Abdul Koiyus

Unit 26 Film Studies

I Am Legend

In this blog I am going to be analysing a scene from one of my favourite movies. The movie I
have chosen is ‘I Am Legend’ which was released in 2007 and directed by Francis Lawrence. I
will be looking closely at the Mise-En-Scene, cinematography and sound. They all combine
into eachother to have an effect on the audience. This scene is about being attacked by the
antagonists which are devilish looking dogs which only come out when it is dark. Neville and
his dog Sam try to escape the dogs but are not so successful with himself being injured by
heing hanged by a rope.
The mise en scene helps to set the scene with the setting. It does this with things like the car
Neville has and the surroundings such as the buildings and street lamps. When something is
going to happen such as when the antagonists come out of hiding we see the cameras zoom
up onto there faces to not only show their expressions but to also illustrate the anger trying
to be portrayed. The way the ground is worn out, building windows are smashed, the
atmosphere could connote that maybe his life is slowly tearing apart. As we can see from
this scene there are no people around except for him and his dog. This shows his a very
lonely person. We would expect his mindstate to not be as stable as it should be. From the
streets we notice cars being abandoned which could also resemble his life that he is also
abandoned, abandoned from people, abandoned from life itself.

From this scene, we can see that Neville is wearing dark clothing. He is wearing a dark black
jacket, a darkish tshirt, black jeans and black shoes. These clothes are normal for the time he
is in which is late 2007 but in this movie can be seen as symbolic. This type of clothing could
relate to his time and into even more depth it could possibly illustrate to us his mental way
of thinking or his way of living. His costume would show the importance of his character in
the movie. His costume conveys to us his way of life, the way he lives and does things on a
daily basis.
Robert Neville is the main character of the movie. From this scene we can see that he is very
aware of his surroundings as if he has been on his own for some time now. He carries his
own weapons with him which indicates to the audience that he may have trained himself or
may have served time in the army. He uses his ability to use guns as his way of protecting
himself and Sam his dog from the antagonists we see in the mise-en-scene. Some
performances stand out in the mise-en-scene such as Neville’s facial expressions, we see
Abdul Koiyus
Unit 26 Film Studies

when he is concerned or starting to get worried about something such as when the
antagonising and deranged dogs come out of the hiding.
The lighting in this scene is very limited, we can see that sunset is beginning. This could
resemble the only light that is left in Neville’s life is slowly fading away which could connect
to his best friend Sam, because as we continue we see Sam get infected by the deranged
dogs. This type of lighting could be hinting to us that we are going to be expecting some
type of darkness or mysteriousness when watching this movie. The scene is dominated by
the darkness which may depict to us that later on in the movie we may start to see even
more.

In this scene sound is mostly controlled by the dialogue. It is mainly used when Neville is
screaming because of the antagonised devilish looking dogs attacking Sam and himself. The
scene begins with diegetic sound as we hear Neville speaking to Sam telling her “Let’s go”
because she is barking at the antagonists she has noticed in the darkness. From this point
we then start to hear some non-diegetic sound slowly starting to fade in. These non-diegetic
sounds that eventually start to devlop are to start building the suspense.
The non-diegetic sound that we start to hear sounds like a horn. Whenever something is
about to happen we hear that sound starting to fasten and become intense to have an
effect on the viewers to get them in a nervous and anxious state. These sounds made the
movie very nerve wracking to watch which made it a pleasure. This sound continues up to
when all the antagonists are dead. When they are all dead we hear a silence and go back to
listening to the diegetic sounds where Neville is speaking with Sam. The silence just makes
the audience emotional because we see Neville get tears in his eyes.