Many short films by directors such as; Brian Percival, Alicia Duffy,
Simon Ellis, Tom Harper and Jane Linfoot all have common traits between their
shorts. These being the themes and issues that run throughout them.
Take for example; ‘The Most Beautiful Man in the World’. One of the main
themes and issues that run through the whole of the short is the sexualisation
of young children; this shows to us the viewer the representations involved are
sexuality and age mainly.
Alicia Duffy shows this to us in the opening scene of her short through
the use of a fade in which makes the audience feel in a sleepy relaxed state of
mind, likewise with the child shown on screen, but in a few seconds this
comfort is shattered and immediately dropped in to an awkward, morbid curiosity
due to her choice to use a slow pan and tilt up a scantily clad, young girl,
wearing skimpy shorts and an almost tube top like shirt revealing a bare
midriff. This camera movement along with a canted angle makes the viewing
extremely uncomfortable and almost voyeuristic in its style. This whole scene
is yet again reinforced by the use of character codes due to the actress
stretching with an arched back whilst yawning but because the movement has been
slowed down, it makes the scene overly sexualized. Then Duffy had the idea of
linking all of this with her makeup design. Young girls with makeup generally
connotes a sexualized girl and the makeup used on the young girl within this
scene is subtle but really effective due to the use of a makeup that makes her
have a waxy skin tone, which also brings out her bright red lips. The use of
mise en scene as a micro representation, all the little connotations towards
sex, leads up to the macro idea of an extremely young girl that has been overly
sexualized, which effects the audience in such a way that it makes them feel so
awkward whilst watching it but it also makes them feel compelled to watch more.
This links to Brian Percival’s short, About a Girl, with its theme and
issue of sexualisation of young children but in a different way. Due to the
fact that in the short the main character, a young girl of 13 years of age, is
represented as young girl with aspirations of growing up to be a popstar with
her friends but this is juxtaposed with the final scene of her dropping a fully
grown baby fetus in to a canal, being the so called ‘sting in the tail’ that
many shorts finish upon. This shows us the viewer that the main themes and
issues that run throughout the short are growing up and maturing, plus the sexualisation
of young children. Furthermore this also shows us the representations in the
film being sexuality and age, pretty much the same as ‘The Most Beautiful Man
in the World’ but with subtle differences.
Brian Percival shows this to us in one of the final scenes of his short
where the young girl is walking through a dilapidated housing estate, full of
graffiti and forgotten about rubbish, making it seem like a war zone. This
shows us her class and status of a poor background, while all the time spouting
diegetic monosyllabic dialogue, which shows the simplicity of her education,
whilst walking along side a long thin canal. Milgrom states that it is
important for an emotional journey to be shown through a physical journey,
which in this short, is the canal. Then there is the use of more diegetic sound
of rushing water, which sets the tone of an uneasy calm, paired with the use of
an upwards tilt which gives of a brooding feel to the audience at first but
when it comes to rest at a high angle it shows the reality of the situation,
where the young girl is a now represented as she is, a child. Then as she drops
the prop of the bag in to the canal, we fully realize the extent to which she
has been sexualized and how she has grown up. The white bag, which could
possibly connote innocence is shown opening and out of as it continually sinks,
is a fully grown baby fetus, covered in bright red blood. The use of the colour
palette here shows how her innocence has been destroyed and how she has grown
mentally but not physically and that she has been sexualized in the way that
she has actually got an aborted child, but at the same time it also shows the
lack of education because she has gotten pregnant and then decided to dispose
of it within the local canal.
Micro to Macro representations have been used here through the micro
idea of her dancing and singing like a child throughout the short, especially
in the opening scene, where the viewer is misguided by her silhouette which
makes her look older where in reality she is really young. This idea of ‘misguided’
runs through the whole short up until the big reveal of the macro idea of the ‘misguided
youth’ to use a clichéd expression, which was shown in the scene where she
drops the dead fetus in the canal, and then walks off saying; ‘I’m still gunna
go get that 99’ in reference to the ice cream showing she is still just a
child, which makes the audience shocked and horrified which goes back to the ‘sting
in the tail’ point made earlier.
Moving on, this could link to Simon Ellis’s short, ‘Soft’, due to the
fact that in ‘Soft’, its major themes and issues revolve around growing up
along with nature and nurture. But the growing up theme is completely different
in the way it’s shown when compared to ‘About a Girl’ due to the fact it is
about how teenagers grow up and the problems they face when growing up, plus
the nature/nurture side of its theme is about how he is being nurtured the
wrong way by his father, where as his nature is telling him to defend himself.
This links with representation because it shows to us the viewer the
representations of age, gender and class and status.
Simon Ellis shows this to us the viewer in one of the final scenes in
the short, where a group of stereotypical ‘yobs’ are being shown outside a
middle class, English house showing us the class and status of the area, this
is shown to us through the use of the mise en scene, with the group wearing the
stereotypical outfit of antisocial youths, in baggy tracksuits or jogging wear,
paired with baseball caps or bandanas, plus the house is shown to us as being
in a pretty, clean, quiet neighbourhood. The group then progress to aggravate
the father and son within the house, again with the mise en scene showing us
with the use of props that are rather expensive dotted around the house. The
tension is shown between the father and son when they begin arguing, constantly
raising their respective voices, showing the scene as getting more tense, as if
it’s building up to something. This links to Milgrom as she said each scene has
to reveal something in the next to push the story forward, which it does
effectively due to the fact it shows us that despite the father’s diegetic
dialogue of constantly telling the son to; ‘sit back down’ he’s trying to
nurture his son but not effectively because it’s a representation of ‘do as I
say, not as I do’. But as the scene progresses the use of mid shots and close
ups on the father and the group show the fathers fear and the groups
confidence, which Goffman made a point about that we present ourselves
differently for different people, so he is trying to act like the protective
father figure in front of his son. Percival’s use of the quick cross cutting
between the two situations of outside and indoors, shows the two worlds are
completely different and this helps to build tension for the viewer until the
father breaks the divide and goes outside to confront the group and proceeds to
get beaten up shown in cuts of close ups, interchanged between the main
antagonist and the father. Until the son comes out and proceeds to beat up the
group with a cricket bat, the prop of the weapon plus the close up of the
enraged facial expression character code, shows how the son’s nature has taken
over; which shows how he has let his nature, nurture his way of being.
