Gift – Singapore Inspired short film – is about
a father who is trying to teach his son about giving and receiving in life. The
most striking thing about this film is the variety of different shots that were
used.
The film opens with the son grown up, before it flashes back to tell the
rest of the story, within this the son drops a picture of his father onto the
floor, the way in which the shot is presented almost makes the audience think
that he is looking down on his father, this shot paired with the line of
dialogue “I don’t like my father” positions the audience to believe that he
looks down on his father as someone to forget, not someone to be inspired by.
This is further emphasized by this shot, by which the focus is on the son as he
purposively rejects the money his father gives him and walks away. Gift is a really effective short drama in portraying the emotional realisation of what a parent can do for their son, the son in this went all of his child and early adult life thinking that his father did nothing for him, when really he found out that his father did everything for him, he just realised too late when his father had unfortunately passed away. Some of the shots that came up within Gift influenced some that i put into Revelation. The above shot specifically whereby the father and son are both in view but the focus is on only the son, is a particular shot that i hope to replicate.
1 Soft by Simon Ellis - Ellis' Soft is an effective film in portraying
the internal conflict of a father wanting to protect his son. Personally I
believe that the dialogue/writing of the film is extremely good, in the opening
there is minimal dialogue and just background noise which builds up the tension
in the narrative.
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The main points that I have identified from soft include -
- The father is seen perfecting the parking of his car, he is visible
wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase
- Very much has a routine; he comes in and makes a cup of tea almost
instantly
- The mother is a very integral part of the narrative, though she is
never heard and never appears
- The only time we see the father shout and try to exert authority, is
at his son rather than the gang of youths that are vandalizing his car and
house
- throughout the film we see the cricket bag of the son multiple times,
leading up to the son using his bat as a form of defense to stand up against
the gang
The one thing that makes Soft very different to the other short dramas is the use of mobile phone cameras, brings a sense of modernity to the drama and emphasises the socially realistic genre.
Something i really wanted to achieve within Revelation which is present here in Soft, is a socially realistic element, i did this by trying to include only residential locations and other simple locations such as a chip shop.
Alone - Wez Otello - is a film about a struggling mother who has to take care of her 2 daughters who are constantly arguing and putting up a fight. The mother within the drama, Sarah, is very similar to my character Dave. She is a single mother who is struggling to take care of her children, and then it is revealed that her husband/partner is in a coma in hospital and that is why she is struggling. Alone does a lot of showing and not telling, for example many close ups are shown of her face to demonstrate the emotional struggle that she feels with her fighting children. For example the shot of Sarah in bed shows her arm stretching across the bed, denoting that she is longing for someone who isn't there, i.e. her partner who is in hospital.
Furthermore we see her going to hospital and talking to a man who is in a coma; we are being shown through the cinematography rather than the dialogue, this influenced me in my script as i deleted some dialogue and instead replaced with more scenes with just action in instead of a lot of dialogue that attempts to explain the story.
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