The opening sequence of 28 Weeks Later uses various techniques to set the tone and build tension. It introduces characters at an isolated cottage location to relate to. While the beginning has a calm, normal feel with no music or dialogue, the sequence gets increasingly fast-paced with electronic music and quick cuts between shots. Little context is directly provided to leave the audience wondering and engaged in the story.

1. 28 Weeks Later Title and credits
The title and credits of the film are both written in a small basic white
font against a black background. Both of these only appear for a few
seconds, which is long enough for the audience to absorb the
information, but not too long as they get bored. The use of these
colours is well chosen, as they both heavily contrast each other. The
small white font almost looks like it is being swallowed up by the black
background and the colour white has connotations of purity, whereas
black has connotations of evil. What the director could be trying to
show here is the human’s struggle to survive against the infected. This is
effective, as the audience might start to feel small and insignificant.
They might also start to understand how almost hopeless it is, to try and
fight against the infected.

2. Sound effects
• This opening sequence uses a variety of sound
effects. The very start of the film has not got a
soundtrack. The background is completely
silent, but it is accompanied by sound
effects, such as the rustling of a newspaper and
the clinking of glasses. This is effective, as it can
make the audience think that this is a normal
day in England, thus lulling them into a false
sense of security and shocking them when the
infected arrive. The silence is effective, as it
raises tension and suspense in the audience.

3. Soundtrack
• The beginning of 28 weeks later has an
electronic soundtrack which crescendos and
builds up with the action. This is the
equivalent of raising tension. When the
sequence is in full play, the music speeds up to
accompany and accelerate the action. This
would raise suspense in the audience and
keep them on the edge of their seats.

4. Characters
• In the opening sequence we are introduced to
six different characters with completely
different personalities. For example there is
an old couple who own the cottage and are
supposed to be very sweet and caring and a
sceptical and sarcastic man, who has all but
given up. The effect of having so many
characters at this point in time, is so that the
audience can find one character they can
relate to and want to succeed.

5. Narrative
• The first half of the opening sequence is a
mixture of fast paced and editing and frantic
camera shots, which confuses the audience.
As of this reason, not much of the narrative is
actually told, which is effective as the
audience will not be overloaded with
information. However in the latter half of the
opening, titles start to appear which explain to
the audience the backstory of the film, in
simple language. The purpose of this is to tell
the audience what has led up to this film, but
without confusing them with too much
information.

6. Setting
• Before the titles appear the film is set in a
cottage, in the English countryside. This is an
effective choice of location, as it is extremely
remote and difficult to get to. This makes the
cottage look very isolated and the people inside
it are all alone. What is also very clever here is
that the cottage is in the middle of some
picturesque scenery e.g the green fields and
bright sunshine. This has the effect of shocking
and surprising the audience even more, as just
looking at the scenery alone they might think
that this is a happy film. After all bright
sunshine isn’t a typical convention of horror
films and this is why the arrival of the Infected is
so unexpected.

7. Colour
In the first half of the opening sequence, not a lot of
colour is seen mainly because of how the scene is lit. The
first half is lit only by candles and this creates a very dark
and gloomy atmosphere. It already suggests to the
audience that something bad is going to happen, even
though it doesn’t appear that the characters are in any
immediate danger. As well as this the colour of the props
and the costumes, which the characters are using and
wearing are all very boring and dull. This helps to add to
the atmosphere. All of these mundane colours later
contrast with the vivid red blood, which the Infected
produce. In the latter half of the opening
sequence, during the chase scene, bright light is glaring
down and this further confuses the audience, as usually
these types of films take place at night time.

8. Images/still shots
• The imagery used in this sequence starts off very
slowly, but it builds up extremely quickly. At the
beginning of the sequence where the scene is
being set, the camera focuses for a longer time
on the character’s conversation. However when
the action crescendos fast cuts and motion on
action is used, which means that the camera
does not focus on a specific image for too long.
This is effective, as it helps to keep the piece of
film interesting and it raises the tension.

9. Film information
• In this opening sequence the audience finds out some
information about the film, such as who the villains and the
victims of the film are. The titles tell the audience a little
context about the film. They highlight how society has
collapsed. The characters in the opening sequence don’t talk
about their backstories or about the narrative to the film. They
don’t discuss the Infected in very great detail, or how they all
ended up in the same cottage and this leaves the audience to
speculate about how they got to where they are. This is a good
thing, because it means that the audience are getting engaged
in the films, but it’s also bad as the audience's attention is being
detracted from the film.