Research into Short Film - Jarrad

Misstep (Sam Brewster)

Representation of social class:

• Mise en scene – costume. The main character (male) is wearing a suit which looks very neat and professional. This suggests that he is going to work and is doing a “white collar” job. This means that he is most likely middle class.
  
  

• Sound – diegetic sound in the house. The diegetic sound is classical music which is associated with people from a higher class (in this case middle class).

• Setting – expensive taste in furniture. There is also a big television and it is extremely tidy which suggests that they have money and time to make it look good and neat.

• Props – we can see a variety of props in the apartment which suggests that the couple are from a higher class. We can see him pick up a credit/debit card which again shows the audience that he has money. In addition, when he leaves the house there is a magazine named “RICH LIST 2012” which again shows he either is or has an interest in money.
  
  

• The actual setting of the house is in London, possibly in the center of London which is a very expensive area to live in. It shows that they can easily afford something like this meaning they may be from a higher class.

• Dialogue, close up & facial expression – when the man is in the car, his dialogue shows how he feels about people from a lower class. He says: “All they do is spend their day leeching and borrowing while the rest of us work for a living.” This shows the audience that he is from a higher class and he is looking down on those from a lower class.
  
• The director is using these representations to show stereotypes of the social groups. The message that the director is trying to get across is that just because someone is lower than you in terms of social class, doesn't mean they are all bad. The fact that the lower class worker at the train station catches him, shows that everyone needs help, regardless of who it is from.

Narrative

• The narrative of Misstep is non-linear. As the banker is walking down the station platform, he trips or missteps which is followed by a flashback to the morning before. This means that the events of the short film aren't in chronological order therefore making it non linear as the audience needed to know events that had happened beforehand. 

Todorov's 5 stage theory

• We could apply Todorov's 5 stage theory to this short film. The equilibrium is the man walking down the station platform which makes the audience feel as if everything is normal, the disruption is when he trips/missteps which makes the audience feel shocked that they don't know what happens to the man. The confrontation is a little while after when the man is grabbed by the worker at the station which makes the audience feel relieved as the man doesn't get hit by the train. Resolution is also here as it shows that the problem has been resolved and the new equilibrium is the realisation from the man that not all lower class people are bad which makes the audience maybe sympathise for the workers.
  

Audience

• The audience for Misstep is most likely going to be young adults (18-30) who would watch this sort of short film. I originally found it on Virgin Media shorts and it's classed as a thriller film. The reason why the audience for this is most likely young adults, is because a lot of young adults would rather watch a thriller movie over any other genre of movie and because young people tend to use computers (as this is from a website on the internet) more than older people.

Lovefield (Mathieu Ratthe)

• The genre of this film is a hybrid (or hybridity). This means that there is no specific genre for this film, however it's a combination of many main genres. For example, Lovefield is a combination of Horror (conventions used in the film such as the crow and the bloody cloth of the floor) and Drama.

Enigma Codes.

• The narrative of this short film is linear as all the events happen in chronological order and there are no flashbacks or jumps to random parts. It is continuous through the whole short film and makes sense. Roland Barthes theory about narrative can be applied to this short film. For example, enigma codes are used to create mystery within this short film...when we see the bloody/dirty foot, a man's bloody hand, the stabbing of a knife in the ground and the scream of a woman, we don't know what is really going on, possibly the idea that a woman has just been murdered or hurt.
  
• Claude Levi-Strauss' binary oppositions on narrative can also be applied to this short film. For example, the use of dark lighting at the beginning of the film is opposite to the light at the end. Light = good vs. Dark = evil.

  

  Binary Oppositions.

  
  
• There is no specific representation in this short film, but there are a few stereotypes within the short film. For example, the man is seen as the antagonist (enemy/bad guy) and the woman is seen as the defenseless protagonist. However, this short film seems to challenge the stereotypes by actually making it turn out that the man isn't the antagonist and the woman isn't the defenseless protagonist.

  

  Challenging stereotypes.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The audience for this short film is most likely going to be younger adults. As young adults have an interest in horror films, they will very much enjoy this. However, they might not get what they bargained for when they realise it isn't just a horror film but a drama as well. It also may be appealing to young adults as it is from YouTube. Since many young adults use YouTube, there is a higher chance of them finding this short film.

Bitch (Dom Bridges)

• The genre of Bitch by Dom Bridges is also a hybrid. There is no specific genre however it is a mix of Comedy and Crime. I think the audience forget however that this is partly crime because of the comedy behind it.
  
• Todorov's 5 stage theory can be applied to this short film. For example, (1) the equilibrium is the man walking around the supermarket which makes the audience feel as everything is normal, (2) the disruption is when the woman approaches the man and stares at him which makes the audience feel uncomfortable as it is breaking normality, (3) the confrontation is when the woman speaks to the man and asks him to say "bye mum" which makes the audience a bit confused but it is quite funny, (4) the resolution is when the man actually says "bye mum" which makes the audience feel as if the man did the right thing, (5) and the new equilibrium is when the man has to pay for the woman's shopping which makes the audience feel bad for the man but it's also funny. There isn't closure because we don't know whether he actually pays for the woman's shopping or not.
  
  
  
• The narrative of Bitch is linear as all of the events happen in chronological order. For example, there aren't any jump cuts or flashbacks so the audience know what is happening from the beginning to the end.
  
• The audience for this short film would probably be young adults, mostly male since it's in the comedy/crime genre. In addition, it is most likely to also be young adults because they have access to YouTube on their computers and phones.

Spring Clean (thebakery)

• The genre of Spring Clean is comedy. This is obvious because of the conventions within the short film. For example, when the man spills jam on his tie and goes to clean it off, it disappears. He makes a list of all the other things he wants to disappear and at the end they all end up to be in his basement.
• Todorov's 5 stage theory can be applied to this. (1) The equilibrium is the man living his daily life which makes the audience feel like everything is normal, (2) The disruption is when the man makes his tie disappear with the bottle of spray which makes the audience confused as to why his tie has disappeared, (3) The confrontation is when the man realises what he can do with this spray (get rid of anything he wanted) which makes the audience feel as if he is going to do some funny stuff, (4) The resolution is when he goes out and makes all the things he doesn't like disappear which makes the audience feel involved/relatable as most of the things that he gets rid of, not many people like and (5) The new equilibrium is when the man realises all of the disappeared objects are in his basement which makes the audience feel humored as the disappeared objects shouldn't be there.
• The narrative of Spring Clean is also linear as all of the events happen in chronological order. There aren't any flash backs or jump cuts to random events/scenes that happen.
• The audience for Spring Clean is most likely young adults, mostly male. This is because most younger men have a big interest in comedy films such as: Ted or The Hangover.

Homey (keepittidy)

• The genre of Homey is action/adventure. As the audience we can tell this through conventions used in the short film. These include things such as the music that plays while the boy is running down the playground, the effect of slow motion as the boy is running and the close up shot of the boys hand as he touches the fence.
• Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folk Tale can kind of be applied to this short film. The hero is the boy running, the villain or in this case villains are the other children trying to get him, dispatcher could possibly be the other boy who nods his head to the boy running and the helper could be the girl who screams which distracts the villains so the boy can run. However, some other characters such as the donor, the false hero, the princess and her father are missing from this.
• The audience for this short film is hard to identify as most action films target the young male adult category, however because this involves children, it may appear to other children as they may face similar situations in their lives at school or elsewhere.