PRODUCTION 28 YEARS LATER
As the cult zombie film returns with its much-anticipated third act, DOP Anthony Dod Mantle discusses shooting 28 Years Later with iPhone 15s “Coming back to that world some 20 years later, you feel ready for fire”
WORDS OLIVER WEBB IMAGES SONY PICTURES
F ollowing the events of its virus who inhabit a small island. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission, he discovers the infested horrors of a mainland plagued by the outbreak. Having previously shot 28 Days Later , which also marked his first feature collaboration with director Danny Boyle, Anthony Dod Mantle, DFF, BSC, ASC served as the film’s DOP. Dod Mantle has shot the majority of Boyle’s films since, including Millions , 127 Hours , Trance and the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire , for which he won an Academy Award for best cinematography. Their most recent collaboration was 2017’s T2 Trainspotting , so it was only natural that the two would reunite for 28 Years Later . predecessors 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later , 28 Years Later follows a group of survivors of the Rage
Boyle was originally inspired by the films of George Romero for 28 Days Later and, of course, this film is part of the same universe. “We didn’t discover the genre; we just sort of reignited it, and 28 Days Later was a lot more successful than anybody expected it to be,” begins Dod Mantle. “Coming back to that world some 20 years later, you feel ready for fire and it’s quite unnerving. With Danny, the expectation is enormous. People also have a certain expectation of the level of aura and the type of horror. The difference with this one is that it’s agrarian and agricultural. It’s a vast space that is very different from the urban landscapes of London. You’ve got a bombardment of green information, which is not my favourite colour, but I grew to love it in this film. One of the biggest challenges was trying
to find existing ancient landscapes and dropping people into it.” 28 Days Later was shot using Canon XL1 digital cameras, a technique that was pioneering for its time. Boyle and Dod Mantle’s initial conversations about the look of 28 Years Later revolved around shooting the film on the same camera, as they wanted to maintain the gritty realism depicted in the original, but opted instead for the iPhone to keep with the times. “I thought that’s suitably unusual for Danny,” says Dod Mantle. “It’s not a completely original idea, but it’s an interesting idea for a $75 million film. Luckily, Danny and I can speak frankly with each other as we know each other well. I was down to the lions to try and figure out how to accomplish it. The next few weeks was about helping him realise his dream. I know he is also prone to
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