Hattie Millard's Blog

This film was a documentary-style film, centred around a 999 operator. It gives us an insight into the highly stressful atmosphere of an emergency call, and evokes empathy for a job which we don't give much thought about. A sense of continuity is created with the inclusion of the more trivial calls at the beginning of the film, and we are given the impression that the cycle will continue until another emergency call comes in. I think that the use of cinematography in the beginning of the film is particularly effective, as the close-up shots with panning movements establish the space of the call centre, without using dialogue. Overall, the cinematography is actually very minimal, as it facilitates the importance of the performance and the sound of the phone call Not many kinds of shots are actually used, we see meduim close ups, close ups, medium shots and over the shoulder shots. But we remain in the same small space for the whole of the film. The ending is open, as with the begin...

  The Ellington Kid revolved around two teenagers, one telling the other a story about how a boy was stabbed in the Kebab shop they are eating in. I would use the cinematography of this film to inspire my own, as it effectively created a tense atmosphere through its use of tracking shots. I also liked how the narrator was used to present the events from a biased perspective, which was then undermined by the twist ending. The storytelling style was engaging to watch as a viewer.

This film has a complete narrative arc, a story. It is similar to Operator, another short film I have studied, as the premise is a situation, however, it takes a more sinister turn. Also, similarly to Operator, there is an open ending. The film explores themes of echoes, repetition, emotion, guilt and corruption. Caroline was a very well written character, as our perception of her changes over the course of the film. We begin by completely pitying her due to her authentic performance, but slowly as we see the holes in her story the exact same way the people interfering on the street do, we question the truth in her integrity. It takes a darker turn at the end as we question the true motives by manipulating the kindness of strangers. The film expertly uses structure to change our perception of Caroline. We are situated with her, following her perspective in cinematography, although similar to the people interfering on the street, we aren't able to understand her thoughts- we take th...

 The Slap is a short film about identity, freedom and feeling trapped in your body. It follows a teenage boy named Connor, who secretly enjoys wearing makeup and feminine clothing. It was extremely moving, I think the performance stood out to me in terms of micro-elements, however it had a clear sense of location and use of symbolic mise-en-scene. For example, the motifs of broken mirrors representing reflections of a fragmented and confused identity and makeup as device of transformation and expression. In these images, the film did an excellent job in 'show don't tell', exploring themes through physical images rather than showing them through dialogue. The setting of a working-class northern English town was very important, as it is a culture of an environment where masculinity is at the heart of family values, where men are expected to conform to very traditional views on gender.  Aesthetically, location is also communicated through cinematography and use of colour in ...

The Fly uses mise en scene and performance to establish the location of the film as the 80s, probably in East London.  The old 80s model BMW car and the leather jacket and hairstyle suggest to us an 80s setting, also due to the lack of technology props. It seems to be set in East London, due to the industrial setting shown at the beginning and during the film, the cobbled streets and brick walls feel reminiscent of that in East London. We know this is set in the UK due to the accents of the actors. The Fly uses a traditional three-act structure. The setup feels to start at the black screen at the beginning of the film, where there is a sound bridge of the men talking however the . Conflict begins when the main character attempts to catch the fly in the cup when the horn gets jammed. The resolution is when the robbers walk out of the bank. The Film uses eyeline as the main device in creating tension. The eyeline is used to physically align us with the actions. Its established w...