"I Am Legend" Oral Presentation: Historical & Socio-Cultural Context

II. Historical and Institutional Factors

What are the institutional factors that may be important? As a production of a specific producer (i.e. Walt Disney), institution (Disney Studios), specific economic factors (Studio Film), or a political background? (U.S. politics 1959) I Am Legend was made in 2007. During this time, the U.S. economy was in a good shape. Many companies were producing and selling out their new products like Apple and it's first version of the iPhone while Nintendo was coming out with their wii. The U.S. economy was pretty stable so Warner Bros. Pictures cranked out movies more and more. What also happened in 2007, were the issues concerning troops in Iraq and the effects of the greenhouse effect. Warner Bros. Pictures take the biggest credit for producing I Am Legend but they also acknowledge the other companies that helped with the production and distribution.

What is the film’s historical significance? As a document of its time? As a part of history of film?

The film's historical significance is its reference to the long debated "End of the World" according to the Mayan calendar. This shows a possible and modern version of what the end of the world could look like and how it could come to be. Since, at the time, troops from the U.S. were being sent to Iraq, this movie reflects the tensions the U.S. had with their country.

III. Socio-cultural context

What is the film’s socio-cultural context? As a work from a specific country? This film was produced, shot and released in the United States, in English. This shows, like I stated above, the mix of feelings Americans had toward sending more troops to Iraq. What is a good thing or a bad thing? What is really necessary? This shows how sometimes, the human desire to achieve and do good can backfire on society.

As a work from a specific culture? As a work representing a specific part of its society? As a work made for a specific audience? Since so many people argue about whether or not the world is going to end in December of 2012 and this film helps a variety of viewers to see one post-apocalyptic version of the world ending because of the human need to destroy diseases. "Robert Neville is a scientist who was unable to stop the spread of the terrible virus that was incurable and man-made. Immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City and perhaps the world. For three years, Neville has faithfully sent out daily radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. Perhaps mankind's last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood." This film reflects modern American culture because, like i said before, the urge for humans to be irresistible to diseases. This shows how society uses and develops more and more technology to be able to study, diagnose and come up with cures to every day or life-threatening illnesses. The modern part of American culture shown is whenever Neville (Will Smith) is back in his house, researching and testing in his lab or eating breakfast and watching a rerun of the news. This is habitually what most Americans do in the morning.

As a work made for a specific reason? Francis Lawrence, when asked about his reason for producing I Am Legend, he responded, "It was the idea of 'What does that world look like, what does it do to you when you're by yourself... What does it do without people, without companionship and sound and the loss of your family, without anybody to talk to? I think that's really what people [connect] to ..."

→ sources: the inner recesses of my head, Yahoo answers(for the butterfly idea), IMDB, timelines(to show how the U.S.'s economy was at the time), other click through links are shown above

Sound Design (revision in process)

*Anissa and I decided to change our sound design concept. It's still being thoroughly worked out.

The Hunted

Logline: A girl and her friends are enjoying themselves at a pool in their neighborhood when they figure out they're being hunted.

(EXT: sunny day) Cars pass by on a street of the parking lot. A group of girls come out lugging bags and towels. Giggling and laughing, they push each other playfully ready for the fun times ahead. The background music is soft. The whistling of the wind can be heard.

The group of girls walk to the pool while the sloshing of water and the hum of the filter starts to come into the scene, enveloping them. There is a close up of one of the main girls' nose inhaling the smell of chlorine. All the while you hear her deep intake of breath and her sigh of contentedness.

The girls spread themselves and start to lounge around. The main girl is floating on her back in the pool while her friends are going to use the bathroom. The sloshing of the water can still be heard and it starts to mix with her breathing. The giggling of her parting friends correlate in a rhythmic match. CU to ECU of her face, of her closing her eyes. The rhythmic match of sounds continue but then get broken because of a shriek from one of her friends. Loud footsteps come in right after the shriek, the view abruptly goes wide and her friend jumps in the pool to wake the main girl up.

The main girl laughs and starts to attack in retribution. FADE OUT.

The girls start to leave the pool. The main girl is a bit behind, trying to catch up to them when she accidentally bumps into a man causing him to drop something.

Girl: "Oh um sorry... my bad."

Man: (stands and stares at her while his even breathing can be heard)

The girl bends down to pick up what he dropped. It's a folder with a piece of wrinkled paper sticking out. She sees the corner of a picture of a girl with a giant X on it.

Creeped, she hurriedly hands it back to the strange man and turns to walk away.

She finally catches up to her friends and she asks where one of her friends went. The rest of them say he had already said goodbye and left because she had a project to work on.

Switch to the girl in question. She's humming happily and is unaware of the guy stealthily following her. The music that surrounds the girl starts to mesh with the guy(killer) as he gets closer and closer to her.

