Existing Short Film Analyses

The Tea Chronicles 

The Tea Chronicles is a psychological thriller that follows the view of Charlie as he encounters his new housemate’s tea making skills. It was made by QualiTea Productions, founded by Charlie McDonnell (http://charliemcdonnell.com, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmQXOAse-VnzuXHebX5I77g).

The film starts with a black screen where you can hear the diegetic sound of someone typing. Then, the visual quickly fades in, creating a sound bridge, showing the main character, Charlie,  sat at a desk, typing on a MacBook from a low angle, making him seem important. As the camera zoom into the character’s face, he moves, drinking from his cup. In terms of sound, you can hear the diegetic sound effects of the drinking and the cup being moved across the desk. The shot changes with a jump cut to an over the shoulder shot of Charlie, showing a new character in a mysterious way. In addition to this, non-diegetic, incidental music starts playing, heightening in pitch and volume as the camera flicks back and forth with one-two shots of each character - from medium shots to close up shots, rapidly building tension until a medium, over the shoulder shot shows the new character running away out of the room with the music stopping after the climax.

Charlie then engages in one-two dialogue sequence with a new character, Chris, who has also been sat in the room, but unobserved. This one-two is shown through mainly multiple over- the-shoulder shots, until there is a jump cut from an over-the-shoulder shot of Chris to a close up on Chris’s face. This shows tension and this tension is furthered through the performance of the actor, showing a look of despair in his facial expression and through the “argh!” noise he is making. Then, the conversational topic turns to unicycles, and it is clear from the use of a down tilt when focusing on the unicycle that the idea of having a room for a unicycle collection is a bad idea.

The next scene entails a dialogue-less sequence where Khyan makes Charlie a cup of tea. The mise-en-scene of this scene, and throughout the film, is quite standard; with the location being a house it is decorated to look like a home. A specific piece of mise-en-scene is the “Quali-Tea chart” on the cupboard door. Not only is this stuck on the door that Khyan goes on to find the sugar in, but it also specifies the exact requirements of Charlie’s tea. This foreshadows the finding of the sugar and the potential for the making of the tea to not live up to Charlie’s request. Through this sequence there are a range of shots used, including a medium shot where the camera seems handheld, building tension, a close up from inside the cupboard and an over-the-shoulder, high angle shot of the bag of sugar in Khyan’s hand, with the focus pulled from the background to the bag of sugar itself. This occurs with the use of non-diegetic score music which also builds the tension. The lighting in this scene is very dark, with what seems like a single light box shining light in such a way that in the final shot of the sugar bag, mostly just the bag of sugar is lit up. All of this is significant because it foreshadows the effects of the sugar to come. The film then cuts to a medium shot of Khyan and the sugar, the score music temporarily stops, and then he decides to use the sugar, despite its old appearance. This, along with the actor’s shrug of “it seems okay”, shows that this character is not entirely aware of the possibility of the sugar being not okay.

After this, there is a fade to black and then a fade in of the title screen. This title screen is relevant to the film it is for because the colours are yellowy-orange on black, connoting the tea that film is based around, and the smokiness connotes the steam coming from the tea. The screen then fades to black again, and then cuts to high angle close up of Charlie.

This next scene shows lots of skill in terms of sound editing, where the diegetic sound coming from Charlie’s headphones and the diegetic sound of the characters’ voices are altered depending on whether Charlie is wearing the headphones or not, placing the viewer inside Charlie’s head, although the visual is from a third person perspective. The sound begins with the diegetic classical music from Charlie’s headphones playing clearly, then as Khyan talks to Charlie, his voice is muffled, as if we are hearing what Charlie can hear of the conversation. When Charlie takes off his headphones, the conversation becomes clear and the sound from his headphones is muffled. Through this scene, the positioning of the characters has Charlie sat down at his desk and Khyan stood above him. This connotes a difference in status as Khyan gives Charlie the tea he made for him, which opposes the status difference just before created when Khyan has to interrupt Charlie to talk to him, showing Charlie as superior.

