The Walking Dead: Cinematography Across the Series

The Walking Dead is a tv series on AMC developed by Frank Darabont. It follows the travels of Sheriff Rick Grimes and his group of survivors during a zombie apocalypse. The story progresses through losing members, gaining members, and ultimately surviving the zombie hoards.

The cinematography over the course of the series has changed drastically, but not necessarily for the better. The creator of the series, acclaimed director and writer Frank Darabont, had a very cinematic look in mind when creating the series, as he is normally a feature film director. The first season which Darabont helmed and partially directed had a very distinct visual style, such as using many smooth tracking shots, many crane shots, and very sparingly using handheld camera movements, only to show more intense, action-y, or emotional scenes. One shot from the first episode that sums up the style of the first season cam be seen here:

Typically television does not have such large wide shots, usually being more conservative with their camerawork. On a side note, this also shows the show's bigger budget, as achieving this shot (albeit using special effects and was actually shot in a parking lot with the skyline and traffic being added back in later) would be costly, which is very uncommon for most tv shows!



Starting with Season 2, Glen Mazarra, previously a lower-level producer on the show, replaced Darabont as the showrunner for The Walking Dead. With this, much of the show's signature cinematic style was lost. Seasons 2 and 3 suffered from this lack of distinct style that Darabont helped provide, with the show using only a few basic tracking shots and no real "creative" camera tricks.


THANKFULLY, with the start of Season 4 last night, there seems to be a renewal of the cinematic look! Last night when I watched the first episode along with previews and trailers for the new season, I was faced with interesting shot composition, bigger crane shots, longer takes, and many more visual tricks. Before in Seasons 2 and 3, when a zombie would be killed the camera would be an average length away, nothing interesting happening with the framing of the camera. In season 4, the shots are framed in a way that lets us see the action, but is eye-pleasing as well, especially in respect to the rule of thirds (more can be read on this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds )

Here is a shot that illustrates this:

While it may seem simple at first, this shot is composed to show the stark contrast of the survivors and the zombies, using more saturated colors on the human side and bleak colors on the other. The camera is framed to show this well, as well as balances the shot, giving a good amount of coverage to both "sides" of the fence.


All in all, the cinematography in Season 4 seems to have improved greatly from the previous two, giving respect to the original start to the series.