2.Research into existing, student made, short films

Choice:

In this short film, I expected for there to be a big choice to have to be made, which there is, however, the majority of the film is about the lead up to him having to choose between his own life, or his girlfriends. He is basically a hacker and the police find out about him, the man with the gun was his boss sort of thing however it never really showed why they had to make the choice, other that the quite confusing nature of this short film, i did like the style that it was filmed in. the lighting, i thought, was just right for the film and a few of the camera angles, for example the one with the gun pointing directly at the camera, looked quite professional. Every so often, the acting would stop and the main character would speak directly to the camera. This did not work well at all in my opinion because it disconnected the audience from the story line, meaning that they didn't feel as much emotion as they maybe would have without it. The setting of the film was good, for example when they are in the streets, with the creepy looking yellow streetlights beaming down.

Mr Frost:

This short film was about a small child that makes friends with a homeless man, and at Christmas he gives him a present of biscuits and a hot drink, this seems like it might be a bit of a cliche, however, it was actually quite moving none the less. This is because it is very well made and the acting in it was on point. The costume on the homeless man was very realistic, and not over exaggerated, it was still very obvious that he was homeless because of the way we saw shots of him just sitting there as the world went by around him. The makeup was impressive, there were close ups of his dirty fingers, and bruised, weathered face, making the audience feel sorry for him. This short film had the most varied camera angles and shots out of all of the student made short films, from extreme close ups of the man, to tracking shots of the child on a bike. For the 1st half of the film, the only sound there really is is the sound of the wind and birds tweeting, however as the child came along some gentle music came on which was very effective in my opinion. Overall this was my favourite of the student made short films that i watched.

In Game:

This short film was very abstract which i did enjoy, It does not really have a specific story line, it is just where there is someone playing a mobile game, and then starts shooting people, this is because he himself is in a game, it then zooms out further to find that the person playing this game, is also in a game. This kind of thing keeps repeating and we never know weather we are actually in real life or not. The idea was definitely very creative, however i think it could have been pulled of a little better, for example, the quality was not great. Towards the end there is a part which i am guessing is made with some computer program, and it is relatively impressive. I would have preferred it to be a little more subtle, it was in fact the absolute opposite to this. There was some very impressive special effects during this film, for example, when the boy was shooting the car, the bullet holes looked very real. The casting could have been better, it was quite obvious that the actors were all the directors friends from school, in some of the games, especially the one with the guns, it could do with an older actor because that is what it is like in the real version of it.