Short Film Analysis

1. Alien Infestation – Horror
A) Purposeand Audience
Basics:
The shortfilm Alien Infestation is made in 2016, and published on YouTube
on 27 May 2016. Themovie includes the alien from the movie Alien, 1979.
Itis directed by Swedish director Martin Leon Lindstedt. The movie was
filmed in Sweden, in an apartment where a lonely girl is trying to order pizza
and do laundry. The director describes his purposeof making “pureout of love
for love for the franchiseand the alien saga”.
The movie is inspired by 2011 Alien Infestation game. Itincludes genre and
information from the game where a lone Xenomorph (the alien) is trapped
inside a suburban location, in an apartment.
Audience:
The audience for the shortfilm seems to the same as it was for the actual
movie. The movie was aimed at people 18 years old and older. But in an
interview 6 years ago, the head of the BBFC, David Cooke, said if it were to be
released today, Alien would be granted a 15 certificate so I believe the short
film is aimed at anyone over 15 years of age.
But when it comes to the age groups I believe its middle aged people and
older. The original movie is almost 40 years old, the shortfilm may have
broughtback the old memories for those people who werestill young when
they watched the movie.
In terms of gender, Alien movie, 1979, was oneof the very few movies that
included a female as the main character in the movie, it’s one of the reasons
why Alien was so successful. Itwas oneof its kind.
NCR Scale and 4C’s Theory:
In the NCR scale, social grades scale, the shortfilm applies to all classes of
grades. The shortmovie is a making of a fan for the love of the trilogy. So there
is no reason for anybody to not be the audience.
The NCR scale does not apply to the film but as the social status has no affect
to people’s preferences. But it can be linked to money, shortfilms are made

2. generally by either students or beginner directors who are looking for
recognition.
But they are more appealing to younger generation, the less disposable
income you havethe less likely for you to go to cinema as it is expensive. So
students are more likely to watch shortfilms as they don’t often have much
money. Also they tend to prefer to watch movies online as it is fastand really
easy to access.
The 4C’s scale has certain types of people that would respond to the movie
more than others. But I think “Resigned” group will be affected the most by
the movie. Resigned people are tend to motivate themselves through survival.
They are the older generation who stick to what they’refamiliar with and
tend not to change with society. They tend to see and know the real values and
justtry to survivethrough the new environment around them.
Itcan be seen in the movie that
the audience is varied. The main
character in the movie is female but
the shortfilm actually has a part2
wherethere is also a male character
so it is clear that it’s for both
genders.
On this example there is the main character in the kitchen in her apartment.
The women in the scene seems to be fairly young although clearly mature
enough not to be a teenager. She is probably about 20 – 25 years of age which
already appeals to that age group, people her age are either at higher
education or employed.
B) Form, Style and Genre
You can tell that the director has used handheld digital cameras to film the
movie. He had also used a tripod in certain scenes to makesure that all the
footage is nice and stable when editing although in other scenes no tripod was
used.
The movie was posted online on YouTube and on his website for everybody’s
access. I haveaccessed this movie by YouTube, by typing in “Alien ShortFilm”
as “Alien” was a movie that inspired me into making a horror movie.

3. Style:
Genre:
The genre of the shortfilm is horror. Themovie follows the horror theme all
along since the beginning. The movie features lots of codes and conventions to
give the senseof horror. Someof the key scenes that show horror codes and
conventions are;
The phone line is cut,
The dark setting of the scenes with little or no lighting,
And blood and dead bodies.

4. Oneof the great ways of creating
horror is to give the audience the
idea of the monster but without
actually showing it. In this movie the
director decided to use the
shadowing technique to show the
shadow of the protagonist(the
alien) with some blood on the wall
to give the senseof horror and
scarethe audience.
C) Content and Meaning
Mise-en-Scene:
Mise-en-Scenerefers to everything that appears beforethe camera and its
arrangement. These are to be;
1. Composition: This is about everything in the scene and how they are
being placed and why they are being put on that location.
In the image below we see the main character in the kitchen lighting up a
candle as sheis calling her friend on the phone. The candles are used in horror
movies that tells the story in the past, wherethere wereno lights so it makes it
even scarier. Italso tells the audience that it is night time where there isn’t
much light, less or little light is another horror moviecodes.
The way the fridgeis being decorated with pictures and with butterfly’s show
that the houseis a secure place where the character feels safebut with the

5. candles and the dark mood the audience feels that the mood can change any
minute, for example the candles might go off creating a scary scenario.
2. Sets: The set design is used to amplify the characters emotion or the
mood in the scene/film. The setting of the actual movie is the
apartment, somescenes in the basement and somein the flat. The
setting of the flat is like a normalapartment with normal props, butthe
setting of the basement is dark and suggests danger.
3. Props: The props in the flat are things you would normally find in a
house, things like; a microwave, a fridge, pans, a hair dryer, a table etc.
They are usefulbecause they help the audience relate to the character
in the movie, as if they are that person in that situation.
4. Actors/Acting: The way the actor acts and reacts is the key element to
set the mood and show emotion. We see the main actress sighing when
she turns of the stoveat the beginning, probably relived that she didn’t
burn the food. But then we see her looking shocked when she firstsees
the alien in the middle of the movie, giving the signs of fear.
5. Costumes: Justlike the props the main character is wearing simple
clothes that we all would wear on daily basis. The reason being is to
show how unprepared sheis for an encounter with an Alien, by using
normal clothes the director is giving us the signs that the character is just
like on of us so that we can relate.
6. And lighting: The lighting in the basement as the main character walks is
barely bright, the lights come and go as if there had been an emergency
which makes the audience whathad happened there.
Cinematography:

6. Differentshot types and camera movements are used to give different
messages to the audience.
This image shows thebasement of
the apartment with a long shot. The
screen goes down with a tilt and
then focuses on the end of the
hallway. We can see that the lights
are going on and off at the end and
there it is less bright than where the
camera is which suggests thatthe
end of the way is not safe, as if it’s a
danger zone.
Sound:
Mostof the sounds in the movie are diegetic, which means that the sounds
we hear come froma sourcein the screen that we can identify. There are some
scenes however that includes non-diegetic sound such as when the alien
enters the flat and we hear it walking in the hallway. These scenes create
tension in the movie becausethe audience cannot see what is making the
noise and thereforecannot choosehow to react and see the main character
panic.
Editing:
What the director has done is that he got a real-life size alien figureto usein
the movie which meant that there was no need for editing any footage.
Structure/Narrative/SFX:
D) Frequency and Production Process
The movie is the first part of a 2-partseries. This part of the series briefly
shows thegenre and tell the story beforethe actual event in the second part.
The director had to get certain props and find the right location to film the
movie, to create the horror scenes he needed places wherethe character
didn’t have too many options to escape the alien, so he decided to choosean
apartment as there is only one entry to it. We have also seen how the only

7. door in the apartment was locked so the main character was locked in with the
alien.
The link for the shortfilm “Alien Infestation”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAEOBDrYuiE&safe=true
Sources:
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/11-alien-anthology-fan-films-ranked
https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2015/09/03/a-parasite-to-
remember-why-alien-is-one-of-the-most-influential-movies-ever-made.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRS_social_grade
http://www.tmgnj.net/tag/4cs/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise-en-sc%C3%A8ne