Short film: The New West

The New West

Written and Directed by Peter Edlund 

"A classic revenge tale begins in a schoolyard and ends at the heart of the modern frontier."

The first thing I immediately noticed about this short film was the opening titles. It started with what sounded like diegetic sound, a boy screaming but the screen was still black. Then it flashed to a burning backpack and then back to black. The fact that you can hear what's happening but not see what's happening creates a sense of mystery. Not only that, you're immediately thrown into the action.

I think this is a good starting point and it really sets the tone for the film. Even the end credits was really clever in my opinion, it appeared whilst the action was still going on.

It allowed you to get a little bit of closure as to what the character would do next and it also made you read the credits because it was right next to the action. I really liked that aspect of the film. Since I have not finished the final cut of my video and need to add titles, this is definitely something to take note of because I would want my first two minutes to be as interesting as possible.

The element of mystery is kept consistent  throughout the film. The identity of characters are withheld for longer periods of time, more than usual films and I though that was great. 

 

Here they have centred the subject but have not given away his identity. They disguise it with various other shots too. Similarly to mine, I have also attempted to conceal both of my character's identity with my chosen shots. Its good to see this done in an even better way. Now I know that if I want to try this out in the future I have something to reference back to.

When one of the main characters are talking about something important to another character, you get a real sense of what kind of character he's supposed to be because he is continuously texting away whilst the other character is talking. They conceal what he is actually saying in the texts because that isn't important.

Its is as if they wanted the viewer to only focus on the fact that he is texting rapidly instead of what he was texting . This then heightens the mysterious tone of the film as you find yourself wondering what could be so important whilst he is being told that his life is possibly being threatened. You then learn that he was receiving nudes from a girl so it shows you what his priorities are. Its interesting to see how one shot can tell you so much about a person. Its importnant that I remember this If I want to be a bit more creative with my shots and character portrayal. 

Although it does have a unique tone to it, I just didn't really care for the story line too much,the acting wasn't great and nothing really happened. I felt like it had no substance but that may be too harsh. The only thing that made it interesting to watch was the camera angles and choice of shots but other than that I was pretty bored and kept checking how far away I was til the end. There was also nothing special about the colour either, some slight warmer tones here and there but it didn't really have a significant colour palette. Although I did like this shot of them in the car, the bright light was great.

Although it was a little boring, I have learnt that you can take a simple story and make it a little more interesting with the different camera angles and interesting focus points. Now I know that I need to give deeper thoughts on how I want my future projects to look and feel because you can create so much if you plan and prep things properly.