Task 2: Short Film Analysis

The Long Distance Relationship – Short Film (7m22s)  - Grim Film.

Director: Jared Lee, Year of Release: 2011

 

Beginning: (Equilibrium)

The short film is about a long distance relationship between a couple, at the beginning it looks like a normal relationship using web cam to communicate with each other.

The first thing you see the definition of the word Joy suggesting this has something to do with the storyline. It starts with a low angle of the couple who are off centre. There is slight background noise. The low angle showing the importance on them but could also suggest the feeling of being on top of the world with the relationship. This is also a wide shot showing the environment they are in. It fades to the titles and the non-diegetic soundtrack begins to play. The lighting throughout is the available lighting within the scene with lighting used being the available daylight and the lighting available within the scene. It does appear at time as though the sunlight is on his face. This could potentially be additional lighting. This song is used throughout the short film until it stops with the video of her talking. It is clear that the titles are in an airport suggesting the idea of the long distance relationship and that they are far apart. The low shot works well with the camera being placed on the floor. After the titles have finished, the scene fades into a pan of a man with a headset on smiling and laughing at something on his laptop. It then shows an over the shoulder shot of his laptop screen with a girl on blowing a kiss at him; it cuts to the same shot before so you see his reaction to this, there acting as a shot reverse shot between the two. There are several different variations of this with over the shoulder the shots looking towards the laptop showing the girl with it cutting back to the man doing the same thing as the woman. There is cuts the other different variations and uses a pan to establish scene changes. Using a combination of vertical tracking and pan it changes scene differently and bringing the man in focus using a focus pull for the next scene. The editing here is seamless between this scene and the next.

Middle: (Disequilibrium)

It fades into an establishing shot of some sort of church with the man walking down the aisle although the place is empty; this is where you first become aware that something isn’t quite right. The man walks through the frame and walks out of the shot. It cuts to a long shot of him walking towards the laptop with what appear to be the girl again. It pans up from the back of the laptop to the man; it is clearly visible that he is upset. There is shot reverse shot between his face and hers on the computer screen. It fades out and then back in again and you see hear her speaking before it cuts to a shot of a video camera and you can clearly see her in the background out of focus. It comes clear that the man has been watching video recordings of her and not using some form of webchat like it appeared they had. This is a twist in the film, in which the people watching don’t expect. The non-diegetic soundtrack is no longer playing here so you can hear her talk. It cuts to a close up of her face while she is talking about ‘if I was still around’ which makes it clear that she in fact isn’t alive. It becomes clear that she recorded these videos for him before an operation in case she didn’t make it. It cuts to another shot of clearly frustrated, before cutting again to him holding one of the cd’s she created in a medium close up before. It shows him putting it in his laptop. There is several different short scenes of him inserting a cd in the laptop and it is clear that these scenes happened before various different ones of him watching the videos in the earlier part of the short film. These scenes are overlaid with a voiceover from a video of her telling him it cannot watch the videos again. A close up him deleting her messages, as well as various different panning close ups of her writing on the cds. It cuts back him sitting in his suit although this time he is crying. It shows him holding a cd close before fading out.

End (new equilibrium)

The next scene begins with reverse tracking showing him walking holding some flowers before cutting to a close up horizontal track showing him walking. The non-diegetic sound of the song he is listening to is heard and it shows his change in attitude about the whole situation and him being more positive. It cuts to a high shot, almost acting as an over the shoulder shot, which reveals the name of the girl was Joy, which explains the definition of the word Joy at the very beginning of the short film which wasn’t clear then. It cuts again to a vertical track of him standing up whilst looking down at the grave. It fades out and fades in with a panning shot of the close up of the grave, which is what he is looking at. After fading to black, the next scene is a flashback of before her death, in which it explains that she had some sort of operation. There is just the sound of their dialogue with some background diegetic sound.There is a long shot of the couple, where they are off centre, she is reassuring him that there is a high chance she will make it, when we know she did not. The lighting here is quite dull showing the seriousness of the mood. It cuts to a medium close up of him talking showing his facial reaction to it. It cuts to similar shot of her, trying to reassure him that it will be okay. The main focus is on her with his face being slightly out of focus at this point. Whenever the focus is on either one of them the background is completely out of focus. This acts as a shot reverse shot. It then cuts back to long shot of them, similar to before fading out to end the short film.