Screenings from Thursday

I planned to do a detailed analysis of one other film from Thursday but today I decided to briefly discuss the rest of the films we saw.

The Pudding Bowl - Vanessa Caswill

 'The Pudding Bowl' was colourful with soft lighting and featured simple non-diegetic chords to engage the audience, especially in times of dramatic effect such as when the protagonist runs to the mirror. The close-ups employed are used to connote the careful nature of the girl and juxtaposes the action which denotes to the mother that the girl has spilled glue in her hair, the audience seeing how careful she is and seeing the brother do it know that it was not her. This effectively puts the audience on the side of the little girl and creates empathy for the character.

About a Girl - Brian Percival

'About a Girl' builds character and development through a monologue but the lighting and mood of the scenes also does a lot to foreshadow events and juxtapose the ending to the beginning. Whilst the protagonist walks down the canal side, the lighting is bleak but in other shots, it is brighter. This has the effect of foreshadowing and also showing what has happened to cause what happens at the end. The lighting is reinforced by camerawork, a locked off camera is used for the past and hand-held is used for the present. I thought the piece was slow paced but it suited it for the twist at the end.

Audiotour - Stephane Kaas

At the end of 'Audiotour' as the protagonist takes off the headphones, the diegetic sounds of the world around her are faded in; this denotes that she is now emerging from her immersion in the audiotour and facing it's description of her. The lighting throughout the piece is light and connotes knowledge and exploration. The main focus is the protagonist's journey of discovery through the city and finally of herself through the eyes of the audiotour, this means the protagonist has very few characteristic developments and focuses the audience and on the plot.

Rite - Michael Pearce

In 'Rite' we see a reversal of roles, the father only wants to please his son. This is clear with the lengths that he goes to, even if he doesn't know his son well enough to be able to make it work. The acting is restrained and there is good tension. The director has considered the ending well, not hearing the music from his son's ipod as the viewer and not taking us into that point of view made the film all the more poignant.

Le Miroir - Pedro and Ramon

At first, the film is sound oriented, we don't see very much until we arrive at the mirror. This film is POV and once the viewer grasps the concept, they do not get bored because each transition carrying from one age to the next is different and new. There is very little outside view of the mirror and the filmmakers have limited themselves with this however they have been very clever in keeping the viewers interest. The lighting changes with the protagonists mood and the viewer can tell that it is the same protagonist aging due to the idea of having tattoos. Overall, this film is well created and realised considering that the concept is easy to grasp so the filmmakers have had to do more to keep the audience immersed.