The micro ideas here of bullying, aggravation and nature vs nurture have
been shown when the son breaks through in to an almost ‘primal’ nature when he
attacks the ‘yobs’ when in reality the macro idea here is that he is breaking
free of the nurture of his father and opening up the door to his nature, where
he becomes a self reliant person.
Fourthly, this could link with Tom Harper’s short; ‘Cubs’. This is due
to the themes and issues of nature and nurture along with growing up being
present in this short, akin with ‘Soft’. But yet again Harper has chosen a
different way of representing these themes and issues. He chose to show that
for nature and nurture both his environment and his peers are pushing him in
the wrong direction and that he growing up in the wrong way; due to the fact
that they are pushing him to kill a fox.
Tom Harper shows this to us in one of the scenes near the end of his
short, where the main protagonist is out in an old worn football pitch made
from concrete, that has been well used and is in a poorer part of London, due to
the surrounding mise en scene being dead trees, high rise flats and the
different types of graffiti everywhere, but the colour palette is dark due to
the night setting, but the scene is pierced with one bright light emitting from
behind him, coming from a street lamp. Then it cuts to a low angle, worm’s eye
view shot from the foxes point of view, where the rest of the group are
revealed to us, egging him on to kill the fox with the gun handed to him by the
‘alpha male’ of the group. The diegetic chant of the whole group telling him to
kill it shows the wrong type of nurturing for him to grow in to, but you can
see the main character is conflicted because it keeps using cross cutting to
show the group, the fox and the protagonists face, but it’s in the close up we
can see the anguish in his eyes, but eventually he is pressured in to shooting
the fox. As it zooms out to show him standing, in a group but the way he just
stands shows to us the viewer through character codes that he feels solitary
until, the ‘alpha male’ wipes blood on his face from the fox, and in diegetic
dialogue says; ‘You’re one of us now’, almost as if it was like an admission
test to grow through slightly like a Jewish barmitzah otherwise known as a rite
of passage.
The micro links here such as the group ethic shown in the young youth of
today, and the want for acceptance links to the macro idea where he wants to be
accepted and not ousted by the group but he is conflicted about the way he gets
there, this was shown during the scene where he shoots the fox and the anguish
displayed on his face.
This could be then linked to Jane Linfoot’s short; ‘Youth’, due to the
fact that the short is about young teens growing up and nature vs. nurture. The
film itself is three different stories in one short, but I am focusing on one
of these short stories, the last one focusing on the three school kids on the
back of a public bus.
The scene opens with a blatantly handheld camera movement as the three teens
run up the stairs of an old style bus, shown by the mise en scene of a brown
colour palette and plain metal railings. The handheld movement was selected by
Linfoot because it allows us the viewer to see it from one of the character’s
point of views and therefore relate to the story. Milgrom stated in one of her
scriptwriting articles that you should set your short around a familiar event
or ritual so considering a bus journey is a regular thing, this also allows the
audience to relate to the situation.
Later on in the scene it cuts from a mid shot, to a
close up of one of the teens playing with a flick knife. The slow close up used
shows the teenage stereotype of knife crime, which shows that he isn’t being
nurtured very well but his nature is conflicting with him just cause he is
carving in to the back of a bus seat.
The constant use of mid-shots, for one character
shows him as the alpha male, a common connotation of groups of teens to have a
leader of sorts. This alpha male role is reinforced in the next scene when the
diegetic raised dialogue of an argument between the alpha male and one of the
group kicks off and then dies down. Furthermore the use of a focus pull shows
that the third member of the group, doesn’t want to get involved.
Moreover a scene later on has a long take of a
group of girls getting on the bus and sitting down, which then cuts to a
mid-shot of the alpha male using the character codes such as staring and having
his mouth slightly open to show that he is interested in the girls. Moving on
from this scene another argument breaks out between the alpha male and a member
of the public, and the use of close ups, shows the aggravated situation, with a
teen bothering a member of the public, which is another common social
stereotype, which builds tension for the viewer. But the tension dies back
down, when the alpha male throws an empty drinks can at the member of the
public but then uses diegetic dialogue to blame it on one of the lesser
‘ranking’ teens. These are all common stereotypes of growing up but they relate
back to nature vs nurture because none of the group are being nurtured properly
they are being left to their own devices, like in other shorts such as; ‘The
Most Beautiful Man in the World’, ‘About a Girl’ and ‘Cubs’.
The micro ideas explored in ‘Youth’ about teens,
being the alpha, and showing no weakness, relates back to the macro idea of
nature vs nurture, the primal nature of a teen, like the tribes of old, where
one would fight for dominance and would act out to scare those who challenged
dominance, which was prominent in the scenes when the ‘alpha’ fought his
friend, and when he acted out against the member of the public.
In conclusion, i have found that shorts can share
many of the same traits such as themes and issues, representations, but at the
same time the way they represent these traits is perfectly individual to the
short itself.
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