Response to Over

Jorn Thelfall's 2015 short film is based on a true story about a man that fell to his death from an aeroplane as the wheels were extracted just before landing. It was made in remembrance of the man as he was immigrating over to England to meet some family for his birthday, and because of this, the tragic accident would have been easily forgotten.
It was set in a quite normal middle class area where nothing much happened, showing that for a moment, this event interrupted a normal lifestyle.
Personally, the way that the film was structured was very clever - the story went backwards so the beginning was the end and the end was what happened first. The audience viewing this would have been observing what is happening from an outside perspective rather than making any attachments towards any character. There is a lot of confusion and slight discomfort because of the slow pacing and extreme long takes whilst we focus more on working the story out.

Response to Operator

Narrative: Caroline Bartleet's 'Operator' (2015) short film is about an emergency-service operator who tries to save a young mother and her son from a house on fire that they are trapped in. By the end of the story we see that this is her daily routine and so the there is almost a cyclical structure to the film.

Genre: suspense, shown well through the music but also the silence at the end. It is effective that the film is short and everything happens quickly as it feels more hectic and hooks the audience.

Representation: the audience can see the variety within the job. At the beginning we hear part of a conversation about someone calling in for a locksmith, while the main character that we focus on is trying to save a woman and her son from dying in a fire.
There is also a gender representation as there is a relatability between the operator and the mother, however the operator is a lot more calm and detached so that she can focus on the problem she is trying to solve. This shows the strength within women - the operator doesn't let her emotions get in the way and the young mother can be seen as strong as there is no mention of a male/father figure in the house, making her seem as brave and independent within the situation.

Audience: the audience was thrown into the situation quite  quickly without having much background information about the situation, and so we were quite emotionally invested as it was more stressful that the situation was life threatening for the woman.

Micro-elements: the majority of the time there were long takes with a side profile of the operator like, similar to the picture above. There is a contrasting silence at the end which is effective for the audience to take in what just happened before we see the operator move on to the next call. As some of the dialogue is hard to hear because of how frantic it is, we focus more on the music and the effect of it.

Response to Tight Jeans

Narrative:
Destiny Ekaragha's short film 'Tight Jeans' (2008) is about three teen guys sitting on a wall having a casual and uncultivated three way conversation whilst waiting for their friend. They discuss the cultural stereotypes and reasons why they think that they can't/don't wear tight jeans.

Genre:
It is a light comedy that focuses on showing the 'normal' conversations between teens in a suburban setting.

Representation:
Destiny Ekaragha said in an interview that she wanted to show everyone how young males, especially of a different race, are misrepresented in films and so she wanted to bring across the more realistic and harmless situations/conversations.

Audience:
The audience might see the narrative as controversial because we might see this as another stereotype but also some people might disagree with how 'real' this conversation is.

Micro-elements:
There was mostly long shots with some slow zooms in and out focusing on the person that was talking to emphasise his story. The three different coloured hoodies contrasted to the surroundings, as it was quite bleak and simple and their hoodies were bright colours, making the audience focus more on the characters.