R19 - Short Film Analysis: 'The Night Shift'

Mise-En-Scene

thefreshprince

The Night Shift is about a day in the life of a security guard. However this is not just any ordinary day. The school he is watching over has been taken over by zombies. Whilst on his patrol of the school he finds a school girl (Emily) trapped, after she and her friends thought it would be a good idea to break into the school after hours. Emily's friends have all been eaten by zombies, only Emily and the security guard remain. Will they both make it out alive?

The short film starts off with a stereotypical 'British' grim scene of a security guard working a night shift in an office. His use of costume portrays him as a low-paid working class man in a high visibility jacket. His setting shows that he is in an area that he is used to as the table has a whole load of paperwork on it. The normality of this implies that it starts off with an equilibrium, as everything is fine and he is minding his own business, until there is a disruption where the lights start flickering. This then conforms to the typical conventions of a horror genre, because the flickering of lights insinuates some sort of supernatural interfering with it. 

However in contrast to the previous setting, he walks out of the room into a dark corridor, which seems to look like a school. For the audience, it is effective as school is almost a daily 'norm' therefore to associate it with horror, can immediately inject fear into them. For example personally by watching this, I would feel uneasy by walking into school with all the lights switched off. The dark lighting creates an essence of unawareness as to what could occur, because as a security guard, he should be protecting the school however in this instance, he is doing the opposite - he needs protection. 

The scene then suddenly blacks out as he reaches a classroom, which a person appears with blood all over him and with a pale face in a low angle. His use of costume and body language connotes that he is some sort of deformed, zombified school kid as he is wearing school uniform. The security guard's torchlight then moves around which is the only light visible when the scene blacks out again even though there is hardly any lighting coming from the blacked out windows. 

He moves into another classroom with very dim lighting although it is easier to see the surroundings and the location than the previous lighting. His luminescent jacket and the torch briefly stands out however his face is hard to see as the lighting continues to be in the dark. He passes the corridor doors and the non diegetic sounds of him breathing can be heard as a sharp ring (heard in Psycho) that comes to a silence. He aims the torch around and suddenly a pale schoolgirl can be seen shaking on the floor hugging her legs; frightened in a low angle. She exclaims "Help me!" in a scared diegetic tone of voice as a low over the shoulder angle shot is used. Her costume portrays her as a weak, feeble girl who needs protection which is the general negative stereotype used to present women. 

The door then opens and the zombified school boy drags himself in with a limp neck and body wounds with blood all over. The ambient sounds of a deep bang of a drum can be heard to illustrate the sound of a heartbeat. Through the dim lighting you can make out this figure walking towards the camera in a neutral eye level shot. When the main character gets hit onto the floor, a point of view shot is used to present the zombies getting closer all with bloodied costumes on and white faces as well as rotten teeth making the audience eager to see how he will overcome this situation and create a new equilibrium.

The short films ends with a rotten zombie suddenly appearing just before the end with a loud growl at eye level making the audience jump before a blank screen of the credits come up.