Evaluation of our short film
Sam Irons
For our A2 Film Studies, one of the first tasks we had to do was to make a short film. I was in a group with Oliver and Ross, and we sat and brainstormed possible ideas what we could base our film on.
When we had first screened our short film; ‘Resistance’, the audience’s responses were mixed. Seeing as our film was a cliché, but also made unique by the objects we used for addiction; Raisins, Tennis Balls and Post it notes. The feedback we had was mostly positive; we were praised for the idea, and the slight comedic value, of someone being addicted to the feel of tennis balls.
Initially, we had many ideas, but we eventually decided to base our film on the idea of addiction. But, instead of using the cliché addiction to drugs, which is what everyone thinks of when they think of addiction, we chose to portray addiction in another way. Once again, we brainstormed our possible ideas, and we then decided to use a normal, everyday thing that out character could be addicted to. We made a list of; Tennis Balls, Raisins, Post it Notes, and Turtles.
After the brainstorming, we chose to base our short film about the addiction to raisins, which would then lead onto addiction later on in life, eventually leading to drug addiction. We then had to decide what would actually go on in our film, so yet again, we brainstormed. Eventually, we decided to go with the idea of a rehab centre, with the main character, which was to be portrayed by Ross, turning up late, and hearing two other characters addictions, before admitting his own.
The way we chose to shoot the film, was all hand held point of view shots. We chose to film it in this fashion because it would then give the audience a real feel for the main character, and almost share his addiction. We also decided upon the handheld style so Ross’ breath could be picked up on well, and be made almost the only thing that could be heard. When we played back the first shot of Ross’ addiction, where he runs into his house looking for the raisins, we made sure he was breathing heavily, and he did, making the shot give the audience a better feel for his addiction.
The first shot using the handheld camera, was the rehab scene. We had Ross walk in late, and the audience sees the scene through the view of Ross the addict. As he walks in late, he shakes Callum’s hand (Callum was a stand in) and then sits down, after looking at whom else is in rehab. The shot of Ross looking at everyone looked better than I thought it would, it was a pan of all the seats at rehab, with all the other addict-ees, looking at the new member. The rehab scene was the introduction of Ross’ addiction, after watching Kirsty and
The handheld shot here worked very well, especially when Ross stood up to the group, making the audience feel bigger than the people in rehab, due to the height Ross is at. After the rehab scene, our first idea was to shoot Kirsty and
The lead up to the cupboard was Ross running up to his front door, fumbling to get the key in the lock, and running to his cupboard. When he is fumbling with the key, his breathing is very heavy, showing that he is craving the raisins, and that he is also getting frustrated about not being able to get into the house to get to the raisins. When we were brainstorming about addictions, we noted upon heavy breathing and fumbling/frustration and then aimed to use those concepts in our film at some point, which we successfully did.
In our short film, we mainly used diegetic sound, for example the sound of Ross’ keys jingling as they hit the door. However, the non-diegetic sound that is used in out film, are all natural sounds, such as bird song, and cars that pass Ross’ house. However, we had no soundtrack to our film as we felt that a soundtrack to a film about addiction may not work well at all, unless we were to get the perfect song that could describe some body’s addiction to raisins.
