Post-Production

Maurice Vaughan here you go Maurice. Well, what did you think?

I went with a friend who is my son’s age, so quite the difference in age and taste in films (to some extent). At the end we both looked at each other and went, “Well, that was weird.”

We both felt a little underwhelmed, or maybe just ‘whelmed’! It felt to me that it was a film looking for a story and was content in providing us with fodder for what was to come and not really feeling like a well sutured story.

I also thought that the projectile blood vomiting was a missed opportunity for a Dominos Pizza product placement. I did however chuckle at the Shell/hell garage reference!!

The highlights for me gravitated around Ralph Fiennes and his momento mori scenes and then Jodie Comer, eventually got something to sink her teeth into later in the film, where in the early scenes she was limited to mainly groaning in pain.

Overall it felt fragmented, almost like a pastiche of overplayed zombie tropes. However, we did come away feeling it was worth watching and quite the spectacle.

The final scene was shot in the Cheddar Gorge, close to where I live, and both my new zombie film friend, Tom and I wondered what on earth that was about? Although it was well-seeded from the earlier scene in the church with the upside-down shadow of the cross. What left us with a What the…moment was the fact that they all looked like Swedish Abba trolls, or perhaps extras who had escaped from the set of Mamma Mia?!!

What are your thoughts please, Maurice?

Hey, Geoff Hall. I haven't seen the movie yet. I'm skipping the comments until I see it in case there's any details about the movie or spoilers.

On Hope, Infection, and Diverging Futures in 28 Years Later

The placenta acts as a natural filter—but in the context of 28 Years Later, that function takes on a symbolic weight. The film suggests hope in the birth of a child, but to me, a deeper question lingers: if blood is the carrier of the Rage Virus, could the child have been infected in utero or during the birthing process? It isn’t written that way in the film, so we set that possibility aside—for now. But the implication opens the door for future plotlines, especially if the child becomes an asymptomatic carrier. The isolated town’s folk may one day face the consequences of what seemed like a miracle. There are so many possibilities—but in storytelling, possibilities must be funneled into limited, deliberate choices.

The film leans into the mythos of hope, embodied in the figure of the doctor—a survivor with limited medical knowledge who now walks the line between science and shamanism. His “totem of souls” is both literal and metaphoric: a symbol of lost lives, collapsed civilizations, and a world under enforced quarantine. His survival reflects both tragedy and adaptation—one man who has reverted to ritual in the face of scientific failure.

Globally, the aftermath was presumed safe. Authorities assumed the infected had died off from starvation, leading to a premature reoccupation of the territory. But the survivors—potential carriers—were overlooked. The virus endured, sparking a renewed outbreak. This error in judgment mirrors historical military strategies: a blitzkrieg driven by assumption, poor intelligence, and the underestimation of a resilient enemy. Anyone who knows their history understands that such missteps occur either through rushed early planning or after a hammer blow has already shattered the front.

28 Years Later reveals a sobering truth: medical science could not undo what medical science had helped unleash. No robust containment plans. No real preventative systems. No foresight. The consequences were left to chance, myth, and survivors with fading memories.

This theme inspired the concept for my own script: "Plague State: Battle for the Peninsula"—a speculative future set 28 years further on, where a new generation of scientists and biologists sift through declassified military records and war logs from the British Isles and the European mainland. The goal: to understand what truly happened and whether the so-called victory was ever real.

There’s a historical echo here—the way Europe once emerged from the devastation of the Black Plague (1346–1353). The doctor in 28 Years Later seems to echo that era’s plague doctors, resigned to tending the dead. Yet what stands out is the ambiguity surrounding his care for the living. Was there any? Or had survival become a matter of ritual, rather than redemption?

Unlike the bubonic plague, the Rage Virus overtakes its victims with frightening speed. It’s still a pandemic, but of a different psychological and narrative flavor. This is a story of survivors—cut off from the outside world, not by force, but by choice. They live with the silence, with the unknown, and with the heavy burden of not being rescued.

Curiouser and curiouser, as the mind wanders into those veiled, unsettling moments where the director may not have intended to lead—but the viewer, pulled by implication and emotion, goes anyway. That’s where this film lives now—not just in what it showed, but in what it left unsaid. And yes, strangely enough, it was… cute.

Started explanding on "Plague State: Battle for the Penisula" where would I focus on getting it looked at and read! Creative writing at the time of creative writing! John Gostomski

Reflections on “Rage,” Rebellion, and Viral Collapse in 28 Days Later (with echoes from 12 Monkeys)

Geoff: I’ve been thinking more about the scientific and philosophical origins of the Rage Virus in 28 Days Later. If you recall, the very first film opens with a disturbing scene: a chimpanzee strapped down, its eyes forced open, subjected to a relentless stream of violent human imagery—protests, riots, bloodshed. It’s not just a horror trope—it’s a thematic signal.

The scientists in the film refer to the virus as “Rage,” but there’s a deeper suggestion: the virus doesn’t simply cause uncontrollable aggression. It amplifies a vulnerability to psychological imprinting. In other words, it reacts to what you see—what you’re exposed to emotionally—before it alters your behavior. The chimp was force-fed images of human violence, likely under the assumption that this visual conditioning could “encode” or trigger specific neurological responses. What’s chilling is the implication: the virus is not just biological, it’s ideological. It mirrors the violence in us.

