Gas Man

Gas Man is a Scottish drama set in 1997 directed by Lynn Ramsay and is about a family with a mother, father and two children who is having or has had a previous affair and has another set of children with another women.

For the first opening scene, not much dialogue was used and hardly none of the characters faces were shown. However for the plot and surroundings as to what the audience was seeing, they were not needed. The structure and style relates to its subject matter as there are lots of little highlighted moments which showed to the audience that something was going on "behind the scenes" with the dad of this family and the other women he met on the train tracks when meeting his other two children. One of these "highlighted"

moments is when the dad touches the women's hair who he has had an affair with. The pace of this shot is lsightly slowed down and therfore intensifies to the audience that something has occured between these two in the past or is still happening now.

Another element that stood out for me was when the daughter of the dad overly repeats that the other girl "said you were her daddy" over and over and it takes a while for the dad to say a reponse. This showed me that the little girl knows something has been happening between the women and her dad and the guilt in the dads feelings was shown through a high angle/point of view shot of the dad looking down on the girl in guilt.

The use of sound in this film is subtle and not much is used apart from at the party when various christmas songs are played. It's very ironic however that most of the christmas songs that are being played are happy and upbeat and people should be happy at christmas time, yet its clear the Dad is struggling at the fact of having two seperate families.

One of my favourite shots in this film is the
clips where the dad and the children are walking along the train tracks. Its a great wide shot as you can see on the right hand side, as you get the scenery of beautiful scotland in the

background, with the dad and his daughter in the foreground. I think that perhaps because this was a low budget film, I think the train tracks may have been used as a "dolly" so that tracking shots could be completed as there wasnt enough money in the budget for an official dolly and so the train tracks were used in two ways.

Overall, I did enjoy this film as it used a variety of shots and a good use of locations, particularly the train tracks for the use of a dolly.

High Rise

High Rise is a very short film that was made in 2002 by a director called Gabriella Russell. It focuses on a young mum who lives in a high rise block of flats on a council estate in Leeds (as this is where it was filmed). After watching this film I was led into thinking that the young mum features in this film was suffering from post-natal depression and felt emotionally detached from her child. This is because as she is watching the game show on television she can see her child wants her attention, she ignores this and steps outside the room, even though she can clearly see her child is about to be put into danger whilst attmepting to reach for her toy which is on the windowsill.

A particular element that I liked to this film was the fact that Gabrielle chose to use no dialogue or sound apart from the noises from the television in the room and also from the baby when it screams/cries in distress as to when her mother leaves her alone in the room. I feel that this technique was used as it enhanced the emotional distress in which the mum was feeling and added to the dramatic tension whilst watching it.

The structure and style used relates to its subject matter very well as the use of no dialogue and the chosen camera angles. There was a particular camera angle in which when the mum falls to the floor and the camera is looking down on her. This insinuates the fact that she has reached "rock bottom" in her life and is close to giving up. Also, there was another camera angle in which i particular liked which was when the mum came running back in the room to think her child had fallen to the floor from the window of their high rise flat. It was then a high angle shot from ou of the window looking down to a broken girl doll on the floor. This symbolises that it could have been her child and she was lucky that her baby didnt fall out of the window.

Although only very little sound was used, what we could here as an audience was very appropriate and succesffuly portrayed. The main sound we here is the sound coming from the TV which has some form of game show playing. The mum of the child is watchign the porgramme with such an intense stare its almsot as if she was looking at the woman playing the game thinking it was her. this then intensifies the charasters emotions and allows the audeince to connect more with her character.

Overall I did enjoy this film and the fact ti felt so intense and yet it was only just over two minutes long. Although, even though it was so short, it was long enough for this subject matter in which was trying to be portrayed. The way it zoomed into a random window of the high rise tower block, showed the footage of the young mum and her baby and then zoomed out again, it led me into thinking what else could be occuring in all the other flats in this high rise block.

Short Films

On the 6th October 2011, I watched a variety of short films and answered various questions on them, these being:

1)Identify the themes of the film - what was the directors aim?
2)Describe what you consider to be the main focus of the film
3)Did you like/dislike the film and why?
4)Was the film successful/unsuccessful in dealing with its subject matter and why

5)Was there an element of the film that stood out?
6)How does the film form (structure and style) and how does it relate to its content (subject and matter)
7)Discuss two techniques used in the film which you found interesting

8)Is the sound used in an appropriate/successful way?

