a. I, Leslie Lopez, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
b. In order to complete my film analysis, I used the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) to find out who the films' directors were and when the films were released. I also used Box Office Mojo to provide the amount of money the films have made in total. I referred to "Considering Blackness in George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead: An Historical Exploration", a thesis written by Jennifer Whitney Dotson to justify the central message within Night of the Living Dead and provide a clear example on what a successful film contains. I also used this article within the Los Angeles Times Hero Complex in order to gain an idea as to which films I could watch and analyze: Top 10 zombie movies at the box office: Zombies not a monster draw.
c. Independent Component 2: Log of Hours
d. In this Independent Component I watched a list of several different zombie films in which I believed were well known and successful enough to evaluate and analyze. These films were:
- The Evil Dead
- Resident Evil
- 28 Days Later
- Dawn of the Dead
- Shaun of the Dead
- 28 Weeks Later
- Planet Terror
- Return of the Living Dead
- Zombieland
- Night of the Living Dead
- Land of the Dead
- Rec 3
- Aah! Zombies!!
- Fido
- The Crazies
- Warm Bodies
- Diary of the Dead
- I am Legend
- The Horde
The film analysis I completed for each film asked for the title of the film, director and producer, release date, genre, important moments within the film, the atmosphere of the film, mood and look of the film as well as many other factors. This form could be viewed below.
Interpretive
Everyday beginning March 31st up until April 18th, I have watched and analyzed one zombie film a day on the list above. I made a blog to post my opinion and analysis of each film I had watched along with its theatrical trailer. I also made sure to spend the majority of the time watching the film and researching the ways different camera angles, lighting and music could be used to establish a certain mood or look for a scene. Adding onto that, I've researched several different types of central messages films provide such as the racial and war commentary in George Romero's Night of the Living Dead.
Here is the link to all of the film analysis I have completed: http://lesliesblogofthelivingdead.blogspot.com/
Applied
This component really helped me support my first answer, central message, for my essential question: What is the most important factor for successful zombie fiction? Upon completing an analysis for each film, the results showed me how important it is for a film to contain a meaningful message that everyone will remember. I have learned that if a film lacks a central message, such as the films Planet Terror, Aah! Zombies!!, and The Horde, then the film will not be as great as all of the others because the film 's ability to be easily forgotten. Films like 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, and Land of the Dead, on the other hand, are memorable due to the fact that they send a strong central message. For example, in 28 Days Later the inhumanity in man is highlighted along with the increase in violence in our media. The central message in both Dawn of the Dead and Land of the Dead criticize our consumer culture and our need to take advantage of the products around us. "The central theme of Dawn of the Dead is shifted from the evils of consumerism to the issues of trust and goodwill between men." (Dawn of the Dead, Then and Now). In Night of the Living Dead, the central message relies on racial conflict and the conflict of a group being unable to work together which causes them twice as much trouble and even their lives. This component has also made it easy for me to pinpoint the factors these films all have in common and differ with one another. Using what I know about the successful and well written zombie films, I could apply those same factors to the least successful films in order to improve them.