The imagery the chimp is exposed to isn't random. It seems to reflect scenes of civil unrest in democratic societies—protests against systems perceived as oppressive. These systems weren’t necessarily the originators of violence but reacted to it. Whether the footage came from Spain, France, or even Los Angeles, it captured moments where modern society teetered on the edge of control—where emotional protest morphed into chaos. That’s the essence of blind rage: not pure hatred, but the collapse of reason under pressure.

This is the core of the first film: rage as a reaction to emotional overload and social breakdown. The infection becomes the metaphor. It’s not about a traditional virus, but a mirror to a society that fails to regulate itself—where protests, unrest, and division give way to raw instinct.

Using a chimpanzee as a test subject raises its own moral complications. Chimps don’t understand human imagery the way we do. But in scientific research, it’s common to monitor brainwave patterns in response to emotional stimuli. The experiment in the film was likely built around triggering and mapping aggression—perhaps even justifying continued funding by demonstrating measurable “rage responses.” What’s more, the security breach that allowed the animal rights activists to release the chimp wasn’t accidental. It had to be an inside job—someone compromised internal security long before the activists ever broke in.

While contemplating these subtler elements—the in-between moments the director doesn’t spell out—I found myself thinking of 12 Monkeys. That film, though more meditative and less graphically violent, shares thematic DNA with 28 Days Later. In 12 Monkeys, animal rights activists are also initially blamed for the global pandemic. The virus, its origin, and its spread are wrapped in uncertainty and time loops, but the underlying fear is the same: that ideology, biology, and human nature can combine to wipe out civilization.

Both films explore how misdirected emotion and compromised systems can lead to catastrophic outcomes. 12 Monkeys is slower, more cerebral; 28 Days Later is raw and immediate. But both highlight how easily the world can unravel when science, ethics, and emotion collide.

Master Maurice, unmisseable !

Thanks, John January Noble, but all credit to RB for the Coffee and Content blog.

Maurice Vaughan Sorry, but where I live we use the word “master” to refer to friends. That's all. Out of humility and kindness towards someone.

good coffee !

The Last of Us has incredible editing, Ashley Renee Smith, especially during the suspenseful scenes!

I personally loved The Residence (I haven't seen the other two shows). I love how it was shot, to me a little quirky, funny and kept me intrigued. I would like to check out the other two. Poker Face seems interesting, I like Natasha Lyonne acting from OITNB so it would be interesting to see how she does in this series.

I loved The Residence too, Cyrus Sales! I just heard that it was cancelled, and I'm a bit heartbroken.

Hey Florin Şumălan , thanks for sharing. I've heard of F1 but haven't watched it. Also, haven't heard of the rough cut before so it's nice to be able to add a new podcast into the mix. Have you had a chance to check out F1?

Cyrus Sales , I think this is another good podcast; they have some interesting episodes.

I've seen "F1" and I liked it very much. I think it's a very good movie. If you see "F1", please say your opinion, if you wish.

DaVinci Resolve is amazing for color but premiere is pretty awesome as well. I think people will use the free version of DaVinci since it's free and has a lot to offer but I also think whatever you feel comfortable with. Learning both is always an option.

Cyrus Sales We have traditionally used Adobe Premier/AE for our editorial flow, for a great many years now. However, for Uncharted Freedom, our unscripted show, we are going to DaVinci and using Blackmagic Cloud. It fits best for us since the production is entirely decentralized. The subjects are traveling from the Caribbean to the Adriatic on a sailboat and shooting along the way, uploading footage to the cloud as they go. Production Office is piecing out different editorial tasks to people from Los Angeles to Toronto to Kansas and back to the boat. DaVinci is integrated with Blackmagic cloud so that it is easy to sync all footage and projects without worrying about our own SQL databases and servers. We are not using it totally as Blackmagic wants, as that actually just adds costs to production, but we are adapting it to our needs. The other reason is that the crew on board already uses DaVinci and as they have to sail as well as shoot as well as do some editorial, it makes no sense to require them to learn and use Premier and more sense for us to use DaVinci. My impression is that there is a trend to using DaVinci but it does come at the cost of losing your previous projects. The application is real good, no doubt about that. But so is Premiere/AE. Whether the trends turns out to be solid, I think its early to tell.

Thank you Patrik Gyltefors for your feedback. I'm using the Creative Cloud and will utilize ProTools for sound design, mixing and mastering and Fl studio for music composing and production. I think the biggest thing I saw with Resolve was the color grading which is the next thing i'll be learning. I will admit though, at a quick glance and from the videos I've watched it look like there will be some sort of learning curve if I do use Resolve.

Christopher Wells - Thank you! I'll have to check out the free version. Definitely don't want to spend the money and turns out I'm not rocking with Resolve lol. Although I feel like it might be a great tool to learn for color grading.

Cyrus Sales, don't forget Fusion, which brings you node based compositing similar to Nuke. Overall, DaVinci Resolve is a solid and professional software, and well worth the time to learn.

Incredible share, Cyrus Sales! This is a must-watch! There's so much on that timeline! I like how Brad stays organized. I subscribed to Imagine That Films. I'm looking forward to checking out Brad's other videos! Thanks for sharing the video!

I did the exact same thing lol, a lot of value add and with 20 years of experience there's so many little nuggets. Glad you were able to find value in the video.