Analysing Short Films- OVER

PROFESSIONAL SHORT FILMS - NOTES & ANALYSIS

You MUST reference in detail how these professional short films have influenced you in the following ways:

• Representation
• Narrative
• Micro elements
• Meanings and messages

You MUST make notes under those headings for each of the professional short films and be sure to HIGHLIGHT something specific you intend to incorporate into your own production.

For example: the use of voiceover to create an additional narrative strand in Arrival that is never seen visually and only ever heard through the clever sound design combination of dialogue and exaggerated sound effects will be used in my short film in the following way. 

SHORT FILM - OVER (2015, THRELFALL)

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Palm Springs in 2015, Jörn Threlfall’s unusual short Over uses reverse chronological storytelling to reveal the incidents which caused a crime scene in a quiet neighbourhood suburb. A leisurely-paced short with an overwhelmingly powerful and surprising resolution, Over is a film which calls for a patience not always associated with online audiences, but those of you who grant it the attention it deserves, will find it a hugely rewarding and memorable experience.

Based on a real-life event (which we won’t disclose here as it will spoil the impact of the film) and told through a series of static shots, the director’s approach to storytelling is to make his audience take part in the unravelling of this story. “I make the viewer be the detective”, says Threlfall, “I didn’t want to tell it in a conventional way. This story was so sad and desperate it needed a different way of telling…it’s like shards and fragments, it was quite an intense way of making sure the viewer stayed with it. In the cinema I see viewers leaning forward, as if they want to go closer but can’t”.

 

representation

-police

- of the people- kind of shows that we don't really care cause he's not British, there's only one bunch of flowers (usually there'd be loads for this kind of unusual tragedy)

narrative

-reverse chronological, makes us feel like some sort of detective as we're trying to piece together what is actually happening, we see the story from end to start instead of start to end which makes it more mysterious as you don't quite understand what's happening 

micro elements

-sound

mostly muffled but you could hear little snippets of information, some relevant some not

there's also the sound the body makes when it hits the car, its quite loud sudden and dramatic which creates a bigger impact

the lack of sound is also apparent and it really emphasizes the quiet moments/ makes meaningful thought provoking moments 

-mise-en-scene

• costumes- mainly police uniforms (high vis jackets etc), people in mundane clothing like the everyday 
• props- police cars, a tow truck, the car the man fell on
• location/setting- little cul-de-sac of houses / a street, 
• composition of shot- very still its like we're viewing them in the moment through a window, nothings really in the foreground so its kind of all in the background (its like the cameras there but not)

-editing

jump cuts to the evidence bags 

-performance

some joggers literally ran past the body oblivious 

the man with the dog who call the police

-cinematography

static shots mainly so its like we're watching through a window

closeups of the evidence 

meanings/ messages 

- based on a true story at the end gives a better meaning to it because we don't see it coming

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