This document discusses the post-apocalyptic genre for a film project. It explores the history of post-apocalyptic films from the 1920s focusing on nuclear war-related films of the 1950s. Common post-apocalyptic film types include virus/zombie outbreaks and nuclear disasters. The document considers how this genre fits the project story and allows for creativity. It also discusses hybridizing the genre with horror and thriller elements later in the film.

1. P O S T A P O C A LY P T I C
GENRE RESEARCH

2. WHY WE CHOSE THIS?
Apocalyptic film is a sub-genre of Science-Fiction film. The
plot revolves around an impending disaster. Within this
genre, the disaster is usually an alien invasion, a nuclear war,
a pandemic, or a natural disaster. The development of
technology plays a large role in these films and often serves
as the source of conflict. While many films in this sub-genre
centre around the disaster, many focus on the post-
apocalyptic state of the world.
We used the post apocalyptic genre due to it fitting in with
our story and as it is a fairly new genre this allows us to be
more creative and create content that no one had made
before. This is a genre that has only recently become very
popular and this allows us to create a more original plot for
our film to make it different from previous films but it still
attracts the fans of the post apocalyptic genre.

3. HISTORY OF THE GENRE
Between the 1920’s and 1950’s, this genre of film originated, firstly in
the form of action adventure-disaster films like ‘The Hurricane’ (1937).
The horrors of World War II, the threat of nuclear annihilation and
radioactive mutancy during the resultant Cold War led to many
disaster/ post-apocalyptic films in the 1950’s. These included ‘The
War of the Worlds’ (1953), ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ (1951) and
‘Day the World Ended’ (1956).

4. HISTORY OF THE GENRE
The major era of post-apocalyptic and
disaster films was the 1970’s as a variety of
actual disasters occurred in and around this
time period. They consequently acted as
inspirations for films.
After only a few post-apocalyptic films were
made in the 80’s, albeit notable ones, there
was a resurgence in the genre between the
1990’s to current day. This comes at a time of
multiple fears in society, opening up new
doors for the basis of post-apocalyptic films.
These include ‘The Day After Tomorrow’
(2004), ‘I am Legend’ (2007) and ‘Prometheus’
(2012).

5. TYPES OF POST APOCALYPTIC
• Virus/Infection, zombie related- ‘I Am Legend’, ‘28 Days Later’, ’28 Weeks
Later’
-these often take place after the original infection, so the audience does not see the
havoc in its prime, nevertheless, short scenes or shots, flashbacks or footage often show
what the disaster began from. Subsequently, they normally focus on a small group of
civilisation fighting to survive the apocalypse. These situations often push characters
to the edge of their mental and physical capacity to continue living. The use of
emptied, typically-hustling bustling cities make them more harrowing. While the
setting is often localised, the infection can easily spread worldwide, while sometimes
we do not know how far it has spread.
• Nuclear related crises or wars- ‘Watchmen’, ‘Unthinkable’, ‘Mad Max 2’,
‘Terminator series’, ‘The Book of Eli’
-these films relate to society’s possibly greatest fear of nuclear fallout, sparking from
World War II, continuing through the Cold War, and nowadays, many countries are
working to produce them as a deterrent and protection of their nations. These films
often focus on small communities due to much of the population being killed by the
fallout. Further conflict usually arises in these communities for resources as well as
how they should live in these difficult times. They are mostly set worldwide, again, to
maximise the impact of the message of warning.

6. HOW THEY APPEAL
Both the virus and nuclear destruction genres could be related to our
film especially the virus, this type of film has been very popular over
the last few years with TV shows like ‘The Walking Dead’ however we
will not go down the zombie path as this pandemic will effect animals
and humans manly psychologically by making you lose control of our
mind and eventually dying

7. HYBRIDITY??
Initially for our film we wanted to have the sub-gene of post apocalyptic then
hybridise this with horror and thriller due to the films plot taking a dark side towards
the end. These genres can normally be associated with the post apocalyptic genre due
to them allowing opportunities to bring in horror sections for example as the idea of
being alone in a dangerous world helps add more horror for the audience.
So even though our film is mainly post apocalyptic we are adding genres into different
sections of the film to help create a wider range of emotions for the audiences to see.
Our audience will be interested in this as they are sophisticated and want to see some
challenging scenes where they can actively question the acts of the characters.

8. TYPES OF POST APOCALYPTIC
The post-apocalyptic genre is quite a diverse one; as there limitless scenarios that could
be applied to a living after the end of the world and everyone has different takes on
how it will pan out. This allows many film directors, writers and producers to have a
vast creative freedom with their work within the realms of post-apocalyptic fiction.
One of the more prominent types of the post-apocalyptic genre is the 'cosy catastrophe',
which grew in popularity after the second world war. This depicts a certain type of
story, which is heavily focussed on the politics of a group of people who take advantage
of the apocalypse and use it for their own personal gain whilst attempting to rebuild
society on the foundations of their own beliefs and morals.
This could be a reason for why the world in our film has become affected by the virus
maybe due to a country or a cult who want to try and make the world better.