Ahmed Has A Clock!
About A Girl
Love Hate
That Overly Religious Friend
Charlotte
Ahmed has a clock is a short film based upon a boy who brought in a homemade clock into school. The police was called into the school on the information that his homemade clock was a bomb due to his name and ethnicity. This short film shines a comedic light on this awful event and at the same time informing people of how looks can be deceiving and not every non-white American is a terrorist.
In the short film, the use of the four conventions is used to mellow dramatically dramatise the scene to emphasise the sarcasm in the short film. One example of this is the non-diegetic music in the background. It starts of very calm and then as soon as they find out he has a clock the music intensifies and becomes more sharp. The volume also gets louder as the tension builds to emphasise how dramatic the situation is. Towards the end there is a build up of sound into a diegetic and a non-diegetic cacophony of sound that makes it seem like an extreme, intense situation.
The use of lighting and camera angles also adds to this over dramatic, sarcastic message its trying to put out the lighting is high key when showing the child who is a suspected terrorist which connotes that he is the good person here whereas the emergency call people are shown in low key lighting which would connote evil.
The mise en scene of the costuming of the uncle and nephew are made to seem very subtle and insignificant. This subconsciously connotes the sense of normality in the characters, emphasising the innocence of the characters, contradicting the perception of the character that is a potential extremist. You would normally expect to see some sort of mise en scene to dictate something evil about the child, however the complete opposite of this is put into this to reinforce the message of not all people of Middle Eastern/Asian decent are extremists.
The use of symbolism in the short film at the end is used to sum up peoples opinions to terrorism and ethnic minorities. The underlying issue with this and the reason for these assumptions was created by the medias representation of the people responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The use of a plane at the end almost summarise the message behind the short film which is that not all people called Ahmed are suicide bombers, they are normal people like everyone else.
About a girl is a short film about a young teenage girl living in Manchester. The film discusses issues such as poverty teenage pregnancy and aspirations and dreams. The main character is thirteen years old and we discover that she is pregnant at the end of the film. The four conventions are subtly but very effectively used to portray the mindset and feelings of the character that isn’t always evident due to her strong persona. For example the rate of cuts in the film can be seen as a direct link to her heart beat and the rate of this also changes throughout as less cuts are used talking about her dreams and aspirations with her friends but more cuts are used when talking about her mum and how she feels mistreated by her, we can tell she is angered by this as the pace of editing here increases even though when looking at her she seems completely calm and content.
The whole film is shot by a handheld camera which is very shaky which connotes her state of mind, the only things we see clear are the memories she has which makes sense as it signifies how the events of her life have broken her mentally.
When we get to the end of the film we have a worms-eye shot of the un born baby fall out of the thin plastic bag. The plastic bag can represent her body and removing the baby from her by water which is often associated with purity and cleansing, this could suggest that it is right for a girl of her age to get rid of an un wanted baby, this portrays more of a positive view on teenage pregnancy in the sense that it isn’t creating a sense of anger towards them but a more caring attitude. We can also look at the thin plastic bag as a representation of her belly and that it’s fragile and weak and they’re for not strong enough to carry a child.
At the very start of the film we see the rule of thirds being used as the girl is in the middle of nowhere dancing which makes us really focus on her and what shes singing. It is also a representation of herself as if she’s the only one performing she should be in the middle, centre stage but she’s not which could show that she isn’t right or something is wrong.
There isn’t any non diagetic sound used in the film which I think keeps the sense of realism and makes us believe that this is a real scenario and that it does really happen which I felt emphasized the message of teenage pregnancy is a real issue and people need support.
Love hate is short film about a young charity worker who meets a girl that brings out his dark side. The mise en scene of the costuming of the two main characters represents this. At the very beginning, charity worker is always covering up his red uniform. His is symbolic for his evilness and anger as these are commonly associated with the color red. The other main character is always wearing black, which connotes a dark entity or an evil person. This fits with the character. The mise en scene of the props in the house and how this changes represents the level of change which occurs as a result of this woman entering his life.
In terms of sound the sound is almost completely diegetic with only one soundtrack that repeats over and different points of the film. This adds to the tension build up and helps us to empathise as audience member. From the minimal use of sounds effects it makes the film more relatable even though it is very symbolic. The fact that the main character cannot shout really shows the restrain of the character in opposition to the female character, this change in volume demonstrates hierarchy and shows us who is motivating the editing.
In terms of editing it is clear to see that the female character is motivating the cuts and pace of editing for the majority of the film. There is one point where he plucks up the courage to fight his friend and the pace of editing is increased because of him up until the anticlimactic moment where he gets thrown into the wall. Then straight after the girl takes over the motivation of cuts as she attacks him afterwards
In terms of camera, naturalistic camera angles were used and no filters or effects were used to convey the realism of this completely un-naturalistic event. I think this worked well as it helped portray the message that we all have hate inside us and it was a very interesting way of showing us a representation of hate. At one particular point the camera is used to dictate dominance. A low angle is used looking up at the character that is representing hate. It is a point of view shot that connotes that hate is an emotion is above everything else as she is higher than him in the shot.
