Jaun of the Dead Film opening

Juan de los muertos

Jaun de los muertos (Original title of Jaun of the Dead) is a Spanish film that follows a group of working class protagonists as they face an army of the living dead.
It's an action, comedy and horror genre hybrid released in 2011, by an Indie film company.

Due to the film heavily intertextualising Dawn of the Dead and Shaun of the Dead, it is a good movie to gather inspiration from for our film opening.

It has several interesting outliers, compared to the usual conventions used in other hybrid genres or other Indie company productions. An example is the lack of special effects used (Connotes low budget which is normal for an Indie company)

Titles 

immediately opens with a black screen with a sans serif title that's deteriorating, that's coloured mainly white with tints of yellow. The title reads 'Una coprodccion hispano cubana' which is Spanish for 'A Cuban Hispanic co-production'.

This lasts for around 4 seconds before cutting immediately into a extreme long shot, from a birds eye view of a drifting raft in the ocean. There is also an audio bridge of the ocean waves, and this sound is diegetic.
This is the only title at the beginning of the film which connotes to the film company being an Indie film company. This is anchored by the amount of time the title appears and the name of the film, Juan of the Dead quite clearly intertextualises Shaun of the Dead and when the name is almost identical it connotes to the theory of simulacra, a post-modernistic theory

The use of sans serif connotes that the film is either comedy, action, romance, horror or a zombie film genre or a hybrid genre. In addition the deterioration of the title connotes to the zombie film genre. This also intertextualises shaun of the dead, as well as 28 days later which are both part of the zombie genre.

First shot

The first shot is a extreme long shot from a birds eye view, this applies itself as an establishing shot as it reveals a lot of exposition as well as being at the beginning of the film, with a black curly haired man with a white tank top, blue jean shorts and a brown leather belt on a raft that is made of different planks of woof some fishing net and 3 visible cannonballs to weigh the net down down and other pieces of sea junk in the middle. The man is laying face up on the raft spreading out over the whole raft. The camera zooms into a long shot from birds eye view, and using the rule of thirds, this connotes to the man being the main protagonist (Possibly connoting to the proppian archetype of a Hero, however its not fully clear as other characters need to be revealed) as he's centre frame as well as the camera zooming in on him.
The clothes he's wearing as well as the state of the raft connotes to the man being a working class protagonist, which connotes to an indie film company as well as the film being a horror film. An example of this is in Warps Tyrannosaur (warp is an indie film company and tyrannosaur is a horror film produced by warp) the main character is a working class protagonist with complex motives. On the other hand Bridget Jones' Diary, a working title film (working title is a subsidiary of Universal one of the big 5 conglomerates) the working class characters have very shallow personalities and are often made to look like idiots
The birds eye view angle connotes to the character being in trouble.
The immediate showing of the main protagonist isn't as effective as a first shot as it removes some of the narrative enigma. A similar start as in the warp film For those in Peril
There is also a slight yellow tint on the camera which connotes to a zombie/ horror genre


The mise-en-scene also connotes the character being in a bad financial situation as he can't afford a basic boat. The lack of shoes also connotes to him being stranded as he appears to have discarded his socks and shoes, and this is anchored by the fact he is wearing a brown belt.