Analysis of Simon Ellis' Short Film - Soft

We looked at Simon Ellis' short film 'Soft' in order to further understand the idea of a pitch, in aid of developing our own ideas for our screenplay. Simon cleared up for us, the main point of a movie/tv pitch. A pitch for a tv/film needs to tell the audience the best part of the narrative, describing the best moments that will make the audience want to watch.

Ellis' Soft is an effective film in portraying the internal conflict of a father wanting to protect his son. After discussion we came up with these key points about Soft:

Genre - Drama (linking a lot to social realism)

Setting - Urban Estate 

Key characters - father and son, gang of youths 

Conflict - Physical and violent threat of the gang

                Father and son; domestic conflict

                Internal conflict of the father

Key Themes - Fatherhood, respect, fear, independence, attitude, and role reversal 

General Notes

- 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 vandalising 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 defence to stand up against the gang 

Using the ideas that we had discussed, we paired up in order to attempt to create a pitch for soft, this helped us by having further practice of creating pitches, something we are in the process of doing for our own stories. 

Pitch for soft - Boy becomes man in this coming of age drama where masculinity, respect and inner strength are put to the test