One of the most interesting scenes in the film comes when Charlie becomes teabag Charlie through a fade through a cup of tea to the table top and then Charlie is now in minute form, inside a teabag. This uses green screening so that teabag Charlie can run across the table, chased by a rain of sugar poured by life-sized Khyan. This is symbolic because it shows that Charlie is scared and insecure and shows that the sugar is the horror that has turned him this way. Then, a movement match is used to show teabag Charlie being lifted by the teabag string with a full shot of Charlie and then a close up shot of life-sized Charlie’s face as you see his hand pull teabag Charlie up in front of his face, and the focus is pulled from teabag Charlie to life-sized Charlie. This represents Charlie being the basis for this extreme behaviour, indicating that he drinks too much tea and any change in the taste of the tea will evoke an extreme reaction.

Overall, from this short film it is clear that dark lighting, tense incidental music and a large quantity of closer shots build suspense and evokes a more aware reaction from the audience and therefore I should use these points in my own film creation.

UNWIND

UNWIND is a dystopian, sci-fi short film that is an adaptation of a novel. It was made by Mainstay Productions (http://www.mainstaypro.com/).

The film begins with a fade in from black to synopsis screen where a general overview of the context is described with “After the Heartland War was fought over abortion, a compromise was reached, allowing parents to sign an order for their children between the ages of 13 and 18 years old to be unwound—taken to "harvest camps" and having their body parts harvested for later use.” This inclusion avoids the need for unnecessary additions to the script to avoid confusion by giving a basic background and explanation as to what is happening in the short. The typography used for this text is white, on a black background, and futuristic, indicating the genre of sci-fi, and the lack of colour shows the seriousness of what’s going on in the film. Whilst this is on the screen for the first 16 seconds, the non-diegetic sound effect of a heart rate monitor beeping, and also non-diegetic incidental music plays, building in volume, until the screen fades back to black, when it stops.

The non-diegetic heart monitor beeping continues and becomes diegetic as the screen cuts to a bird’s eye view extreme close up of a girl’s eye. This makes the girl seem insignificant due to the way the camera looks down at her. The girl looks young, and is wearing eye make-up but that’s all that’s visible, indicating her age is probably teenaged, telling the view that this scene is part of the “Unwinding” process that’s highlighted in the synopsis screen text. From the start of the scene, the diegetic sounds of the girl breathing and the ambient sound that comes with an operating theatre (e.g. the hum of machines, the sound of gas and air going through a tube etc) begins. Even though the visual is very limited, this sound creates the location alone. Furthermore, from this angle you can see the reflection of a medical light in the girl’s eye. This furthers the creation of the hospital theatre scene. The girl looks to her left and sees two surgeons; they are both wearing blue scrubs and gloves. It is clear from this close up, POV shot, that there is hospital equipment set up on a table, further indicating that she is having an operation. Some of this equipment includes a bowl and swabs. The girl’s vision is blurry and shaking, indicating that she is scared and unaware of everything that’s going on. The two surgeons then engage in dialogue, discussing the male surgeon’s life. This continues as the girl looks around the room. The camera cuts back to the bird’s eye, extreme close shot of her eye, which happens between every different shot. The camera then cuts to a worm’s eye view of a vent on the ceiling which continues to show her as insignificant, but looking up at is also represents the significance of what she’s doing – saving lives. The indication of her being scared is also shown here through the vent flicking from out of focus to in focus and back, showing that’s she’s trying to understand her surroundings but not really taking in all that she sees. Then the camera cuts back to her eye again, then to a full shot of the girl looking down her body to her feet, whilst lying horizontally, from her perspective. Wearing a hospital gown and a heart monitor on her finger, she lifts up her left hand and looks at her fingers, shown by a shakey, handheld up tilt, as the male surgeon says the word “five”, this connection represents her just being a number to him. The camera then cuts back to the girl, this time showing both of her eyes; this shows that she is now more aware of her surroundings.

