More influences

About a girl

About a girl is a short film directed by Brian Percival in 2001. I believe that several techniques used in About a girl would make an interesting contribution to my own film.
2 minute 10 into the film the main female character sitting on a bench outside a pub waiting for her dad. In this scene, there is a medium shot to start with which then slowly zooms out further and further away from the girl. This shot emphasises the loneliness of the character and makes the audience feel as though the characters life is poor. This technique is backed up the use of dark cloudy weather, rundown location and the way there is silence as the camera zooms out.
I would use this technique in the Forrest scene to emphasise the characters loneliness before he crosses the line.

Another technique I picked up on when watching ‘About a girl’ was the use of a handful of fast edits, a very long edit and then back to fast edits. This technique was used regally throughout about a girl separating current scenes with flashback scenes. I could also use this technique to separate the characters conscious mind with his unconscious mind.

Le Cheval 2.1

www.decipt.org/2003/le-cheval-2-1/?categoryrequest=picks

This film was a great source of inspiration for my own short film as it has a similar theme to the short film I would like to create. Le Cheval 2.1 is about a man running through a field; a voice over reveals that this man has always wanted to be a horse. For the majority of the film we think the man is a horse until the end where see the same man standing in a field full of other cows and it is revealed through voice over that the man is a cow.

The message that I interpreted from the film is that everyone wants to be free like a ‘Horse’ but as we are raised in society we are moulded into cows who just follow the rest of the herd. The character in this film is desperate to be a house but can’t because of society’s restraints. This is a very similar message to the one I would like to base my film on and therefore I would like to use it.

One technique that I liked in this film was that the whole film is in black and white to represent the dull society which has been built up around us. I would defiantly like to use this technique for the reality part of my short film for the same reasons that have used it in Le Cheval 2.1.

Another technique I would like to use in my own short film is to put my main male character in a suit to represent the average working man who feels as though he needs to wear a suit to fit in with the rest of society.

Two Cars, One Night

This was an interesting short film as it had a very simple story but the effects used and underlying messages made it enjoyable.

A great visual technique used in ‘Two Cars, One Night’ was the effect of time moving very fast around a still object. This technique can be created by filming one object which is still while other things moving around it and then speeding the footage up afterwards. I would like to use this technique in my short film, either to show time moving fast in the real world or in the characters unconscious mind world.

Having a simple plot but an underlying message behind it can sometimes make a film more interesting than just having a complicated storyline. I think that ‘Two Cars, One Night’ proves this fact and would look to do the same in my short film as well.