2 short films

On loop

https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2014/09/26/on-loop/

What do you like/dislike about it?

I liked this short film as it recreates the way that your brain works early in the morning and how all the random thoughts start flooding into your brain and start questioning if you did certain things like turning of the cooker, if you should or shouldn't have a drink incase you'll need to get up to go to the toilet etc. I found it very confusing when the screen started to break up into different segments but I after a while I could see that it helps put across the way that your mind can get things puzzled up when your awake at an unusual time.

I also like the way the whole short film is shot in a POV from the characters perspective of her lying in bed so that the audience can see what she's seeing and makes the connection between the audience and the character make it feel like your the character. At 4am a person’s thoughts are all over the place and the person wont be thinking straight. The use of split screen aesthetic I do think was useful to recreate the way that a person mind will be reacting and was applied to visually reflect this state and layering of time. I think it was effective to feel trapped in one perspective because that is what insomnia is like, you are almost paralysed and unable to see things from a different perspective so everything kind of happens all at once.

What is the story the film is trying to tell? 

The story the film is trying to tell is how the mind works around 4am and how your mind isn't functioning properly and how it just starts to wander and think about random thoughts and how the mind plays tricks on you and changes the way you see things and make you see things that are not there. It explores the way a person would think and recreate the state of mind that the person is in. I think the use of including the random thoughts was very effective like repeating how she doesn't know if she turned her oven off, and questioning that she needs to get a paperweight and sending a random text message and becoming overwhelmed by all the things she has to do etc.

Does it deal with any particular themes?

The short documentary deals with the theme of sleeping and how insomnia is something that people can struggle with and will find it hard to put your mind at rest to fall back to sleep. I think this is an important theme to make a short film about as a lot of people may feel they can relate to the situation and can show how the mind works.

Do you feel this is 100% a true representation of the events? 

I feel like its a very good demonstration of how the mind works but I wouldn't say 100% because you cant see life in the vision of a split screen affect even though that may be how it feels in that moment in time.

Is the film told from more than one perspective or several? 

The film is shown of one perspective of a women in bed that shows her bedroom around her and how she is seeing the room around her and can see what movement she makes and what she can hear.

What was the hardest part of the documentary to make?

I feel like recreating that feeling would be hard to make as you can never really feel what its like to be awake at that time unless you experience it yourself so the way that the documentary captures that feeling is really impressive and makes it extremely realistic to the way that people feel is very impressive.

What techniques did the filmmaker use to grab/hook your attention?

The use of the split screen really hooked me as it made me confused until I realised that how I was supposed to be feeling because it recreates the state of mind of confusion when your in that situation so think it was really intriguing and made such an effective outcome.

Pumpkin movie

https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2020/10/28/pumpkin-movie/

What do you like/dislike about it?

I liked this film because its extremely realistic and exactly how a friendship is between two friends who have been friends for a long time. I like how they had a tradition of carving pumpkins over FaceTime on Halloween as they live far from each other. I like how there bond is obvious and how comfortable they are towards each other.

What is the story the film is trying to tell? 

The story is about 2 girls on FaceTime but it also discuses how men can act out of character on the occasion and each time they tell story it gets a bit and bit worse. I think overall the short film is trying to teach the idea that sometimes you may have questionable interactions with someone and that its good to be cautious in social situations and look out for anything that could be a bit suspicious. I also think it shows the importance of friendship and how friends can be so close and have a nice amount of trust to be able to talk about things that can be serious issues.

Does it deal with any particular themes?

It deals with the theme that sometimes people can act a bit out of character and how some people can act within the world and that its okay to talk to someone about the issues that you may face in some social situations.

Do you feel this is 100% a true representation of the events? 

I am unsure if its 100% accurate but based on my own experiences I would say its a very good representation of how friends debrief situations and how lovely that friendships can be to keep a tradition with each other of carving pumpkins and just how nice a bond can be. I also think it represents how some discussions go between people and that they each take turns telling personal stories that have effected them and how it made them feel.

Is the film told from more than one perspective or several? 

The film is told from the perspective of 2 women who are on a facetime call, the screen switches between a women sitting on her floor with her laptop, to the visual of the skype call between the friends. They each take turns telling a personal story and the audience gets the perspective of both of the characters and there stories.

What was the hardest part of the documentary to make?

I feel like the hardest part of this documentary to make is telling the stories as they may have been real life issues that have happened to the women. So I think talking about a situation is a hard thing to do as it could become emotional and personal so creating and possibly re telling something that happened to yourself may be hard to share.

What techniques did the filmmaker use to grab/hook your attention?

I found it extremely effective how each time that they were taking turn telling stories to each other they just kept getting more serious so I became hooked on the fact that each of these stories being told are just getting worse and made me want to continue watching to know what these women have experienced and it inflicted an emotional response from me because I felt uneasy that these kind of things do happen in the daily lives of people and how they can actually be quite serious.