1. Identify the physical (time and place) and social setting of I Am Legend. 1. How is the setting communicated to the audience? – Think about the visual and verbal language features: what do we see and hear? • Extreme long shots (ELS) and establishing shots of empty streets • Extreme High Angle shots (EHA) of the empty streets • Use of silence, so all we can hear is the wind and maybe some birds to show how quiet and empty it is • Structure: flashbacks show us how it used to be, so many people, and what was going on, so we understand how empty things are now • Props: carries a gun all the time, shows us that it’s a dangerous place. • Costume, props, buildings, and vehicles all look like they are from modern times. 3. In what way is the setting (time, place, and social) important in I Am Legend? What impact does it have on events and characters? • New York is a big place so he has lots of stuff that he can take to survive on. • Being a big place also means there are more places for the Darkseekers to hide. • It’s important that there’s no society, because the plot is built on the idea that he’s the last man alive. – NYC is called ‘The City That Never Sleeps’ so there are lots of people there all the time. So by setting it in the remains of a huge city it makes the isolation more extreme. • He’s not just surrounded by a few empty homes, but a huge city where millions of people used to live. • Setting it in today’s time makes it more relatable and realistic. It makes the audience more afraid because we can see how it could happen to us. It manipulates us and makes us more aware of the danger of diseases and dangerous medical experiments. • And it needs to be set in a time where medical science is advanced enough that the disease could be created, but not advanced enough to come up with the cure too easily. For three key settings in I Am Legend:
Describe the Visual language Verbal language Significance of setting features used features used this setting
What is the setting What do we see What do we hear Why is it important like? that tells us about that tells us about in the film? the setting? the setting? How does it look Audience reaction? and sound? • Costume • Dialogue • Lighting • Music Director’s purpose? What is the social • Props • Sound effects side of things like? • Camerawork • Etc… • Colour What is the • Set design emotion/feeling/ • Etc… mood/ atmosphere? Robert’s House
Describe the setting Visual language Verbal language Significance of this features used features used setting • Safe • Warm lighting sound effect of pump when This is Robert’s safe place. • Props and set design: family • turning on shower (shows Helps us to understand the Set in NYC, in a photos, TV, refrigerator that he has engineered his character more: he’s a family nice expensive magnets (creates feeling of family and that there was a home to work without the man, his weaknesses, he’s a neighbourhood child, normal family home); local city systems scientist, he’s prepared and • Warm and cosy lots of canned food (surplus functioning). realistic about survival. We to survive on); gym (so he Dialogue (talks to anna believe he could have • Looks comfortable can keep fit, he’s a soldier about not going home until survived all this time, which • Looks normal and fighter); the metal the sun is up so they can’t makes him more realistic as shutters on the windows (it’s • Cluttered, lots of a fortress as well); Marley’s track his home – shows that a character. stuff room is still full of her child- his home is a sanctuary, a It’s where his lab is, which is like things like toys and safe place). really important for how the • Big colourful wall designs). Three Little Birds music: plot develops. • Lonely • He showers Sam (he’s still makes setting feel The invasion at the end is living ‘normally’ in his comfortable. even scarier because it’s his • Modern home). Shrek: shows us that he’s last safe place, so when it • Well-kept – • Generator in the kitchen (shows that he has wary of having other people gets attacked and overtaken obviously engineered his home to in his house/swamp, that it’s the ultimate defeat. expensive work without the local city he’s used to be alone. systems functioning). Sound effects of crying and • Has a lab • Prop: magazine cover that screaming outside when he’s shows him on the cover. downstairs in the in the bath: makes the house basement seem like a safe fortress that protects him from what’s outside. Robert’s Lab Describe the setting Visual language Verbal language Significance of this features used features used setting Cold • Cool lighting • Recording tells us it’s • Shows us the cold, • Blue filter 2012 clinical side of Robert. • Dark (Contrast with the warm • Silence (and then reveals • Shows us that he’s a real Advanced lighting of the home upstairs) the rats and there’s a scientist, that he is DR Metallic • Costume (lab coat) LOT of sound effects) Robert Neville. Technology and • Set design: Metal and plastic • Beeping of medical • He might have been one materials technology of the people who apparatus • Set design: clinical furniture, • Dialogue as he records helped with the virus, Live experiments: rats sterile and clean, not medical logs about his because he knows so decorated Wall of photos of • The rats (prop) experiments much about it. previous experiments • Props – advanced medical • Dialogue, doesn’t let • Helps us to understand research technology Sam down there: it’s in the climax that he has Lockable room with • Set design: wall of photos dangerous and she can his own dark layer and unbreakable glass • In the climax the lighting is get the disease. And/or lair and that in some warm and red/orange: maybe he didn’t want sense HE is the monster. Downstairs from his because of all the fire and her to ruin the home in the flame after the attack on the house. sterilisation and basement • In the climax, high-contrast cleanliness of the lab. underground lighting on Neville’s CUs: half • Dialogue: Robert and face lit, half in shadow. Anna talking about the Shows two sides of his female Darkseeker. ‘The nature: hero and monster. He has multiple layers, like infected’ vs an onion, like Shrek, who we ‘Darkseeker’, ‘it’ vs ‘she’. already know he identifies himself with. • What is the director, Francis Lawrence, saying about monsters? Or what questions is he asking? – Who is the monster? – Monsters have feelings too. – Why is he a monster? What makes someone a monster? – It’s not what you look like that makes you a monster, but what you do, the choices you make. – We think other people are monsters when they are different to us and we can’t (or won’t?) understand them. – Everyone is a monster in their own way. • Who is the monster in the climax? Why? – Robert Neville. • He has committed inhuman acts (kidnapped, experimented on, and eventually killed so many Darkseekers). • He killed his dog. • He didn’t consider the Darkseekers to be human. He dehumanised them. • He never felt guilt or remorse about what he was doing to the Darkseekers (until right at the end when he apologises). – The Alpha Male. • His appearance. • He attacks and destroys the house and tries to kill Neville and the others. • We wonder whether they eat humans? They seem to be attracted to human blood. • He is angry and uses excessive violence. • His behaviour: like an animal or a zombie. • What could the title I Am Legend mean? – He is a legend to the Darkseekers. He’s the monster who lives during the day who kidnaps and kills Darkseekers. Don’t go near the day or he might catch you! – Legend because he is the last man alive in NYC, and he survived this long. – Legend because he discovered the potential cure. – The Alpha Male could be a legend for saving his girlfriend. • What visual and verbal language features are used to help us understand these things? – Dialogue: ‘I’m sorry’. Neville realises he’s the monster and is in the wrong. – Set: the wall of photos. Emphasises all the Darkseekers he’s kidnapped and killed. – Non-diegetic music: soft piano music. As the Darkseekers are reunited. Emphasises the emotion and tenderness of the rescue and how happy they are to see each other again. – The Butterfly: symbol. They both have someone they love. The ‘monster’ is capable of recognising art and individual Darkseekers. – Character actions: the actions of the Darkseekers as they are reunited are tender and loving. Shows they’re not just monsters. – Close ups of Robert Neville’s face: show his emotions, horror, shock as he realises what he’s done and that he is the monster. – Close ups on the Alpha Male when he sees the girl: his eyes change and we see how loving he is and how relieved he is to see her safe.