters are the fact that before the devastation they weren’t a hero, they could’ve been a shut away or a pushover but the apocalypse has changed them. (Zombieland) Then you get other PA films where one man/woman takes on the entire wasteland and is the hero throughout. (Mad Max, Tank Girl, The Book of Eli).
Shane Acker, director of the hit PA film 9 has 9 rules of creating a great PA films • Keep it short and sweet, don’t have it too long, you can have a short film and have lots of detail in it still. • Show characters banding together to survive, people are stronger when in groups! Someone may have strengths where a lone person may have a weakness. • Focus on world building, they need to create a new state of equilibrium. • Don't forget that post-apocalyptic movies are, in part, about hope for survival. • Never forget ‘MacGyvering’, like the show, try and solve problems with normal objects. • Let the visuals tell the story • Don’t forget the cautionary message, if the world doesn’t slow down with wars and other harm this could happen. • Don’t forget the humour, even if serious then a little humour is still ok to save the audience from boredom. • Don’t be afraid to take risks.
The Road (2009) One of my research is The Road, it is a PA film about a father and his son travelling through what we believe to be America to survive by any means necessary. After an apocalypse the two characters named The Man and The Boy travel through America trying to find food, shelter and escaping lawless cannibals. If we compare this to Shane Acker’s 9 rules lets see if this is a great PA film according to the rules. • It’s a fairly long film nearly 2 hours. So the first rule is broken. • The man never allows anyone to speak to him or his son, as far as he’s concerned it just them two. So that’s another rule broken. • They do not try and rebuild the world so again another rule broken. • They do hope for survival so that’s the first rule unbroken. • They never try the MacGyver technique. Rule Broken • I guess it somewhat lets the visuals tell the story but it is mainly about him and his son surviving, with some flashbacks of his wife. Rule neither broken nor unbroken. • It does actually give a cautionary message, Rule unbroken. • It has NO humour whatsoever, Rule Broken. • The boy takes risks but the man doesn’t. Overall even though this was a highly rated films according to the 9 rules this film should’ve been a bad PA film as it followed barely any of Stan’s rules.
The Road (2009) If I compare The Road to the usual conventions of a PA film we can see that it follows these conventions fairly well as the main goal of the film is just for The Man and The Boy to survive. They are also alone so this also connects with the main conventions. As sony entertainment has blocked pretty much everything on the internet about The Road I cannot find a clip to show this point. Also The Road’s mise en scene and editing is terrific at times the main thing that always catches my eye is the sky it is so dark and depressing you can really tell that there has been a natural disaster. In the clip I have found they have filmed this really well, the scene where they find a full can of coke. It shows the sky as how I said it was but it also shows the two main characters having luxuries that they would never have as the boy drinks the can of coke you can really tell he’s never had one before by the way he drinks it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiYeFSu5GGE&feature=related
Daybreakers (2009) Daybreakers isn’t the ordinary PA film this is way after a plague that turned most people into vampires that the vampires have built their own civilisation which is scientifically advanced that they are on the risk of extinction due to a shortage of human blood after ‘farming’ most of the human population left on the earth. The main character Edward Norton isn’t the run in the mill survivor type. He is a scientist vampire who is trying to develop a blood substitute to save the human population, this is entirely different to the usual main character in PA films. The reason I have chosen this film is because it hasn’t really been done before, the vampire being the main civilisation on earth.
