Response to Echo

Lewis Arnold's 'Echo' is a short film about a teenage school girl who is seen playing out the same con at three separate points. Using the previous experience of her father's death in a bike accident, she prays on the sympathy of the public for money to get to the hospital when really she's using if for other things like cigarettes. As the film continues we begin to view the con from a more subjective point of view, seeing that it is more of a form of self-harm for her, descending her further and further into sadness and loneliness.
The film is in the style of social realism, with naturalistic acting and set, being shot literally in the street with non-acting public members. We see her self-harm through her use of the lighter, which she permanently grates her thumb across. This reflects her emotional harm. She is separated emotionally from her family, unable to emotionally connect with her mother and not seeing any of them grieve as she does. This stereotype is played against as we see it only comes form her trauma rather than her just being a typical 'moody teen', and so almost portraying a 'coming of age' message.
Caroline, the teenage school girl, is also quite a relatable main character for the audience to connect with, as she is flawed and morally ambiguous just as all people are. We can relate to her struggles even if we would never do as she does, which is why the film manages to slowly become more and more subjective as it progresses.
This can also be seen through the camera work. For example, most shots are from a long distant point of view at the beginning, focusing on her from a less attached viewpoint, only as an observer. however, unlike the public, we are shown that that there is something off, and later we find out that it was a con and that she in fact was acting.
The sound design is mostly naturalistic, using no music but the whole film has a constant background noise of the city. We see the hints of a missing person in their household, such as an untouched bike (presumably her Dad's) in the garage when she is helping her younger brother get his, which then leads onto an ambiguous talk about their dad.

Response to The Arrival

Daniel Montanarini 2006 short film called 'Arrival' which follows a pregnant woman's inner monologue as she waits in a café to tell the man this news. She debates in her head whether or not to keep it, eventually coming to a decision at the end of the film, just before the man arrives.

This film is very artistic and theatrical. It consists entirely of the expressions of the woman (Anna) and her fluid inner monologue conveyed with a voice-over, sometimes based on the decision but sometimes veering off as the run of thoughts go off tangent. It is like the cafe is her stage, from the spotlight on the lead actress to the over-the-top expressions to the well blocked extras in the background emits drama. Montanarini's camerawork is effective,  he uses a simple zoom-in as the scene progresses, building to the climax of the film which is a train going past the window as Anna reaches her decision, this is ambiguous - it can be seen as literal, metaphorical or even both.

I think all of these features achieve a cinematic, personal but simplistic image.
Personally I liked this portrayal, the use an internal monologue in a voiceover makes it more realistic and relatable, including a familiar setting. For my own film, I would like to include a similar technique of making it theatrical and cinematic, as well as using a simple setting so that the focus is more on the personal inner turmoil of the character. 

 

 

Edgar Wright's Blue Song by Mint Royale

Edgar Wright directed Mint Royale's music video (2002) for 'Blue Song', turning the song into the main focus and soundtrack of a sort of short film. The narrative is self contained but could potentially be a part of a larger storyline. There was not enough time to develop a closer character development, but the audience still get a sense of the characters personality and characteristics that shape the narrative. For example, the added humour with the cardboard props makes the character appear well-rounded, in the same sense it could suggests the character to be slightly immature, silly but when it is needed, more serious - like making sure that he doesn't seem suspicious or noticed by anyone during the tense situation but still managing to create comedy for the audience.

The location of the video is in an underground car park, already noting a darker theme, and the majority of the focus is on the car in which the narrative starts and remains for the rest of the short film. The camera work moves to follow the music much more than a story, pans and handheld camera movements are chosen to show the feeling the character has of the music as opposed to the situation the character is in. To accompany that is the editing, which corresponds much more to the music than to conveying the story with exception for little comedy bits. The editing is mostly erratically fast paced, with on occasion slower moments to demonstrate an external point of view of the character in the car.

