Reflective Analysis For AS Film Studies

Michael Knight

Introduction• For my AS Film Studies production coursework, I decided to create a short

drama film. The short film has been named ‘ His Last Moment’ because of the narrative, which I will be analysing further into the analysis. The main target audience of the film are women aged 30-50. This was chosen for several reasons. Women are the stereotypical gender to watch drama genre films and especially middle-aged women would go to see this type of film. This meant that I needed to use correct iconography to attract to this audience whilst attempting to attract different audiences.

• In order to conform to the generic conventions, I decided to would employ a range of micro features in order to show the feelings that the characters have and to especially get a sense of sympathy towards the main character. I took responsibility for all tasks in the project as I worked by myself. I have though decided to focus on two micro-features that I believe I could study thoroughly in this analysis. These micro-features are ‘Cinematography’ and ‘Performance’.

• The narrative of the short film is about an elderly man dying of heart disease. I wanted to establish a sense of melancholy and sympathy throughout the film. To know how micro-features are used in sympathetic dramas, I looked into scenes and short films with a similar narrative to mine.

Cinematography

• The first micro-feature that I will focus at is cinematography. The film begins with an argument so I believed the use of different camera angles would fit with the rise of tension in the scene. My main use of cinematography that I used in the scene was shot-reverse-shot as this is the usual way to film conversations in any films. I also used low-angle shots of the characters to show how the characters in the scene are showing their strength by making them look tall. I used a two-shot in the scene to show the characters together. There is a pan track shot of the son walking into the room with his father lying on the bed to show the viewers that he had just walked into the room. Mid-shots are used mostly in the bed scenes with shot-reverse-shot also used to show cinematography skills that are used in films. There is also an over the shoulder shot to show coverage in the scene.

• When the father enters a flashback when he was a child, there is a pan shot showing the area. This establishes where it is set. POV shots are used to show that the child is throwing the bread and further long shots are shown to show the child. I had to reshoot some of the cinematography in some scenes, as they weren’t suitable for the scene. Originally the argument was just two shots and after audience feedback such as “ Two shot of you and your dad arguing needs developing or changing”, I changed it to what it is now. There was no coverage in the first cut so I added coverage to make it flow better and show better use of cinematography. I believe that the final cut suited to the genre of the piece more as it featured cinematography that added meaning to the narrative. As it is know, Cinematography is important as it engages with the audience to tell them different things about the feelings and emotions in each scene.

• If I had time to develop further I may use cinematography in a different way by choosing to use more adventurous shots like an extreme close up. I could have used this to show deep emotion when the father is dying. I could have also used framing more effectively by making characters look larger in the frame at different parts of the film. I have learnt that using cinematography effectively is extremely important in a film and if cinematography doesn’t appear to fit the film, it will not be successful.

Performance

• The next micro-feature I will like to focus on is performance. In this short film a correct performance was vital. I needed to convey the correct emotions where it fit. As the film begun an argument was taking place so the correct emotions had to be shown from the characters. Anger was the most important characteristic that needed to be shown here as both of the characters felt rage with each other. This meant shouting using abusive language accompanied with paralinguistics had to be used. I had to write a script that used correct language for this. Phrases such as “You really don’t want to argue with me because you know what I can be like” shows that anger is trying to be conveyed. There is a deliberate overlap when the father says “Don’t you dare shout at me, I didn’t tell you for you own…” It is meant to show that it is not a scripted argument and that the son wants to dominate the argument.

• The scenes at the bed two years later showed different emotions. The son is still showing anger and exasperation towards his father because of the argument. He addresses his father as “Peter” This shows that he no longer thinks of him as his father. Despite this the father’s performance shows him as weak and old. He speaks slowly and quietly. He struggles sometimes to talk and has to gasp for air to talk. Unlike his son, he feels upset for what happened and tries to plead him. I tried to show this through the script that I wrote. The father says “I’m ok, don’t worry about me” (slowly) and the son replies with “I’m not” (very abruptly). This gave sympathy from the audience to the father.

• Many scenes had to be reshot because of performance. Originally the argument scene saw the son annoyed but not angry and the father trying to plead with the son. This didn’t work as many audience feedbacks such as a form saying, “The performance needed developing”. This meant that I re-wrote the script and made the characters both angry. This worked better. If I were to do this again I would try and show sympathy more by adding extra scenes whilst reducing others.