8 - Eight is a film set in the WW2 era based around two characters, one a German soldier and one a
British fighter pilot. The German soldier captures the pilot as he has crashed landed and takes him walking with him at gun point, until he tries to run and so he shoots him in the leg. They continue walking (or limping in the pilots case) until the German then steps on a land mine, the pilot then tries to run again and for a second time is shot, this time in the shoulder. This repetitive shooting causes a kind of slapstick dark humour to the film. The pilot hobbles back to the German and wrestles the gun off of him and walks away. Until the German does a strange kind of whistle to him which he has been doing through out the film to communicate with him. This seems to push the pilot over the edge and he takes aim and shoots, but misses, after a couple of shots he steps forward to decrease the chance of missing and accidentally steps on a land mine. The film ends here with an overwhelming sense of irony and a close up of the German with a large grin forming on his face. I am very fond of these dark humour endings as they deliver both closure and an emotive response from the audience.There is also no dialog in this short film which I am a passionate supporter of as I believe that sometimes, especially if you do not have access to high end equipment, poor quality dialogue can disturb the suspension of reality. I also admire the use of moving medium close ups that I took inspiration from and used twice in my short film.
Film 2
DISSAPEAR - This is a short stop motion film evolving around a single character who over the course of the film is shown to have a passion for magic and illusions. At the start of the film he is depicted as an unhappy individual due to his lac of facial expressions and how he ignores his phone ringing and his work paging him. There is also no dialogue through out the entire film which as I said previously I am a fan of, but in doing this, especially with an inanimate object such as a puppet, it is hard to show any degree of motion both sad or happy. After he walks in ignoring the ringing phone, he puts a meal in the microwave and looks through reports with post-it notes on saying "overdue". This a key element in relaying narrative to an audience without talking to them, using narrative devices to show not tell. His microwave pings and he sits down to eat it, all the time ignoring pages from work and the ringing phone, but as he goes to eat it he sees his wardrobe and walks over to it. After performing a plethora of magic tricks he throws a blanket up in front of him and disappears. The camera hovers over the discarded blanket and all that is left of him is his pager, which bleeps one final time "WORK"
One of my influences was the establishing shot of
DISSAPEARED, it is level with the worktop but just adjacent to it as to create
importance of the phone ringing (that is the first thing you hear before you
see anything in the frame). I used a similar shot in my first scene where my
character walks in and puts his keys down on the table which the camera is
level with.
Film 3
Disregard - This short film is about stereotypes and how individuals can be forced down paths towards the very stereotypes people are tormenting them with. Their are three main characters, a white teenager with blond hair and blue eyes, an Arab teenager, and an Hispanic teenager. Through out the film you are shown the struggles of being someone who is having pills pushed at them instead of supportive conversations, someone who is constantly being called a terrorist or having those types of joke made about him, and some one who is being provided with no support from home. I loved the use of sound tracks towards the end of the film where they have all gone down these dark paths, one become a KKK type gang member, one joining the Islamic State, and one joining the Cartel where the music is played without any environmental sound e.g. footsteps and background noise like cars going past. I feel it really impacts on the audience and makes what is in the frame more significant that other shots without music.
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