Joe PettitAnalysing/Reviewing a short film in preparation for my own

My chosen short film was called ‘Screen Kiss’. It was an interesting film which leads it’s viewers to originally believe it would be a different genre than first turned out. The film language in mise-en-scene, editing, sound and camera-work made this clear, as I will be analysing. Originally I thought this an attempt at being anti-genre, though the film came in to its own and it became clear that it was a Ricky Gervais style mockumentary. It started with a professionally styled shot from a low angle, which shown two characters, running towards each other romantically in a field. The choice of non-diegetic sound in romantic music, as well as the cross-fade transition to them cuddling leads the viewer to believe that the film is a romance or drama. Cross-fades are a transition commonly used in romance films (shown right) and are a classic convention of the genre. While you do get the feeling that something isn’t quite right (the first two shots are so stereotypical you’d know this wouldn’t have won any awards), you aren’t quite sure what is coming next. All non-diegetic romance music cuts suddenly when we hear the diegetic sound of a man saying ‘Cut it’. We learn that this man is the director of the footage we have just seen when the camera is suddenly non-steady, creating a purposely unprofessional effect, as well as a lower quality to what seemed to be in the romance footage. This is the point that we learn that Screen Kiss is a film about a film, and is when it is clear that it is documentary-styled, as costumes are less fancy, and the originally beautiful woodland set has purposely become obvious that it’s just a film set in a near-by forest. From then on, the film cross-cuts between documentary-styled footage and the film footage that the crew are supposed to be filming. As the film progresses, we get audience pleasures out of the documentary styled footage as the cast and crew talk about each other behind their backs, which makes the cross-cutting with the actual footage all the more effective as it emphasises the characters they are playing are fake people. This perhaps hints at an ideology that people take films too seriously and that the characters aren’t in love in real life. The impressive thing about Screen Kiss is that the romance footage is so identifiable from the documentary-styled footage, as the cast’s facial expressions and body language when they are supposed to be ‘acting’ is so much more extreme and dramatic than when they are supposed to be behind the scenes. In the behind the scenes footage, the cast and crew will look at the camera and have such clearly different personalities than those characters they are playing. The use of text in the editing studio has foregrounded the documentary-style effects, ‘Catriona Newington – actress’ appearing as she ‘bitches’ (as they call it in the film) about her on screen lover’s kissing. Comments like this is what makes the cross-cutting so effective, as the audience of Screen Kiss finds comedy in the fact that the cast are talking about each other behind their backs, but then when reshooting, having to passionately kiss. The film ends with a final documentary styled shot from behind the scenes, in which the unnamed actor asks the actress on a date. The choice of shot chosen is effective in that it’s from behind them. The shot has a restricted view of the cast and is not done brilliantly on purpose to sum up the documentary-styled shooting. It finishes with him asking the girl on a date, and her shooting him down. The non-diegetic sound over this shot is a final high pitched ‘ding’. This is done to reflect that the audience should be satisfied that his happens as we have grown to dislike the actor throughout the film as he touched her inappropriately while shooting (we found out in the documentary styled footage).