The mise en scene in love hate was used very effectively to dictate characters emotion and personality. The character representing hate is always dressed in black, which relates to having a black heart. Also black is a colour often associated with evil and dark beings. The house at the beginning is often shown in high key lighting but towards the middle of the short film when he starts becoming friends and influenced by hate, the house is shown more in low key lighting to emphasize the negative influence hatred has had on him.
That Overly Religiou Friend is a short sketch which can be classified as a short film that i found on youtube. the mise en scene of the costuming is effecxtive here as it portrays the charecetrs age group and time it is set as very modern from the casual clothi9ng and the use of a cap. this is effective as it makes it relatable to the desired audfience. the use of the prop of the bible inj the hand of the religious friend is effective as it distinguishges his charecter froim the other two and marks out who the the religious friend is as stated in the title. the use of an insert shot here is effective as it marks out exactly who the religious friend is which at the begining we are wondering from knowing the title of the short film. the mise en scen of the shirt the religious person is wearing is key here as it is blue. the shade of blue here is specifically used to somewwhat match the colour of a clear sea. this connotes the purity of this charecter and from this representation, the fact his personality at times is really exagerated contridcts this perceptiuon and adds comedic value.
the use of sound in this short film is very minimal, and souynds that are used are very stereotypical for films associated with religion for example. when they are saying a prayer together there is a non diagetic sound of opera music which is a convention of christianity and religion in film.
in terms of editing, mininal edditing techniques are used to emphasise the realism this event. the use of continuity editing aids this. the overly religious charecter is the person motivating the cuts as he holds the power in this scene. the power shift after he lectures them is really effectvie here as it conveys his presence as a charecter. although different camera angles are not used i feel this would have been an effective tool to use to make a bigger impact. we can tell it is a low budget prodcution as it is filmed with a handheld camera not a tripod. this is especially evident in the insert shot which was very effective. not only did it make it clear which charecetr he was but also effectively clarified which religion this religous charecter was a believer of.
Charlotte is a music video which can be classified as a short film with a very good twist.the use of editing, mise enscene, sound and camera all increase the power in the short film. the piece is about a drug dealer who meets a white woman, white being a street name for cocaine whcih is the main twist in this, and he talks about how uch he loves her. we hen find out that he kills her and cuts her up into little pieces and attempts to get rid of them.
in terms of camera, the use of panning is very effective here as it disorientates the audiences and leaves them questioning whats really going on, when you watch it you get a snese theres someothing more to this story however you cannot work it out. the rule of thirds is used effectively here as in the pub scene, the main charcetr is never in the centre, this makes us wonder why and also relates to the unstable mindset in which he posseses, the use of extrme close ups in the slaughter scene is also effective asit makes you focus hard on what is trying to be shown and also the rule of tirds is used again here to further disorientate the audience further at this moment.
the editing here is quite minimalistic t the begining, which leads us into a false sense of security to the innocence of the main character. it s quite simple cuts showing different angles and the enguagmnt of his firneds hearing the story. towards the middle of the piece, slow paced editing is used at the start of the slaughter scene to build tension. the slow movement of the charecter her is very enguaging at this point. this is then followed by the fast paced editing with frequent cuts and insert shots which dramatise the slaughtering of the girl.
in terms of sound, there is a lot of aspects of tis piece which was very effective. first of all the piece was a musci video so the lyrics of the song were very effective when consumed alongside what we were watching. the lyrics appeared to be refering to a gil which the main charceter find verysttrsctive. but within the lyrics there we little references to reveal that he was talking about cocaine such as good enough for buying a house and cutting a key, this appears to be literal for settling down with this woman however the deeper meaning behind it that a key is a drug dealing term for an amount of drugs. also the fact she is a white girl. also the use of the phrase 'make man want to taste it,' this is a way of people checking if drugs are legit although this isnt obvious at this stage that he is rfering to drugs, and finally he says might let them have a sniff, ifim ok with it, the use of the non diagetic high pithc sounds in the slaughter scene is effective as it helps the rise in tension of the scene. and finally he says just before slaughtering i guess you got to watch your weight. and the short sharp noises used when he is stabbing her is effective simila to the soundsused in alfred hitchocks.
and finally the mise en scene of this is really effectvie here. first the mask is used to hide the identity of the main charcetr but the mask is specifically red which connotes evil and blood, this tells the audiecne he is not a 'good charceter' from the very begining. the use of his dark coloured attire also connotes the darkness within this charcetr. in the slaughter scene the use of the room being all white empjhasises how dark the charcter is as it is contrasted by the pure white room which we associate with purity. the girl is strapped down with cligfilm whihc is transparent. this denotes the sense of incocene and clarity of the charecter making usa see how innocent she is. the use of props at the end of the slaughter scene is effective as it makes us wonder why he cuts her up into little piece and wraps them in clingfilm. at the very end the use of the same prop of foil to enable the realsition she was never a person and she was cocain is effective as it kind of joins up the dots and makes you think about what is really happening here.