RESEARCH SHORT FILM ANALYSIS: ALONE

HERE is the short film analysis I created on emaze.

SHORT FILM ANALYSIS: ALONE

I have identified several short film conventions

• Short films have a limited number of one to three characters
• They usually feature on everyday situation, which the audience can concur with
• They usually have a "twist' to make the film interesting in the short time available
• They are typically "short" with a common length of 5-10 minutes and a maximum length of 35 minutes as they are not feature films

From my first analysis, I noticed that there is no actual introduction to who the character is and no initial idea of the story until a few minutes into the film.

In the opening scene, there is an immediate close up shot of a smartly dressed man who is seen to be in a office environment. There is also attention to detail to all the objects he uses i.e. the keyboard an the mouse. This keeps the audience involved as if they were actually there because of the way they have portrayed a very basic scenario of real work life. This also relates to sounds used in the background and the knocking on the door, which again is a close up, making the audience think who could it be?. Then all of a sudden, there is a dominating ring tone, which gets your attention whilst everything in the background is very monotone. I thought that this particular scene played the most important role as this was where you start to understand what the actual story is all about.

Once again, they have used a close up to make it appear like we are actually on the call with the girl as the dialogues are crystal clear, making us feel apart of the actual scene.

In the second scene, we are instantly shown that he has woken up from a dream of what happened in the previous scene, showing us that whatever occurred during the phone call is now the post-apocalyptic reality.

I was instantly drawn to the heavy breathing and his facial reactions, showing us that it is a re occurring situation every night. This was shown by another close up, which was followed by several more to portray his every day routine to get through the day. This is also shown by the start of him narrating his emotions and how he deals with his day, but also his initial thoughts of his surroundings. This showed an element of weakness and a face contorted with emotion. At this point, I felt I was able to connect with how he's feeling, which kept me enticed to keep watching and following him as if we were apart of it.

He also wears a clean white shirt with a grey/blue tie, this implies that he is smart and a professional and we would also associate this man as a hard worker as opposed to a disorganised and unprofessional appearance who might be seen with a creased shirt and bed hair. A suit is a icon for power and the fact that he is wearing a suit suggests to us that his profession is important and he holds a position of authority. After the dialogue on the phone, the man is seen to be having a flashback.

We then have a medium close up shot of a man walking into the office with a black/blue shirt and we are unable to see the mans face. We see him carrying paper work in his hand for the main character. The digetic sound of the man knocking on the door alerts the audience of his presence. From what we can see of the man with the paper in his hand, he is smartly dressed with belted trousers and a smart black shirt, this connotes professionalism and power amongst both characters.

The man with the paper addresses the main character as 'sir' which suggests that the man is working for the main character and then confirms that the reading suggests that the main character is a man of authority and this is strengthened when we see the two different suits of the two characters as the protagonists' suit is more professional.

The fact that we do not see the other man's face suggests that he is inferior to the protagonist and is not significant to the film. Two more minor characters are introduced by voice overs, one of which is a monotone answering machine voice which is used to sustain realism throughout the film. Also during this scene and at the beginning, we get to see that something has gone wrong as the female voice suggests and then followed by the man waking up from a bad dream.

Above is a medium close up shot of the protagonist walking past his car. We have a different perspective of the character as we see him in casual clothes and he seems a lot less professional and out of his office environment. The change in clothing grasps the fact that something has happened to his status of power within society. This film overall shows resiliance of character and survival.

A lot of close up shots are used and we also see high and low angles used to take the perspective of the object the man is looking at.

HERE is a presentation on what short films consist of on Piktochart.