4/7/2011 - Short Film Research (Draft 1)

Here is the analysis of our short film research:

The Last 3 Minutes

The first film that we have chosen is called The Last 3 Minutes. The film is about a old man having a heart attack and there are flash backs of his life all the way to when he was born.

The short film starts at present day then when the man is looking into a crystal of his the flashbacks begin. What we liked is how the flashbacks are all first person and the camera is the mans eyes, so we are seeing everything he sees in first person. When the man is focusing on an object in his hand or something he is doing, the camera focuses on this and everything else becomes out of focus, then the same happens when the man isn't the focus. This effect while filming we thought was really effective and makes each scene more detailed.

When the film goes into the next scene the object that was in the first scene (the dress the man was holding) then becomes the next scene as the woman is now wearing the dress. This editing we thought was very effective and will try to do something similar for our short film. Another editing technique that we really liked was when the woman flicks water towards the man (camera) and the  next scene is in a war with an explosion occurring.

The Black Hole

For our second short film, we found a film that has little or no dialogue and allows you to understand what is happening without this. The short film is just over 2 minutes and it is clever how in this time that  a storyline was able to be created.

What we like about this film is how the effect of the black hole on the sheet of paper has been created. There is a lot of editing included for this and from the camera angles it has become very effective from each scene.

The idea of no dialogue we think is creative, especially in a short film like this one as a dialogue normally helps the audience to understand what is going on, but in this short film a dialogue isn't needed as the actions from the actor show what is going on. This is also shown from the camera techniques and angles that have been used. For our short film we would like to have some scenes that do not require a dialogue.

When the first scene opens, what we like is how the credits start off on the screen with everything out of focus, then when the camera arrives to the man and he becomes the focus, it looks like he comes to life when the camera is on him, as before in the background he is just standing there with no action. This we think is effective and would like to try something similar for our own short film.