Wasp & Soft Comparison

Wasp and Soft are both Short Films. Wasp was written and directed by Andrea Arnold and Soft was written and directed by Simon Ellis.

Soft is about a Father and his Son confronted by a threatening gang while Wasp is about a mother that is struggling to live with her children while in poverty. 
Family is the main theme within both of these short films. Both families all have close connections with each other and love one another. Even though in Wasp, the mother seems to be a 'bad parent', she would still look after her children and protect them if anyone or anything will hurt them. 

The cinematography used in both films are very alike, for example, in Wasp, the camera is handheld and quite shaky at times showing the poor quality of her lifestyle. In Soft, the handheld parts are when the teenagers are on screen, also showing their poor lifestyle, but when the father and his son are on camera, it is still and the shots are perfect showing their steady lifestyle.

I enjoyed both of the films thoroughly because they are both very realistic and deal with situations that are occurring in modern life. I felt lots of sympathy for the characters having to deal with their problems because lots of people can relate to them.

Micro-features Essay - (Draft 1)

Hunger Games: Catching Fire - Katniss and Peeta's Beach Scene

Mise-en-scene immediately affects the audience with the colours used. The blue tint of colour used to help create the calm atmosphere that is in created in the scene. The colour blue symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence and faith, most of which are noticed within the scene. 

Also, the positioning of the characters and the setting are a big part of mise-en-scene. The scene is set on a beach, with the waves gently flowing and the sunset fading. This is an ideal and romantic location for the audience. Katniss and Peeta (the characters in the scene) are positioned sitting close to each other. This could connote that they have some sort of close relationship. They are relaxed by the way they are sitting which shows they are comfortable in each other’s presence.

Both of the characters are wearing the same costume, a black, white and grey jumpsuit. The colour black means power, elegance, and death, while the colour grey is associated with loss or depression. This links to the story because there is a lot of loss and death. Their costumes are also worn out (dirty and partly ripped in places).

The only prop used in the scene is a gold locket, which Peetagives to Katniss. Inside it are pictures of her loved ones. The locket gives her a reason to keep going. It is attached to a necklace, so when it is warn; the people in the photos are close to her heart. The colour of the locket is gold, which is precious metal which is associated with love, compassion, and courage. This links very well to the photos inside, because they are if the people she loves most, who are also the most precious to her.

As it is set on a beach, the sea gives off a really calm mood to the audience, making them feel at ease and relax with the sounds and look of it. 

During the kiss, Katniss and Peeta’s body’s turn into silhouettes in some way. The light background makes their bodies look dark. It will make the audience concentrate and observe the image so that they can directly relate to it and hopefully feel the moment.

There is a lot of dialog and interaction between the two characters during the scene. They both speak with soft voices, which shows how they are comfortable with each other, but also to show the audience that they are being secretive and they are planning something that they don’t want the other characters to know about.

Throughout the scene, there are lots of pauses from each character. This is for dramatic effect and creates suspense for the audience keeps their attentions because they want to know what comes next.

As we know Katniss and Peeta already seem close by the way they are sitting on the beach. But then they kiss, which shows us that they are more than just friends. For the audience, this scene is perfect, the setting, and kissing on a beach when the sunset goes down. The audience will crave this. 

Katniss is much more negative than Peeta in the scene. She sees things in a much more realistic way and notices her surroundings. From this the audience realise how smart she is. Once she has her minds set on something, she will not change it. It shows her determination.

The overall acting is very natural and realistic. We understand this from the pauses in the scene and especially their facial expressions when they pause; it looks like their characters are really thinking about the certain situation. When Peeta gives her the locket, she doesn’t say anything, her facial expressions give away her reaction. The way she looks at the locket makes it seem like she is thinking about them which makes the audience feel sympathy for her because she may never see them again.

Katniss says one line that caught my attention. When Peeta is telling her that without her he’ll have nothing, Katniss says “Peeta...” in a very realistic way. It sounds like her voice is about to crack like she is going to cry. This lets the audience see a softer side to Katniss and how she really does care for Peeta.

The conversation gets really sad during the end, when Peetasays he has no one. He puts on a smile even though he is sad. He does this to stay strong for Katniss, because he doesn’t want her to see him sad. The audience feel lots of sympathy for him because they know he isn’t happy but he still smiles through it. Also, Peeta looks to the floor a lot during the scene. This could be because he feels intimidated by Katnissas she is seen as the better fighter. He could also feel embarrassed because he is in love with her, but she isn’t in love with him. 

Katniss looks at the ground after she kisses Peeta, this could be to hide her true feelings from him, but could also mean that she regrets doing that because if they get too attached to each other while they are in the arena, and one of them dies, then the other will be in a very bad state.

After Peeta tells Katniss that no one needs him, she pauses and hesitates, then say “I need you”. She said this so he had something to fight for when he is in the arena. If she didn’t say it, he wouldn’t have anything to live for and would probably give up. However, she hesitated before she said it, debating whether she should say it or not. This makes it seem like she actually has feelings for Peeta and was nervous about telling him.

Ralph - A Short Film Analysis

Ralph Analysis

In Ralph, the camera is mainly handheld throughout and uses many close-ups shots of his face. The close-up shots are used to show Ralphs emotional state. Especially when he could not find the girls right number. He was getting annoyed and frustrated. There are also some scenes of long shots to establish the setting of the short film.

The sounds in this are all natural sounds that we hear every day: cars, traffic, and lots of people speaking at one on the street. These fit the setting and background well to make it look very busy. Although the background is noisy, it does not distract us from the main actors and what they are saying, because their voices are very loud and clear over the top.

Ralph only uses two props in this short film, a big suitcase and a piece of paper which he writes on. During the film he drags around the suitcase as if it is draining him. It could represent the process he is repeating, constantly trying to get hold of the girl. Although it is a burden, he needs to get hold of the girl, just like he needs his suitcase. He also has a piece of paper, which by the end of the film, is really warn out. This can sort of represent Ralph in some ways, and how he gets warn out during the film, from constantly calling different numbers to get hold of this girl and not succeeding.

As this is about a British boy who is travelling to France to see a girl, the language barrier plays a big part in this film. He has lots of trouble communicating with people and trying to understand what they are saying. This adds to the struggle of not being able to get hold of the girl, because he cannot seek help from anyone around him because they will not understand each other. Ralph is wearing tracksuit bottoms and a red shirt with the collar up, and a gold necklace. He can be seen as a stereotypical British teenager, and looks very out of place in the middle of France dressed like this. We see that he is not familiar with his surroundings when there is a shot of him standing in the middle of the station while people walk past. He doesn’t know where to go or what to do.

The main themes of this short film are loss and love. Ralph notices that the girl he visited already has a boyfriend, but while he’s there, he seeks love in another girl who works in the restaurant he went into for help. 

Video About Me

Here is a short video about me and why I chose the options I did at Couldson College.