Quarantine Deconstruction

Continued research for our supernatural film opening I watched Quarantine (2008) and chose a scene from it to deconstruct in terms of, sound, mise en scene, lighting and camera angles. The film is about a television reporter and her cameraman trapped inside a building quarantined by the CDC after the outbreak of a mysterious virus which turns humans into bloodthirsty killers. This is the scene I focused on:




Sound:

• There is no non-diegetic music throughout the whole sequence, only diegetic sounds of people talking, screaming and moving around.
• This makes it seem more realistic to the audience and also shows it in a documentary style which is how it is supposed to be set out.

Lighting:

• Low key lighting is used throughout the whole sequence, it is all very shadowy and not much is shown.
• The lighting has been set out to look like a torch, it only shows what would be shown from the POV of the camera man who is holding the torch so only give us a restricted view of what is in the scene which creates more fear for the audience watching.

 

The sequence begins showing a woman being filmed from a POV shot of the camera man, a torch light is shining on her which briefly shows some of the room they are in, there is blue walls with lots of pieces of paper stuck on them and paint or some sort of white liquid running down them. We are also shown the woman in casual clothing looking very petrified.

The man with the POV shot gets closer to the woman showing us a close up of her face. We clearly see her facial expression from this, she looks very distressed and panicked by the situation they are in, her neck is strained and her hands are out in front of the drastically shaking.

The camera man then looks through a door on the ceiling to try and see what is happening and what is making the noises which are panicking the woman. A panning shot is used to show the whole room and as it is only lit by a torch still our view is still restricted so nothing can be seen from the left or the right.

After the camera has shown almost the whole room, this image jumps out whilst a loud scream is played. As it is only shown for a second it makes the audience jump. Then the scene goes completely black as the torch has gone off and nothing can be seen so it creates fear as we know that the creature is still there with them but they cannot see where it is.