The female surgeon then comes over to the bed, shown by a cut to a low angle, medium close shot of the top quarter of the female surgeon who now can be seen to be wearing a head cap and a face mask with her scrubs. She moves a drip trolley with her to the bed and a diegetic sound effect is used to show the sound of the trolley moving across the room. The woman is holding a needle syringe and can see the anxiety in the girl’s eyes as she says “relax, it’s Kelsey, right?” when she gets to the bed. She starts opening the syringe which can be heard through diegetic sound effect, and this inspires Kelsey to talk for the first time, saying “what’s that?” The use of this question tells us that Kelsey isn’t fully aware of what’s going on because she doesn’t know what is about to be put into her.  You can then hear the diegetic sound of the needle being stabbed into her flesh, along with the continuous sound of the female surgeon talking to her, and the cut to Kelsey’s eyes (again, from a bird’s eye angle, in an extreme close shot), and seeing her wince in her performance shows the pain of it, evoking the reaction “it’s not supposed to hurt” which opposes her previous question because clearly she knows some things about the procedure, but not anything specific.  

You can then hear the diegetic sound of the woman putting the oxygen mask on Kelsey’s face as the camera up tilts to see the bag of fluid on the trolley, and then tilts back down to look at the woman before looking over to her left with a medium close shot of the male surgeon unwrapping something, with diegetic sound of the unwrapping. The camera (still portraying Kelsey’s pov) then focuses on the equipment that had been unwrapped which shows how scared she is as well as anxiety for what’s going to be done with the piece of equipment. Then, as she gets more scared, she starts to look around more quickly, more frantically, for example using up and down tilts with pans to look straight from one character to the other and back. This especially comes with the diegetic drill sound that she can’t see the source of, so she has to look around for it, before the diegetic sound of her flesh being torn into, and this happens repeatedly as the camera goes from the bird’s eye view, extreme close of Kelsey’s face to the close up, low angle shot of the woman, to the medium close, low angle shot of the man.

Non-diegetic score music then comes in with a drumming style sound, pounding, like Kelsey’s heart would be, and Kelsey’s breathing gets faster. The lighting of the room is set up exactly like an operating theatre, with a blue tinted light filling most of the screen when we see from Kelsey’s perspective. The incidental music builds in tempo and volume, and the camera blurs more than before and then cuts to black. The non-diegetic score stops, but the diegetic heart monitor sound speeds up as different, more calming non-diegetic score comes in giving a juxtaposition of sound. The final piece of dialogue we hear is “I’m here for you, still here” from the woman, layered on top of a constant non-diegetic beep, the diegetic heart monitor sound and the diegetic drilling sound, until all sound fades out.

The film title then fades in from black, in a futuristic font, like at the start and a new futuristic, non-diegetic score comes in, with the credits rolling in the same font as on the synopsis screen.

Overall, this short uses only few different camera shots, but develops the narrative and tension using mainly both the diegetic and not diegetic sound. Along with this though, the mise-en-scene made the scene look highly realistic and the cinematography (i.e. the focusing and non-focusing of the shots) gave a realistic patient perspective that allowed the viewer to feel the same emotions as Kelsey as they went through the procedure with her. 

MEMORIA

Memoria is a 2013 psychological short film made in Denmark and directed by Elísabet Ýr Atladóttir. 

