1. Research into existing, professionally made, short films

Watching short films

Operator:



By the title of this short film, I expect that it may be relatively tense. I think that there will be one main character, who is the operator, and they may be controlling something very important.
These expectations were relatively right, it was about a call operator for the fire service, they were directing a very stressful call where a woman and her child were trapped in a burning house, waiting to be rescued. We were focused on the operator the whole time and despite the fact that she sounded like she was staying calm throughout, we could see on her face that she was worried herself. As the short film ends, the phone call cuts off and she moves straight onto a new phone call, without finding out the end of the traumatic experience. I found this idea for a short film to be very creative as it challenged how with generic film, the audience are focused on the location where all the action is whereas here we are the other end of the phone call, this put the viewers in the shoes of the phone operator and showed how traumatic it can be even when they are not at the scene of the fire. The setting did not change throughout and yet it still kept me gripped throughout the whole short film. the only props used was the headset that she was speaking through. The camera angles and different shots did very a little however it was focused on the operators face throughout, this may have been done to show all of the emotion in her face.

Tight Jeans:



My expectations of this short film was that it would be about young people as you don't find many adults wearing skinny jeans, especially not in 2009 as they were just coming into fashion. This short film focuses purely on a group of friends waiting outside a block of flats. The 3 guys were all black but when a white man walks past it causes them to have a conversation about why they wear tight jeans, whereas black people wore baggy jeans. After a rambling conversation, it ends, followed by another white man strolling by with a very tight t shirt, the film ends as they begin a conversation about this, as if it was going to be a constant cycle. This film i found relatively creative because usually films have a beginning, middle and end, whereas this short film had a bit of a cyclical structure, ending in almost the same place that they started. I think that the setting was cleverly chosen to be relatively boring so that the audience focus on the dialogue between the group of friends. The camera angle was always focused on the 3 guys talking except for when one of the white men walked by, at these moments, the camera drifted off to the side to show them, almost putting us in the 3 guys shoes as they get distracted to look at their clothing choices.

The Fly:



By the name of this film, i did not expect it to be about the insect fly, I thought that it would be about actual flight, for example an aeroplane flight gone wrong, a little like the film "airplane". It was about a getaway driver who, whilst waiting for a group of bank robbers to Finnish, had an issue with a fly in the car. His methods of killing the fly slowly increased from punching the mirror, to repeatedly shooting a shotgun at it until his getaway car was no longer drivable. This film was interesting because it was hard to chose a side, the fly was very annoying so you may find yourself rooting for the driver, however the bank robbers he was working with were killing people so in some ways you may find yourself happy that the fly caused him to get caught by the police. The setting did not change throughout as it was focused on the man with the car throughout the short film. Every so often the camera would focus on the door of the bank, and you would vaguely hear all of the troubles that the robbers are causing inside, These shots are what made me become more on the fly's side because i did not want the robbers to get away with what they were doing, especially after seeing blood all over them at the end.

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