The shot goes back to the friends still walking, and talking about the girl getting attacked.
"I hope she doesn't get attacked"
"What are the odds of that, the killer probably already left this town."

There's a loud click and she turns around, attentive now. Another click, the sound of the shutter of a camera snapping a picture. With the clicks, there are quick flashes of light. She barely has time to regain her eye focus when a burlap sack is quickly thrown over her head. She screams and the scene goes black.

The group of friend go get food. On there way they see the photo booth.
"Lets take a picture"
"Not now, were too hungry"
"I'll just take it alone and i'll catch up with you guys"

The lonely girl starts to take pictures by herself. She takes one happy/silly picture but in then the killer appears in the scene next to her and she's surprised. The photo booth then snaps pictures of her being attacked until finally she's dead.

The Hunter steps out of the photo booth and reaches for the strand of pictures that were taken for his folder.

[...]

Tracking shot of the girl running her way home(on the street). Her heartbeat and panting can be heard, beating faster and faster, louder and louder. Intercutting of her running and the Hunter's hooded figure looming after her.

MS of the girl as she rounds a corner and the camera follows her as she trips and falls. Her loud scream is heard along with the thump of her hitting the ground hard. Low angle/worm's eye shot of her on the floor(camera is a foot or two away from her feet). She's panting and her heartbeat is still heard.

The Hunter's steps slowly come in and his two feet step in front of the camera. The girl's eyes widen, preparing for a scream. Hear the swish(?) of a knife(or other FAKE being taken out). Shot immediately goes black and a scream is heard(loud, high-pitched). (insert stabbing/slashing/cutting sound?)

Scene starts to zoom and track the main girl opening her eyes. She's alive and back in the pool. (Raskolnikov status)

Keep In Mind

• what is the intent of the scene? (what is the scene used for dramatically)
• what are the plot points? (points that move the story forward)
• what is the climax of each scene? (what is the turning point)
• what is the resolution? (how is the theme resolved?)
• what is the conclusion? (how does the scene end)
• what are the important lines of dialogue? (contains story points)
• which character controls the scene? (who pushes the story forward)
• what can be improved to help the narrative?

"I Am Legend" Oral Presentation Analysis: Genre & Director

1. This movie can be categorized under Drama, Sci-Fi and Thriller.
2. The plot line attributes to the Drama part of the movie: Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the last man in New York City who is not infected by a man-made disease. His only companion is his dog, Sam. Robert and Sam live in NYC, trying to find a cure to the disease while sending out messages of help to any survivors. The fact that he is alone and living every day of his life in a post-apocalyptic environment, trying to find a cure while fighting off inhuman zombies. The fact that he is alone and doesn't have a single human being to talk to, plays with his mind and the way he interacts with what's truly around him. The muscial score also helps show that this movie can be a Drama, Sci-Fi and Thriller. At times when Robert Neville is fighting human zombies, the music becomes fast-paced and high. When Robert is home and has his flashbacks about his family, the music is soft and slow. It helps with the transition into his flashbacks.

3. I Am Legend can be connected to the 1971 movie The Omega Man by Boris Sagal and the 1964 film The Last Man On Earth by Ubaldo Ragona.

4. Francis Lawrence was the director of this movie. He is a known director, producer and/or assistant director. When asked about his reason for I Am Legend, he responded, "It was the idea of 'What does that world look like, what does it do to you when you're by yourself? ... What does it to without people, without companionship and sound and the loss of your family, without anybody to talk to? I think that's really what people connected to, and so the tough thing is, how do we do that again and in a different way?" Lawrence wanted a "story of struggle" but of one that reached out and connected deeply for the auidence.

5. Lawrence is known for producing and directing films that connect to a human's greatest fear and films that test humans to a capacity. I Am Legend is one of the films that give a post-apocalyptic example of how a human might survive after going through a massive spread of disease. But we can also see that has has produced and helped out a lot more with music artists' videos and commercials such as Justin Timberlake's music video for "Rock Your Body" as well as "Losing A Whole Year" by Third Eye Blind (other works). His other movie, Constantine (2005) shows the darkness of human beings and their life after experiencing hell and back.

6 & 7. In his movies, you can see he focuses on the mentality of humans and how they are able to deal with what is going on in the world around them. As Lawrence said in the quote above, he thinks about how his audience is going to relate to the movie. He wants to put the audience in that uncomfortable position of seeing a situation that could happen. The general theme of this movie is to show 1. how humans deal with extreme situations both externally and internally; to show how much horrific isolation humans are able to take.

8. This film's target audience could include teenagers and mostly adults. Will Smith's character is able to connect with an audience of older people because they have experienced and worried over half of the issues shown in I Am Legend.

→ sources: Youtube, MRQE, Eyeforfilm, IMDB(for I Am Legend), Slash Film(Lawrence quotes) see links above for others