Maddy Film Analysis

Introduction

My film ‘The Flashback’ is a short drama film. It is a silent film where the main character, the girlfriend, is flashing back to distant memories with her late boyfriend. It starts of with happy memories of their time together then we see that he starts to become violent. This is when he gets poisoned by his girlfriend and dies.

When I first started this project the storyline was slightly different; the girlfriend was a wife and she was standing over a fire burning photos and her wedding dress but it was changed due to health and safety risks of having a fire and being unable to obtain a wedding dress. However I stuck with a silent movie to emphasise the emotion that the girlfriend feels throughout the film and I thought that have dialogue would not achieve this. I went for this type of drama because it is a simple yet effective storyline.

I had the role of editor, cinematographer and co-director. I worked with Carl who was co-director, cinematographer and mise-en-scene.

Camerawork

As one of my micro-features, camerawork was important for my film. I used different angle shots and zoom so that it looked like we are following the girlfriend’s feelings and reactions to her boyfriend and so the audience felt sorry for the girlfriend and relieved when the boyfriend was out of her life. I used canted angles when the girlfriend walks into the lounge and walks past her dead boyfriend, I used this angle for the scene because she walks past him like nothings wrong but the audience knows he is dead. I used close-ups of the girlfriend when she is angry reminiscing on how horrible her boyfriend was, but the audience don’t know why so they want to know more. There were no long takes in my film because I felt that the sudden change in scenery would keep the audience intrigued as to what had happened. I kept the girlfriend standing still for the master shot right up until the end where she walks away like she walking away from everything that’s happened.

Editing

When I started editing I made sure that I included every single take I did so I could look through all the bloopers and re-takes that might have something I could add to the main piece. Also I tried to make sure that some shots faded into the next one so that it didn’t look like a rough cut. Although with having to go back several times to the master shot it was often difficult to tell which ones I needed to use which took up time having to re-watch some clips to make sure they were right. Whilst editing I cut some scenes down which may have been too long to make sure that it was sudden changes throughout the film.

Sound

The music playing in the background was a significantly important part of my film. I had to find the right music that portrayed the emotion perfectly and then cut it down to fit the length of my film. The only time we see the character speak is when the boyfriend is just about to hit the girlfriend but don’t know what he says. Being a silent film helps the audience be engaged with the film because they want to know what is going through her mind right up until she kills him.

Mise-en-scene

I chose casual clothing for both the girlfriend and the boyfriend so that everything looked normal and happy between them until the murder so it is more unexpected when the rat poison jar is shown the audience but hidden from the boyfriend. The two locations used were a park and a house. The park was quiet but peaceful looking as the two characters were lying down relaxing next to each other. The house was neat and tidy and you could easily tell what room they were in. Both of these locations make it look like there is nothing wrong between them and they are happy. This re-enhances the sudden unexpected murder of the boyfriend. On the days I filmed it was good weather and lighting so I didn’t have to edit how bright the shots were.

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