Conventions of a zombie film

C - Character

M - mise en scene

I - iconography

N - Narrative

T - Themes

S - Sound

c - The typical characters found in zombie films tend to be pretty tough characters. People who have probably lost someone close to them to zombies. Some often find new love with someone they survived with. A lot of characters tend to be male with one or two females who sometimes get into trouble only to be saved at the last minute.

m - Costumes tend to be ripped, torn, damaged and bloody. Lighting will often be low to add atmosphere and allow zombies to jump out of the shadows. Make up for zombies tends to be greyish make up to make the zombies look more pale and less live. Props used tend to be guns, sports bats, swords and cars are used quite a lot as well. The setting for zombie films tends to be a desolate worlds post zombie apocalypse. Or the film will start with a regular environment that succumbs to a zombie apocalypse a little way in. most zombie films take place in cities, although they're exceptions.

I - iconography used in zombie films usually revolves around blood. Blood around the mouth tends to indicate that person is a zombie. Bloody hand prints on t-shirts suggest the person wearing it was attacked by a zombie. And houses with broken doors and bloody hand prints on doors wall or windows suggest the house did or still does have zombies inside.

n - The narrative of a zombie films tends to be the story of a person's, or a group of people's fight to survive the horrors of a zombie apocalypse. There a two ways a zombie film tends to go.

1. The world is still normal and functioning in much the same way as before. And then zombies start attacking and all hell breaks loose. the main characters then have to survive in the new world until they either all die or finally make it to a safe location at which point everything starts going well for them.

2. The film starts in a post apocalyptic future in a world already overrun with zombies. We will probably see a single character who has survived on their own until the point we see them. They then meet a fellow survivor or group of survivors and they all decide to try and survive together whilst making their way to safety.

t - The themes of a zombie film are the little sub-stories that often pop up. The sorts of themes you are likely to get are the main characters trying to find out how to kill the zombies. Another classic is the suffering the main character has to go through when confronted with the zombie of a loved one and the pain of having to kill them. Another one that is seen a lot is the chasing of a character by zombies and the character being saved at the last minute. one of the most common is seeing a main character as they struggle to come to terms with the new world they have found themselves in. these are the sort of themes that are often seen in zombie films.

s - The typical sort of sound used in zombie films will be very fast and tense when a character is confronted with a zombie. Or slow and nervous kind of sounds. The first is used to create a sense of terror that the main character is in serious and immediate danger, whereas the second is used to create a more built up atmosphere in a way that the audience is expecting a zombie to pop out but still scares them when it does.