As a group we watched 6 short films which were called: The life size zoetrope, Strange Lights, Blight, Daybreak Express, Terminal Bar and Paperboys. As a group we answered the 8 questions as listed above and said what we liked/disliked and what we found effective from each film and whether this would inspire in any of our individual film making.

Towards the end of the session we watched a further two short films; Steel homes and Christmas with Dad. I will now answer the following 8 questions from before about these films.

Steel homes
1 and 2)The main themes of this short film were to do with the fact that the people featured in this film have had problems and want to store personal belonging of theirs or a family member/close friend as they mean something to them in what they call a "steel home". The main themes highlighted by the director (Eva Weber) of this film are to do with isolation and feeling alone and the directors aim is to show these through the camera angles and mise en scene used etc.
3)I did like this film in the way it was created and the fact that we never saw the characters in the film actually speaking and was just a voice over, this interlinked with the main themes of isolation and being alone and wanting to keep these belongings in one of these "steel homes". I also liked the fact that the whole film was in the one location of the steel homes itself and it made me realise how important that these "steel homes" are to some people.
4)I think the film was very successful in dealing with its subject matter as just from me watching it, I automatically felt the emotions in which the characters were feeling and the use of edits such as fade/blurs helped with this as it created the whole feeling of "isolation" which I personally think was the directors main aim.
5)Two techniques that were used in this film that I found interesting was firstly, the decision of not seeing the characters actually speaking and just hearing the voice overs. This was good and bad at the same time. I wanted to see the characters faces matched to their voices, but the at the same time, by not letting us see the faces with the voices it created this whole "anonymous" feeling which related well to the main theme running through the film which was isolation. another technique used in the film which I particularly liked was the fact it was all filmed in the same location. This was done successfully and really captured the whole sensation as to what having these "steel homes" is like for these people.

Christmas with Dad
1 and 2) This was a documentary type drama based on a young dad (Aj) who has two kids with a woman and another one on the way and also has to look after her previous 5 kids. I think the directors aim (Connor McCormack) in this short film was to show the audience about Aj's lifestyle at Christmas and to tell us about him as a person. This is shown in the way that when he speaks to the cameras he opens up about the health problems in his family and that his father was blind and how in approximately two years time, the same thing would happen to him. He then goes on to talk about how he is worried that this is going to affect him being able to look after the children, especially his new baby which hasn't been born yet. This makes the audience feel more sympathy towards him as looking at the family before, my attitude had instantly changed.
3)I did like this film as i believe the features of this short film worked well together and I think the main purpose was portrayed to the audience successfully. However, although the film was called "Christmas with dad" it would have been nice to have a heard a bit more speech from the other characters, being the children and his wife, just to see their point of view on the situation this family is in.
4)The use of sound in this short film is simple, yet effective. There are a few "jingle" type sounds that are played a couple of times through transitions to show the different scenes. These jingles are used to show the fact that its the build up to Christmas in this household. There is no other music or sound effects used, but I think this is good because its a documentary based short film and if there was a complex soundtrack it would take away the simplicity of the camera work and initial themes and aims of the film that the director is trying to pursue to the audience.

Overall, I enjoyed this session very much in looking at the short films that already exist today and how they can come in such a variety of form and are all trying to pursue different things. this session as given me a lot of inspiration for when it comes to creating my own short film later on during this course.

Inspiration

I am a great lover of horror and thriller films, with "se7en" being one of my favourites starring Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, directed by David Fincher. Its a physco horror in which Detective David Mills and Detective Somerset have the task of solving 7 murders which are all interlinked within the seven deadly sins, hence the films title.





I really like the opening credits to this film because once you have watched the film, they actually show the seven murders as to how the killer is going to undertake them. The high pitched music is eerie and sets the scene for the film which is about to occur. I also really like the way the actors names appear in the small white writing which then flash on and flash off. If I were to make a horror film in the future I would bare these credits in mind and I would hope to be able to create something similar.