Monday 11 February 2013

Unwind short film -Post 2

The Selection of content.




The words: The majority of words come thorough dialogue, but also a back story text at the start of the film, personally I don't see why, they could have added speech as well, I go to a film to watch not read, the reason why this is here is to give exposition on the world the film is set in, a dystopian future, which in todays' world is common in science fiction, whether it is film or literature, the use of it is to inform the audience about the world the film is set in order to draw the audience ans get them interested in the story. Most of the words are not complicated as the majority of the dialogue is a conversation between a patient and her nurse. There is another conversation between the Nurse and Doctor going through procedure. The Nurse is trying to comfort the girl, reassuring her while this operation is going on, the conversasion is not really personnal as the nurse seems to say standard, pre-written cliched sentences, she doesn't ask about the girls personnal life and though the girl does ask questions the nurse does not fully answer them e.g. "Do I get a funeral?" "You won't die, you just won't live", the nurse's job in relation to the story is to give exposition on the operation, not much I admit but exposition is needed in science-fiction as the science of this fictional world needs some explanation (even if it is fictional and in many cause just ridiculous). Also the doctor just seems to talk about lets get to the next part, he's not concerned if the girl can hear him, he's just doing a job.

Images: the imagery is very interesting, there are two shots which cut back and forth: the shot of the patient's eyes, and the shot of what the girl is seeing through those eyes. The shot of her eyes seems very powerful, the old saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul is used by the film makers to an advantage, all we see of the patient are her eyes and the little surrounding areas of her face, we see her eyes and hear her voice, very powerful. The point of view shot are very powerful as well as we see what could her last visions as a functioning human being, it make us feel like we are in her position. The term 'The eyes are the window to the soul' is a traditional English proverb, the soul is inside of you and the way the soul views the world is through the eyes, but a window can be see through both ways. We can see the girl through the twitches of her eyes almost as if we see her soul and the point of view shots are there is if it is us and our souls that are viewing this. This allows the audience to invest in the story, it also shows something outside the box, something we have not seen before which makes it more memorable.

Sound: the first sound we hear is of one those heart beat machines. The beat seems haunting, and make us feel a sense of unease. The beat is almost like a ticking clock counting down, but we don't fully know what it is counting down to, the fear of the unknown is a the fear that what we can't understand, we can't control, we know that it is counting down to something but what? There is also a small musical beat which like the heart beat creates a sense of unease. We hear the sounds of the medical equipment which all sound horrible and grotesque, adding to the tension, while the nurse explains what is going to happen she doesn't explain what is happening and again the fear of the unknown reemerges. The sounds seem unusual to use as we don't hear them on a regular basis, the metallic, clean feel of the sound adds to science-fiction element is many of the sounds seem futuristic, thous making us as the audience know it is the future and the tools and technologies within the short as future technologies yet to be used by us today. The sounds add to the world of the story and allows the audience to get accustom to this world.

Sequence: The sequence of events is simple enough, it works on linear event, we see the operation to 'Unwind' the beat of the music becomes a ticking clock, there is no real change, unlike in movie trailers how they start slow and as the trailer progresses it gets faster and confusing with action, here it is consistently slow and quiet. The short film messes with our expectations, as we have grown accustomed to, this short film has roughly the same amount of time in a theatrical trailer, we expect something to happen and the end to become more chaotic, but it stays at the same level of pace, the way this short film plays with expectations adds to the off-kilter nature of the short. The sequence of events seem to work like a machine working at a steady speed, like a higher authority has made scheduled the time of this world, this relates back to the dystopian future element of the genre.

Colour: The colours in the film also add to this uneasy feel, the hospital staff are wearing blue, normally the colour of sadness or of calm collectiveness, the other colours are in grey tone, dull and boring, it make us feel depressed that the last thing this girl may see are sad and dull colours. This colours also add a metallic, clean, cold and calculated feel like is a machine made the room in those colours and had pick out those colours, it having no emotions to identify the mood of those colours, the feel makes us connect to the science fiction element as those colours are would be used in the future. Again this establishes the world how it looks and allows the audience to see the world in some minds this may be what the target audience in visaged the world as.

Fonts: There is only one type of font, which appears in the back story at the beginning, this font is very uniform and futuristic, which implies that this takes place in a dystopian future, as the back story explains. This is slight but it would be expected that the font of a genre would fit to that, the uniform style were it has been designed to perfect proportion and calculated looks makes us identify it is futuristic and there for must be for science fictional purposes.

The target audience for this short film would include the fans of the book, all these elements together are suppose to form what the audience would image while reading the book. There is also the fact that this would inspire those who have not read the book the interest to read it, being this is a prequel to the events of the book.

3 comments:

  1. Your discussion on images is heading in the right direction especially when you mention the use of the sentence 'the eyes are the windows to the soul'. The words are giving the image meaning can you remember what term this relates to? You need to think about each section more critically and discuss why you think they have used certain words, images, sound, colour, fonts etc. It's a really good start I just feel you could progress your discussions further. Make sure you read back what you have written because the odd word seems to be missing.

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  2. This is excellent William you just need to relate it back to the TA to be able to hit the higher level i.e. you discuss the use of words, colour, fonts, sound and images but how do they relate to the target audience?

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    1. This is almost at a distinction level you just haven't discussed the audience in enough detail and related your examples back to them enough. However this is excellent William and a very high merit.

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