Shaun of the Dead: Leaving Home

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Institution

Shaun of the Dead: Leaving Home

Editing is the act of deciding the shots that should be included within a film and deciding how well to arrange them to create a flow of the story (Magliano &Zack, 2011). It focuses on assembling shots in a preferred order and trimming them until they have the right length required by the editor. The edited content must have a flow of events to provide details that can be understood and ensuring that the audience can focus on the story. Shaun of the dead leaving home was edited to create the flow of events and ensure that the audience was involved in the play and could interpret the events. However, the edited shots would not be complete without sound. Sound can be interpreted differently; hence, the sound is usually based on how they suit the film form and the shaping of the viewers’ experience. Therefore, the combination of editing and sound creates content that can easily be explained, understood, and engages the audience.

Shaun of the Dead is a horror movie on the zombie apocalypse that catches Shaun and Ed unaware. They try to find refuge to escape the disastrous condition of the region. Therefore, the movie is scary and involves dreadful acts of bloody people and frightful events. The sound and editing, thus, depict the scary feeling which engages the audience in the activities. In the first scene of leaving home, Shaun and Ed are seen running from a house to get to the car. As soon as they open the gate, a ball hits Shaun on the head, and they see a boy zombie before them. The events at the time are fast and randomly follow each other showing a dreadful flow supported by the need to save their lives.

In the scene, the camera has a medium shot straight on an angle to show the continuous movement of the individuals and the establishing shot of the surrounding. According to Bordwell et al. (1993), medium shots are left longer on the screen than close-up shots, which give the spectator the time to have a broader view of the event, which contains more details. The shot gives a view of the house in which they live, the stairs, and the neighborhood. Due to the apocalypse, it was important for the viewer to understand the surroundings to which eh character exists and the condition through which they could find safety. Therefore, the medium shot showed their movements, steps, and facial expressions depending on the circumstance.

The editing effects utilized in this shot include a highly mobile axis of action. An axis of action is used to provide the scene space around the centerline or the 180⁰ line (Bordwell et al., 1993). However, the scene utilized a mobile axis which showed the view in different angles hence providing more details. The editor matched the actions while breaking the line, providing the character’s focus and aim based on the scary environment. The pacing is fast and increasing, depicting the dreadful events of the movie. The pacing has been aligned with the soundtrack, which contributes to the overall rhythm of the film. In this scene, the audience concentrates on the characters’ activities, which should be consistent with the sound. The rising pace depicts the movement of the character and the need to move out of the neighborhood to a safe place. With tension in an environment, the movement of the characters must be fast to achieve the intended goal.

Sound engages a distinct sense mode (Chion & Gorbman (2009).  The meshing of image and sound appeals to a deep human consciousness and alters the understanding of the images on the screen. Therefore, the alignment of sound and image must be considered to give the required effect expected by the audience and filmmakers. The scene includes different sounds, including the soccer ball sound hitting Shaun’s head. The sound is like a smashed glass, which indicates the danger that the two are exposed to based on the zombie condition. There also exists diegetic sounds based on the story world. It includes increasing tension due to the scene of the zombies around the environment. It is used to prepare the audience for the danger that could occur to the characters. The diegetic sounds engage the audience and enable more concentration on the film as it attracts attention. There is temporal continuity as the sound bleeds over each cut. Therefore, the sound and image create a continuity of storyline, which encourages easy understanding of the events.

The scene inaugurates a narrative problem as it eaves the audience wondering about the danger that the individuals are exposed to. The scene stops after the ball hits Shaun’s head but fails to reveal the source of the ball. It subverts an expectation as the audience has to create an image or determine the source of the ball before the next scene that reveals the boy zombie. It introduces tension and a scary theme which is the basis of the film, being a horror movie.

References

Bordwell, D., Thompson, K., & Smith, J. (1993). Film art: An introduction (Vol. 7). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Chion, M., & Gorbman, C. (2009). The film, a sound art. Columbia University Press.

Magliano, J. P., & Zacks, J. M. (2011). The impact of continuity editing in narrative film on event segmentation. Cognitive science, 35(8), 1489-1517.