28 Days Later... (2002)

Early on in the development of the script was the idea of filming on digital video. “We thought it would be the right decision to do it on DV. It would make the film feel and look different in a way. Our sort of realist science fiction would make it look very interesting and also the flexibility of it would make it possible to do some of the bigger scenes like street scenes where you have to clear roads,” says Macdonald.

Boyle had shot STRUMPET and VACUUMING on DV with Director of Photography Anthony Dod Mantle and had many reasons why he wanted to shoot on it again. “For me there has to be an organic reason to shoot on DV,” says Boyle. “The format felt appropriate to the post-apocalyptic landscape. This is very much an urban film, with the visit to the countryside aside, and I think DV has a grittiness about it that’s magnificent for ‘city’ movies. We’re surrounded in all major cities by CC cameras; they’re recording our every motion. This is now the way that we record our lives.”

“Also we wanted to make the world look different. Electricity and pollution are no more, and a stillness has returned,” continues Boyle. “Digital cameras are much more responsive to low light levels and the general idea was to try and shoot as though we were survivors too.”

Producer Andrew Macdonald maintains that on a practical level it would have been virtually impossible to shoot the film unless it was on DV. “The London scenes were key to the film. The police and the local authorities were quite happy to assist us because we could do it so quickly. We could literally be ready to shoot with a six-camera set up within minutes and we were allowed to hold the traffic for a minute or two at a time. This was repeated over a number of key locations – something we would not realistically have been allowed to do if shooting under the restrictions of 35mm which takes a good deal more time to set up a single shot.”

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