analysis of short films

How are they structured?

 Of the films which i watched all of the films other than Jigsaw which focused upon the love life of one couple and the idea that “perfection isn’t a necessity” Most of the short films followed a structure of introducing us slowly to the world and characters then usually during the latter half of the film a twist in the plot will occur, however the scope of the twist varied from film to film. One of the films i watched titled “Dog food” had a plot which centralised on a butcher and his relationship with his dog and later a woman following his dogs kidnapping this Film incorporated two plot twists into its narrative with the first being the reveal that the girl who the butcher was interested in being responsible for the kidnapping as revenge for the animals which the butcher in her eyes had “inhumanely slaughtered"

The second was that the dog in fact was alive. In other films however the scope of the twist was relatively contained such as in"the shore" which telegraphed its twist frequently in that our two protagonists were old friends and the story itself was more concentrated and subtle rather than being over the top.  

Are there any rules to follow?

within The short films whist they diverge in style and content they all adhere to some rules mainly within their narrative structure they usually follow todorov's narrative principle of equilibrium in that at the beginning we are met with a certain situation i.e in dog meat the protagonist is at the beginning happy and with his dog and although through the film he loses the dog by the end this balance is restored as he finishes in the same position.

Many of the other short films also follow this narrative principle closely. The short film "8" begins with a soldier being held captive by an opposing soldier over the course of this short film the roles are reversed until the end in which  they are both placed in the situation when they both step on land mines resulting in both being placed in a helpless situation.

Attitudes towards characters/setting/theme?

Throughout many of the short films which I watched, The setting was treated almost like a character unto itself. The most prominent example of this came  “ The shore “ which tells the story of two friends reunited after over twenty years and is set in Northern Ireland. Throughout this film the rural backdrop and very typical irish locales such as a pub, the mourn mountains and the small town of rosstrevor, these locations along with  the very irish humour help to immerse the viewer and make the film feel as authentic and genuine as possible. 

Another film which I watched which made effective use of its setting was the satirical “ We ate the children last” which deals with a world in which life saving transplants between  humans and pigs which inevitably leads to outbreaks in cannibalism. This film however unlike “the shore” focuses so much so on the setting that it proves detrimental to the plot placing the setting above the narrative and plot resulting in what comes across as convoluted and contradictory.  

How do they differ from conventional films?

on the whole the short films which i have watched have differed quite greatly from conventional films in that they usually are on a small budget and are relatively isolated to specific locations usually with a short time span of between five and ten minutes, they also tend to be more vague and ambiguous than conventional films.

 whilst not necessarily unconventional. The short films also tend to have more ridiculous plots than most feature films and mainly focus on parody and satire an example of this is the film "Kung Fury" which instead parodies the typical 80's action movies through ridiculous action set pieces and cheesy dialogue and also the video tape aesthetic of the film. The plot of this film is also quite over the top with a superhero police officer travelling through time to combat Hitler with yet again a twist in the film of Hitler surviving their final confrontation fitting in with the typical action movie tropes of the eighties.

However in many ways the short films can be quite similar to a conventional film, For example the film "undying love follows many of the typical zombie film tropes in the highlighting of just what humans will do and how they will change when faced with the apocalypse and also uses undead similar to those seen in Danny Boyle's 28 days later with a large focus on the gore and violence similar to many zombie films.

Before we can begin creating a short film it is important to understand the key elements of a short film and what some typical codes or conventions are so that we can achieve a worthwhile and authentic product. In order to do this we looked at various short films from the Short of the week website from various genres in order to distill what exactly a short film consisted of.

In conclusion through looking at these short films i have found that the perhaps three key aspects of short films these would be

-some form of twist

-usually small and isolated

- Deal with subject matter and concepts usually not seen in many large films