Short films are a great way at
getting your ideas across if you an interested in the film industry. Not only
does it give you experience, you learn from mistakes and you can go back to
your original ideas and re-create them. Simon Ellis a British film director
known for his stupendous short films. I have taken a liking to his work, as
short films make progress and the simplicity of some are quite genius.
‘Telling lies’ (2000), Ellis’s
second piece of work. The short film was 5 minutes long and was simply done by
using voice overs and text on a black background. The story is about a young
man called ‘Phil’; the film surrounds many phone calls that question about
‘last night’. What is clever about this film is that we as the audience know if
the character is lying or not, as we can hear and read what is on screen, but
not everything that is in text matches up with what was being said. This shows
that the character was lying. For example the first phone call that ‘Phil’
receives is from his mother. She said “You don’t sound very happy” as the
audience we could hear and see that she did in fact mean what she said. Then
‘Phil’ replies with “You just woke me up”, however we could hear that but what
he meant or what he said in his head that we could see as text was “You just
interrupted me”. This gives the situation a comedic feel to it as to oppose if
we didn’t see what he meant the situation would be regular and the film would be
uninteresting.
Also another great input that was included was that the text
and font changed depending on character, pitch of voice and if it was a lie or
not. Additionally this also shows the emotion of that character in point in
time, even though we can hear the emotion in their voice we can also see it
being displayed as text. Another example showing the text change would be at 34
seconds in the text gets bigger when his mother becomes more concerned.
Furthermore what I found most interesting is that whenever a character said a
lie the font colour would always be white because the lie was a white lie
because not all information was given at once.
Throughout the video we are
exposed to secrets about ‘what happened last night’. The video keeps up its appeal
as we as viewers want to know what happened and what’s going to happen. The
audience gets amerced into the story because of the ‘lies’. However simplistic
this video may seem it defeats its purpose to entertain and spread a message.
The message is obviously to tell the truth and stop hiding behind lies but more
importantly to understand the importance of emotion through voice.
‘Soft’ (2007), Ellis’s 9th
film. This film was 14 minutes, a lot longer than any of his earlier pieces.
‘Soft’ is a very different film to ‘Telling lies’ however they both share some
similarities. ‘Soft’ was a more serious film. The film was based on social
status and the battle between different social classes. This is set in a nice
and classic London neighbourhood. Something I as a viewer can relate too. The
story surrounds 2 main characters of a father and son. Both of them are middle
class and well off. We can see that by the house they live in and how they
dress.
The first scene we are shown is
obviously filmed on a phone camera, as the quality is atrocious. We are almost
the eyes of the person holding on the phone. We are then exposed to a young boy
being attacked by a group of people. Then we are shifted to an establishing
shot of the area. We are no longer with the phone camera. We then we are
introduced to the father, he proceeds to the kitchen but they have run out of
milk. He asks his son if he can go get it but ignores the suggestion. Further
on we witness the clashing of social classes as the father wades through the
same group of people who were seen in the first scene shot by the phone camera.
The father obviously feels intimidated on first gaze and the people before him
sense anger because of who he is and how he dresses.
Now that both classes of people
have clashed the story begins to unfold. The father is hit a couple times by
the group and followed home. By the end of the video we understand that the
young boy in the beginning was the son. Both protagonists are trapped in their
house because of the attackers outside. The son wants revenge and seeks that
from his father. However the father in this situation has also been attacked
and humiliated and can’t bring himself to step up. And the film ends with the
son stepping up to his fears and using his cricket bat to rid his street of
these hooligans.
The story is full of drama, angst
and hypocrisy. We feel for father and son but can help but take the sons view
over the fathers. The father had taught his son to never get into fights and
stay out of trouble. But as soon as the son does what he is told and to take
the beatings he received the father switches his views. The son looks up to his
father and feels protected by him and wants his father to show him how to be a
‘man’. But the father has his on fears on his mind and is unable to do what his
son wants to look up at.
The 2 films share that they both
have meaning, story, and targeted at the same audience of 15+ people who live
life like most people. Simon Ellis made the films somewhat relate to his
audience so it engages them more. The differences are that the media used for
them were different, the genres are opposite as ‘telling lies’ was comedy and
‘soft’ was more of the sub-genre social status, and ‘soft’ was longer than ‘telling
lies’. I really enjoyed both films as they both engaged me and showed me how
making short films can lead to better things and can improve you use of film
and the media.
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