The director chose to open with crossroads to show they have options. In my opinion the trees could represent protection. Also the director could’ve showed the crossroads to represent the different paths. In the second frame a car is flipped over as the police drives down the street. The flipped over car represents a tragedy. Another vehicle is flipped over and nobody’s around. The director could be leading us into the story or how the story begins. In this frame the officer is carrying a red gas tank as if he’s upset. This case the officer could be burning the undamaged cars. The look on officers face doesn’t show concern because he’s so calm. Emotion wise, in this frame is concern. The set communicates lifeless as all the cars in one area as if everybody got out their cars and just left the face of the earth. The colors red and black symbolizes wrong, the black on the car represents death and the red cooler represents blood since the population is gone. There’s a pink tricycle that I’m guessing belonged to a little girl. The reason they chose this prop was to get sympathy from the audience, to have people wonder where the girl is. A baby doll and a stroller appear to be in the background showcasing that majority of the children are gone. This frame is set up to show the way they had to live before extinction, the people in the car shows how they tried to survive. The tree shows knives as if they were aiming to make sure whatever they was aiming at was dead. This red gas station shows it was a town favorite. The pumps 1 and 2 represent the first two stages of human extinction. The significance of the officer recognizing sound shows he realize its not just him. Cameras zoom in on the officer face to show his awareness. The way the director shot this frame was to realize that there was somebody there. In this frame a little girl goes to pick up her teddy bear. The teddy bear matches her slipper and robe which indicates it was early in the morning and she didn’t plan on being in this much fear to start her day. First words said in this film was the officer stating who he is. He states who he is because he know the little girl could attack him thinking he’s a zombie. The camera zooms in on the little girl face to show her actual identity. Reasoning for the director ending on officers face is the fact he realize his life will now be dedicated to protecting himself and surviving. All the elements in the opening scene led to this event, how? The placement, the repetition of the color red, the little girl toy. The theme in this opening communicates suspense.
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