 

Response to The Fly

Olly William's short film 'The Fly' follows a getaway driver waiting in the car for his accomplices to complete their heist, however throughout his wait he is being aggravated by a fly. At first, it starts off with a mild aggravation from the fly to which he tries to kill, achieving a very short lived relief, but the fly keeps coming back and aggravating him more and more. This makes the getaway driver get extremely angry and so taking extreme lengths to get rid of it. For example, he ends up setting the car horn and airbag off, drawing attention to himself. Eventually he ends up in a fit of rage injuring himself, getting out of the car and shooting it and destroying the car with a shotgun multiple times, resulting in police sirens being heard approaching.
The getaway driver is presented as an aggressive and short tempered person, likely heightened by the tension of the crime he and the others are committing. He is shown to be getting angrier and angrier as the fly irritates him, resulting in a crazed frenzy of trying to kill it. By the end, he seems to be seriously regretting his actions as being the getaway driver could be seen as the most important part of making the heist successful, and he soon realises that he had ruined the heist for the others.

Response to The Elington Kid

Dan Sully's 2012 crime comedy short film 'The Ellington Kid' is drawing on the social issue of knife crime through the story of a local teen who gets stabbed by a gang and tries to find refuge in a local kebab shop - where the story is being told by two other teens. however, unlike other social realist films, 'The Ellington kid' takes more of a light-hearted, borderline dark comedy viewpoint to knife crimes. The violent story of the local teen being stabbed is being shown through a comedic and playful narrative of the guys in the kebab shop. By doing this, the short film is entertaining the audience at the same time as drawing awareness to a serious matter.  
To portray the message of danger and unease, the title sequence of ‘The Ellington Kid’ has entirely diegetic synchronous sound, focusing on specific objects. It features the sound of knives being sharpened accompanied with a close up of knives being sharpened, the noise of a knife slicing through meat and hitting the cutting board which is accompanied by a close up of the meat being sliced. There is also the sound of chips being dipped into a fryer, accompanied with a mid shot of the chips being fried. This sets up the referential code of the setting, which is eventually shown to be a kebab shop.

Response to Slap

Nick Rowland's 2015 BAFTA nominated coming of age short film 'slap' is about a teenage boy that feels that wearing make-up and female clothing gives him a sense of freedom. however he is struggling with accepting it and so he hides it from his friends and his dad. training to box with his dad makes him scared to open up as his dad wants him to keep a tough boy look. 'Slap' confronts standards of masculinity in sports culture and how a young man attempts to construct his own sense of masculinity under single-minded gender-defined conditions.
When Connor is putting on make-up on in his room it is the first time that the audience sees him express his femininity. In the background we can see posters of women on his walls. The use of objectifying posters not only shows his appreciation for the female body but also shows his idealised self and what he aspires to look like. We can also assume that they are used to try and deceive his father into thinking that he finds the female body attractive and imply that he fantasises about women, much like other boys his age. However, they actually suggest that the he is unhappy with his masculine appearance and instead wishes to look more feminine, which he expresses through the posters and make-up as well as later on when he wears female atire. Therefore this reflects societies view that men must hide their emotions and stereotypical female characteristics because they do not fit into their masculine social category.





Narrative structure theories

Vladimir Propp -
He founded the idea that a certain type of character was to be used in every narrative structure. He suggests that every fairy tale narrative structure specifically consists of eight characters: the villain, the dispatcher, the helper, the prize (e.g. princess), the father, the donor, the hero or victim/seeker hero and the false hero.
He noticed that often many folk type tales were similar in areas of the structure - he identified a theory about characters and actions as narrative functions.

Todorov -
He states that most stories and or plot lines follow the same pattern or path. There are 5 main steps in this pattern:
1. The Equilibrium - The first part has more of a positive tone, where most of the characters seem content with no obvious problem.
2. A Disruption - The second part is where something happens out of the ordinary that disrupts the happiness of the characters.
3. A Realisation - This part of the story is about the characters realising how serious the problem is, and therefore there is more panic/chaos.
4. Restored order - This is when the characters attempt to repair the damage and restore the problem.
5. Equilibrium again - The final part of the plot is when the problem is resolved and everything goes back to normality.


Levi Strauss -
He believed that the way we understood certain words depends not so much on the direct meaning they contain but more of how we understand the difference of the word and its opposite. A protagonist and antagonist, or the heroine and villain are both examples of binary opposites. Binary opposites are usually the basis of our understanding of a story as its a conventional narrative and enables an equilibrium.