Visual design, composition, and sound design are just three key elements under a director’s influence in a movie. Together, these components communicate special information to the audience such as mood, atmosphere, and meaning without explicitly releasing specific information. One film that uses these elements of design to create an irrevocable feeling is the movie 28 Days Later directed by Danny Boyle. In just the opening sequence of the 2002 film, Boyle efficiently uses low-key lighting, dark ambient score music, canted angles and extreme shots to communicate a sense of desolation and unease to the audience. The movie takes place in an unrecognizable, post-apocalyptic London ravaged by an infectious epidemic that transforms its victims into deranged cannibal killers in a matter of minutes. The scene opens with a man who has just awoken from a 28 day coma to find this unrecognizable London.
The main aspects of visual design are costume, set design and props, and lighting. In the opening scene of 28 Days Later, Cillian Murphy’s character quite literally lacks a costume, but the set design speaks for itself. He awakes naked on a hospital bed illuminated with hard lighting with various medical equipment strewn around him in an unorganized fashion. Already one can tell there is something peculiar going on because of the absence of the typical tidy hospital room. The set and design choices for sets is vital to creating a good shot. Typical set dressing are the decorations to make an area look realistically “lived-in”, however, in this case the set dressing shows just the opposite for it tells the audience how neglected the hospital is. When Jim exits the room and starts to look around the hospital it is apparent some sort of distress happened. The hospital was desolate, medical equipment was tossed around, and the telephones dangled from the wall with no one on the other side.
Despite the brightness in these shots, the scene exhibits dramatic low key lighting constantly filled with cast shadows from the sun. Throughout the scene in the hospital room, Jim is on a hospital bed illumined with hard lighting with various medical equipment strewn around him unlit in the shadows of the room. This creates a spot-like effect. The low key lighting is very dramatic because it leads to greater contrast. In hard light, shadows have harder edges and greater definition. These lighting characteristics are commonly used in horror movies to invoke emotions of fear or suspicion.
Some characteristics of composition are shot size, angle, and camera movement. The opening shot of 28 Days Later is an extreme close-up of Jim’s eye framed within a canted angle. The closer a camera is zoomed in on its subject, the less the audience can see the setting around the character. Right away, a feeling of uncertainty is conveyed through this shot. At this moment, the main character is just awakening from a 28 day coma. There is a lot he does not know about his surroundings, and the director puts the audience in a similar situation to connect with the main character on this level. There are many instances in the opening sequence in which the director uses extreme long shots to show the city in its magnitude and isolation. The first extreme long shot of the city is at about 3:05. It shows the giant ferris wheel, the bridge, and the water. There are no signs of bustling cars and commuters on the bridge, the water lacks any movement, and the sky is painted with gold and pink. This shows us the atmosphere is most likely warm. The shot might depict a calm water and bridge, but not an enjoyable calm; it makes the viewers feel uneasy.
Another scene in which the director’s stylistic compositional choices reflect the emotion of the character and the atmosphere is the scene when Jim is frantically exploring the city for a sign of human settlement. At about 4:50, the camera rapidly moves in a pan motion. In cinematography and photography a pan movement is a swivelling motion on a horizontal line from a fixed position. This motion is synonymous to the motion of a person when they turn their head on their neck from left to right. Which represents Jim searching around the city. After this initial movement, the camera follows Jim upwards as he picks stuff up from off the stairs. In calm scenes, the audience is used to fixed camera motions and neutral angles. This scene defies these regularities to convey panic and disorder to the audience.
The features of sound design are volume, silence, score music, and sound hierarchy/sound mix. I am going to reference the opening bit one last time because amongst the delicate choices made in the visual design and composition category, the sound design in that scene was just as important. Just before Jim wakes up from the coma, the scene is silent. Silence a conveyor for storytelling in a number of ways, like to create a numbing effect and it makes the scene feel more real. Most importantly, silence in uncomfortable for audiences. The next sounds we here are just diegetic noise such as heavy breathing, eyelashes fluttering, and the creaking of the bed when Jim tries to get up. These sounds are important to the audience because they are showing the watchers how quiet the hospital is. The typical sound of a hospital and the sound of this hospital are asynchronous. These small sounds usually wouldn’t be the center of attention in a normal busy hospital full of chatter and busy workers. The silence and the small sounds are alarming because Jim is alone.
On the contrary sound does have a big impact too. Take the scene at 3:20 where the 1997 song "East Hastings" by the Canadian rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor slow crescendos into the scene. This dark, ambient post-rock song sets the mood of the scene. The non-diegetic score music has an eerie melody and focuses on one single guitar rift which gets louder and faster as Jim walks around the desolate streets. Perhaps symbolizing him being alone and becoming more frantic at this realization. At about 4:50, the lone guitar rift is matched with more instruments and the tempo accelerates and there is a crescendo in the volume. Then Jim approaches a car and the alarm goes off startlingly. The music swells and overcomes the sound of the car alarm but almost mimics it too. From each shot change, the music bridges the shots in what is called a sound bridge. By the time Jim gets to the wall with all the flyers for missing people, the music is at its climax with heavy drumming and heavy guitar strumming, and then it just fades into a echoing reverb. Without music, this whole scene would have gotten very boring. Jim is just walking around the empty streets of London for a few minutes. One can imagine how quiet the city must be, and I think the music represents the panic Jim must feel on the inside when he realizes he is alone. The eerie music makes the scene more dramatic and sets a disturbing mood.
Without successful management of visual design, composition, and sound design movies would be a lot less entertaining, but it would also lack communication between the story and the audience. Visual design directs the audience's’ attention to important places, tells us about characters, and creates mood. Composition is how the elements of visual design are composed and arranged. Sound is the secret emotional messenger in without it a film lacks entirety; it influences the audience’s perception of the scene. Together, these elements communicate significant information to the audience such as mood and atmosphere, character’s emotions, and meaning without explicitly the specific information. The opening sequence of 28 Days Later captures all three elements of film so effortlessly to the untrained eye.