P O S T A P O C A LY P T I C

GENRE RESEARCH

WHY WE CHOSE THIS?

Apocalyptic film is a sub-genre of Science-Fiction film. The plot revolves around an impending disaster. Within this genre, the disaster is usually an alien invasion, a nuclear war, a pandemic, or a natural disaster. The development of technology plays a large role in these films and often serves as the source of conflict.  While many films in this sub-genre centre around the disaster, many focus on the post-apocalyptic state of the world.

We used the post apocalyptic genre due to it fitting in with our story and as it is a fairly new genre this allows us to be more creative and create content that no one had made before. This is a genre that has only recently become very popular and this allows us to create a more original plot for our film to make it different from previous films but it still attracts the fans of the post apocalyptic genre.

HISTORY OF THE GENRE

Between the 1920’s and 1950’s, this genre of film originated, firstly in the form of action adventure-disaster films like ‘The Hurricane’ (1937).

The horrors of World War II, the threat of nuclear annihilation and radioactive mutancy during the resultant Cold War led to many disaster/ post-apocalyptic films in the 1950’s. These included ‘The War of the Worlds’ (1953), ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ (1951) and ‘Day the World Ended’ (1956).

HISTORY OF THE GENRE

The major era of post-apocalyptic and disaster films was the 1970’s as a variety of actual disasters occurred in and around this time period. They consequently acted as inspirations for films.

After only a few post-apocalyptic films were made in the 80’s, albeit notable ones, there was a resurgence in the genre between the 1990’s to current day. This comes at a time of multiple fears in society, opening up new doors for the basis of post-apocalyptic films. These include ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ (2004), ‘I am Legend’ (2007) and ‘Prometheus’ (2012).

TYPES OF POST APOCALYPTIC• Virus/Infection, zombie related- ‘I Am Legend’, ‘28 Days Later’, ’28

Weeks Later’-these often take place after the original infection, so the audience does not see the havoc in its prime, nevertheless, short scenes or shots, flashbacks or footage often show what the disaster began from. Subsequently, they normally focus on a small group of civilisation fighting to survive the apocalypse. These situations often push characters to the edge of their mental and physical capacity to continue living. The use of emptied, typically-hustling bustling cities make them more harrowing. While the setting is often localised, the infection can easily spread worldwide, while sometimes we do not know how far it has spread.

• Nuclear related crises or wars- ‘Watchmen’, ‘Unthinkable’, ‘Mad Max 2’, ‘Terminator series’, ‘The Book of Eli’

-these films relate to society’s possibly greatest fear of nuclear fallout, sparking from World War II, continuing through the Cold War, and nowadays, many countries are working to produce them as a deterrent and protection of their nations. These films often focus on small communities due to much of the population being killed by the fallout. Further conflict usually arises in these communities for resources as well as how they should live in these difficult times. They are mostly set worldwide, again, to maximise the impact of the message of warning.

HOW THEY APPEAL

Both the virus and nuclear destruction genres could be related to our film especially the virus, this type of film has been very popular over the last few years with TV shows like ‘The Walking Dead’ however we will not go down the zombie path as this pandemic will effect animals and humans manly psychologically by making you lose control of our mind and eventually dying

POSSIBLE SUB-GENRES

Initially for our film we wanted to have the sub-gene of horror and thriller due to the films plot taking a dark side towards t he end. These genres can normally be associated with the post apocalyptic genre due to them allowing opportunities to bring in horror sections for example as the idea of being alone in a dangerous world helps add more horror for the audience.

So even though our film is mainly post apocalyptic we are adding genres into different sections of the film to help create a wider range of emotions for the audiences to see.

Our audience will be interested in this as they are sophisticated and want to see some challenging scenes where they can actively question the acts of the characters.

TYPES OF POST APOCALYPTIC The post-apocalyptic genre is quite a diverse one; as there limitless scenarios that could be applied to a living after the end of the world and everyone has different takes on how it will pan out. This allows many film directors, writers and producers to have a vast creative freedom with their work within the realms of post-apocalyptic fiction.

One of the more prominent types of the post-apocalyptic genre is the 'cosy catastrophe', which grew in popularity after the second world war.  This depicts a certain type of story, which is heavily focussed on the politics of a group of people who take advantage of the apocalypse and use it for their own personal gain whilst attempting to rebuild society on the foundations of their own beliefs and morals.

This could be a reason for why the world in our film has become affected by the virus maybe due to a country or a cult who want to try and make the world better.