Suffocate

My dystopian short film is a fictional piece about a man trying to escape and survive in an abandoned city, on an abandoned planet. It has stylistic influences from '28 Days Later' (Danny Boyle, 2002), and 'Na Na Na' (Robert Schober, 2010), as well as from numerous other products, just in less important ways.
I am making this project with the aim of using it as a piece to demonstrate competence and skills to potential future employers and/or further education selection boards. Therefore, I aim to making a product which is technically proficient, with a strong narrative and a powerful tone. Initially I was almost completely focused on the idea of building atmosphere and constructing a setting, I have since decided it is necessary to balance this with an engaging narrative. This way, the narrative can serve as a vessel which I can use to guide my audience through the world which I have created and the tone and mood of it all. Thus, I hope to combine a strong mood with an engaging narrative.
The product should make people feel concerned about the future, which should motivate them to put more effort into the present, meaning generally have a larger focus on preservation in the present day of the planet, but also putting effort into improving and maintaining oneself. This will be achieved by displaying a cynical worst case scenario on the screen, which is emphasised by the protagonist and the futility of his situation, whereby he is left alone on a tortured and abandoned earth, similar to '28 Days Later', where even the air is unaccommodating towards life.
The product should make people feel uncomfortable and apprehensive towards general themes of globalisation and industrialisation, as the city, which represents these themes, will be portrayed as a dangerous and foreboding environment, in which the character feels fear, insecurity, and uncertainty. This shall be contrasted with the setting of the country, which will be portrayed as a place that provides some comfort and solace to the protagonist, done using stylistic choices similar to those in 'Picnic at Hanging Rock', relating to how it approaches capturing scenes of the Australian bush. With the contrast provided between the locations of city and country, the idea is to hint towards the possibility of the city, and the industrial process which lead to its creation, as perhaps having gone too far, in this way reflecting some of the themes and ideas that 'Na Na Na' implicitly projects, and that 'Wall-E' directly embodies. Suggesting that with all of the effort and attention put into progress, there has been some ambiguous yet important factor which has been neglected, and in this fictional world, this same factor has caused a catastrophic reset.
The event, or events, which caused the setting audiences see to be in the state it is, will never be explicitly disclosed. Although the film will hint at elements which have influence the collapse, it will never give closure, thus prompting audiences to think for themselves and creating an opportunity for them to conjure a version of events in their own minds, which will play on their own fears and insecurities, thus engaging any audiences members, each on an individual basis, in a way which would not be possible through methods of direct disclosure. This idea that without details, audiences defer to drawing on their own darkest and most pessimistic thoughts is a concept inspired by 'Picnic at Hanging Rock'.
I also intend to us my own personal experiences and feelings in an attempt to cultivate empathy in the audience, over certain fears and anxieties, especially the daunting feeling one can get when thrust out of a comfortable and simple environment, into a fast paced, apathetic, cold, machine-like, unwelcoming, and lifeless one. Such as transitioning from the country into the city, as I often find that the city can be very overwhelming. I expect that due to how common these ideas and concepts are, and how ingrained certain themes of the product are to the general human psyche, I should be able evoke these ideas.