The film starts by fading in from black to the camera tracking to the right at a constant distance from the wall, with diegetic sound coming from a man opening a box in a room that the camera tracks past the entrance to. The footage then fades to black and the film title 'Memoria' appears on the screen with no movement, accompanied by a non-diegetic gun shot. The title typography then cracks with red (connoting blood) fills the font as it dissolves to black. Then we have another fade in from black to a high angle long shot of a door, with the camera shaking as if handheld, until the subject opens the door and comes in, leaving the door open. The sound seems to contain diegetic sounds of wind from outside, the bottle being dropped on the floor, his footsteps as he walks about the house, and dialogue as he questions if anyone is home. This subject is a young man wearing scruffy clothes with a scruffy overall appearance. This suggests that he follows Stanley Hall's 1904 youth theory of the storm and stress model, where he said that teenagers are often depressed, involved in criminal activity, and are prone to drink and take drugs. The character comes into the house drunk, and holding an alcohol bottle, and then walks to the table to sit down, before he falls asleep at the table. The camera then, at a high angle, with a long shot, still shaky dollies into the subject before tracking around him so that the subject is in the foreground and the door is in the background. He then wakes up to the diegetic sound of the door slamming shut, gets up, and walks over to the door, whilst exclaiming "who's there?" through diegetic dialogue. The camera then cuts to an eye level angle close up, with the subject as the doorhandle, that sees the man walk over from the background to the foreground in a movement match whilst placing his hand on the handle to try and open the door. Whilst trying, the shot changes to a medium shot at a low angle, with the same handheld shakiness, and upon trying the door he has a flashback, where there is a flashback of a teddybear, created with jump cuts to make it jerky and a shock to the viewer. This is accompanied by tense non-diegetic score is his diegetic cry in pain. He then looks down at the injury on his hand with a POV bird's eye full shot of his hand, before transitioning to a medium shot of the man looking up with confusion, before the camera pans to the left to follow his movement into the corridor. 

In the corridor of this old, dilapidated house, the camera pans to follow the man try different door handles up the corridor, but finding each locked. Then, at the end of the corridor, the camera, now a bird's eye view of the man, sees him try the window, before having another flashback of his family (mum, dad, and baby brother) in the same place within the house, back when it was homely and vibrant in colour, juxtaposed to the present, before the subjects of the flashback crack, and back in the present the floor breaks and he falls through. As he tries to escape, the diegetic sounds of him walking, and banging continue, and the non-diegetic score builds in tempo, creating suspense. As he becomes more desperate to escape, the shots transition more often with shorter shot duration, and the flashbacks have a longer duration each time, giving more information about the back story to what's happening and what's haunting the man. Running through the corridors, he comes across memories with him in from the past juxtaposed with the present, for example when he, as a child, is being shouted at by his father, diegetic dialogue, and the main character as a man sees this, and there is a hitchcock zoom of it as he moves away from the memory. 

The main character then becomes trapped by the memories as the house cracks and the red seeps through towards him, and the non-diegetic score reaches its most tense. He the crouches, seen with a high angle medium shot, and it fades to black. When if fades in from black, we're in a flashback scene, starting with a medium shot at eye level of the main character, as a teenager, lying on his bed as his little brother walks into the room in the background. The only sound is diegetic, coming from the dialogue between the two characters, Benjamin's laughter, and the sounds he makes as he throws pillows and walks across the room. A long shot of the main character in the foreground and Benjamin in the back ground then cuts to the opposite, clearly abiding by the 180 degree rule, as the camera uses jump cuts to show the same low angle medium shot of the main character from different positions, before using a POV of Benjamin looking up at the main character as the red creeps up and the screen darkens and the main character grabs a pillows and suffocates Benjamin, who the viewer is in the position of, and the screen fades to black. After ten seconds of black screen, we fade in to the same low angle shot looking up at the main character, as the door opens and light shines onto his face. He stands up, with a movement match into the next shot as he stands up and the camera cuts to a side on medium shot with the subject in the foreground and the table with a box on from the first shot of the character at the start of the film. This shot then dissolves into a long shot of the subject at the table, looking at the box, sitting down and fading to black. The same sound effect of opening the box as at the beginning then plays, and after a few seconds, the credits roll. 

Overall, this is very interesting, thought-provoking short, with excellent use of cinematography, editing and mise-en-scene to accurately present every detail the makers wished to put across. The animation allowed for the precise colours to be used, and I especially liked the foreshadowing with the use of the colour red, before being used to colour the main character as he committed the murder. The representation of a situation that viewers can relate to with the main character resorting to extreme actions is memorable and will definitely inspire the writing of my own film.