Short Film Analysis - Strangers

 

 

The storyline of this film is about two strangers who come across each other on a train. The theme of religion is represented straight away; as we see one of the men reading a Palestinian newspaper and the other is playing with a necklace chain holding a Jewish symbol. 

After a continuous stream of conflicting looks shooting from one to the other there is a short pause before hearing the emphasised sound of footsteps which seem to be getting closer to the two men. The footsteps came from a group of similar looking thugs; as the group came into view the Jewish man tucked his necklace under his top hiding the only sign of him being of a different ethnic group. The thugs were represented in the stereotypical way of shaven heads, muscle or of a bigger build, tattoos and piercings.

The group sat surrounding the two men aiming a large amount of negative vibes at the Palestinian due to his religion being symbolised through the newspaper and the Jewish man’s religion being unknown to the thugs. The two men begin to trade a set of looks again, this time instead of being conflicting towards each other, they are conflicting against the thugs and realising between each other that they are in trouble.

The Jewish mans religion is then revealed when his phone starts to ring, playing a piece of music related to his religion. The thugs then turn to the Jewish man realising they are both foreign. The two men put their religions to aside and work together to escape from the thugs and do so successfully. Next we see the pair facing each other on opposite sides of the track, both still in a civil state of mind and accepting that religion doesn’t always have to be the main priority.

Getting this much information from a 7 minute film that has no dialogue in must mean that it is a pretty good film with a very clear narrative. Which this film certainly does; the first equilibrium of the film would be the two separate men living their lives before they come across each other on the train. That would be where the disequilibrium would begin and would therefore continue throughout until they escape from the thugs. The second equilibrium would then begin once they are off the train and successfully out of harm from the thugs.

The genre of this film would be ethnic due to its storyline and the hidden message in this short film, would be that everybody is equal no matter what ethnic group you belong to or what the views of people in your home country are.

Analysis of a Short Film - Emo/Chav Love

The genre of this short film is shown besides the use of dialogue; by the shots being switched between the two girls and the two boys. This gives the impression that, not only are they going to be somehow linked later on in the film but that also they are the only characters that appear in the film.

The first few words of dialogue also give away the genre of the film as they are; ‘so who was he then?’.  This also gives away that the storyline will be based on this girl and boy who had met at a party the night before.

The audience of this short film would be those who enjoy a film with a typical love story; a disequilibrium which attempts to prevent the two people from becoming a couple. The disequilibrium in this film would be the couple’s friends who were telling them that they could find somebody who was a lot better for them. The two girls and the two boys came from different social groups; the girls were from a group where they like more of the R’n’B music and the mainstream music that is seen in the music charts, they like to look nice; nice clothes, hair done nice, make-up and a few accessories to complete the look. The boys on the other hand were very different to what stereotypically these girls would be seen going out with. The boys looked as if they would fit in to the indie/rock/emo scene, wearing all black, with an emo styled haircut, skinny jeans and would listen to the more of the indie/alternative/rock music. This social difference between the two gave their friends an extra reason as to why the other wasn’t good enough for them. 

 

Neither the boy nor the girl paid much attention to what their friend was telling them, but nevertheless they made an attempt to move on and tried to forget about each other but it doesn’t work. They run off from their friends in an attempt to try and find the other one to tell them how they feel, they do so and we then see them together, with the ‘happy ever after’ storyline. This would then give the final part of the films structure; the last equilibrium, where everything has survived the disequilibrium and has gone back to being happy again.

 

Introduction to Short Films

The number of short films made and watched in this country is becoming increasingly more popular. Short films are often being exhibited at festivals not only here in the UK, but all over the world.

Short films have a lot more work to do in a shorter amount of time than in a normal feature film. A film shown at cinemas has approximately 90-100 minutes to give its audience a clear understanding of the plot, the characters, how the characters link with each other as well as a clear understanding of where each part of the narrative structure begins and ends in the film; a short film has to do all of this in approximately 5 minutes.

The narrative structure in any films contains a equilibrium at the beginning where everyone is living their normal lives with little expectation of what is to come, a disequilibrium where everyone in the film is more aware of a problem that will disrupt the way that the characters live their everyday lives and then finally at the end there is a second equilibrium where the big problem is solved and therefore the lives of the characters go back to normal. A feature film has the ability to expand this throughout the whole film and therefore can include much more content in each part; a short film has to be very quick and snappy when portraying each part of the film.

Although the structure is the same, there are a lot of differences between a short film and a long feature film that is seen in the cinemas. Short films are a way of getting the names of up and coming directors and writers into the film industry, so more often than not a short film has a rather low budget.

Short films are not very long, so the producers don’t have much time to introduce and delve into the lives of a lot of characters, so the number of main characters in a short film is a lot fewer than the amount that would be included in a feature film. The acting of this small number of characters wouldn’t necessarily be to the best quality either; this is due to the low budget used to create the money so they can’t spend loads of money buying the best actors and actresses.

Short films would generally also be filmed in only a small number of locations, sometimes only in one location. This would also be because of the low budget which would limit the amount of travelling that the film crew could do to get a lot of locations.

There would also be very basic camera angles and camera movement due to the low budget limiting them to the amount of technology they can get access to, which then automatically limits the amount of angles and movements they can do without it costing a lot of money.

Media Coursework Proposal

Coursework Proposal.

Short Film > Love Story

A boy, Liam and his girlfriend Kayleigh are celebrating their 1 year anniversary. He phones his ex-girlfriend, Vanessa, explains that it is their anniversary soon and asks her for her opinion on what he could get Kayleigh for their anniversary. Liam and Vanessa are still friends but un-be-known to him she is still in love with him. Vanessa suggests a box of chooclates and possibly a teddy.

After the phone call, a shot of Liam with Kayleigh is shown cuddling on the sofa, eating a box of chocolates with Kayleigh fiddling with the teddy.

Somehow it then cuts back to the phone call where Vanessa suggests the present ideas.

Scene changes to Vanessa in her room, she's looking at a picture of her + Liam. She then looks at the time on her phone, to show he knows that they would be together. Camera cuts to a shot of Vanessa's calendar where it has written 'Liam + Kayleighs Anniversary' with loads of broken hearts.