Spike's Film Blog

The Fly; dir. Olly Williams, 2014 The Fly was one of my favourite pieces of the set texts no because it was particularly clever or insightful, but because it was simply, darkly  funny.  There's something incredibly endearing about a film that knows not to take itself seriously, especially given the constriction in length of a short film format. Here we have a film about a getaway driver who cracks under the pressure of anticipation to explosive and dramatic effect - that's it; anything more 'profound' and it would have been insufferably unaware, incomplete. Notable here is the fact that as compared to many of the other texts we have set, the performance is both prevalent and very good. Now to be fair, the direction to 'just go mental' is hardly revolutionary, but nonetheless the role of an unhinged, self-destructive psychopath is aptly fulfilled. Some quick, tension-building editing is similarly employed to exaggerated effect, alongside some interesting cine...

Tight Jeans; dir. Destiny Ekaragha, 2008 Perhaps the most idiosyncratic piece in substance and style was Tight Jeans. With the simple premise of three friends bantering as members of the public roll pass, a surprising amount of commentary is achieved as to the typically unheard voice of young black men. Scripting, as you might imagine, is key to such an effect. The clearly minimal budget and resources have wound themselves into an intriguingly minimalist piece, but this serves as a wonderful example of a director harnessing such limitations to the charming benefit of their piece rather than struggling against it, to detrimental effect; something absolutely essential to the success of my own film. That isn't to put it without fault, however. There certainly exists the nagging issue of poor acting, unfortunately especially prevalent in a film so focused on its quality of language... perhaps it is the familiarity with the speech of young people that makes it irk me more. Similarly...

Echo ; dir. Lewis Arnold, 2013 Echo  stood out amongst our list as one of the most narratively accomplished and polished pieces, with a longer runtime of 18 minutes to facilitate the more fleshed out, psychological themes at hand. There's resonance here with the patience of  Slap  and the audience manipulation of  Over,  as the portrait of a troubled young adult is painted with a delicate hand, neither judgemental or coddling to the girl's issues. Our protagonist is played wonderfully as she strives for resolution to the trauma of her father's death, following the personal and social conflicts that she encounters in the pursuit of such resolution; her psychological deliberation manifests itself into a recurring narrative that she plays out with the strangers around her, reliving the moment that she heard of her father's accident. The line between the empathy of strangers and an alienation of mental health issues is trodden carefully as each new...

Operator ; dir. Caroline Bartleet, 2016 Gorgeously and elegantly minimal, the single-focus  Operator is perhaps the purest film that we have on offer; yet it deals (perhaps alongside Slap ) with the issues that it presents in a brilliantly frank and realist manner. Both films are comparable as such in tone, but where Slap carries itself with traditional filmmaking modes and structures, Operator revels in its short runtime, utilising this aspect to the effect of brutalising its dramatic arc. Telling the brief yet crushing story of a London fire brigade call operator's occupation, we are brilliantly taken by the call, entirely from the visual perspective of the operator. It would be foolish to let the visual simplicity imply a lack of technical accomplishment, however. Despite the singular focus and singular actress' performance, a plethora of techniques are used; a shifting crescendo of shots is utilised to subconsciously increase tension, with more 'enclosed frame' ...

Over ;   dir. John Threlfall, 2015 To say that this film was by far the most provocative and shocking is quite the understatement; the reaction to my first viewing can only be described with the word 'flabbergasted', but it's the fact that immediately afterward I wanted to watch the whole thing again that really solidifies this piece as so exceptional from our list. The patience, conceptualism and artistry displayed here is second to none, with subtle aspects of audience manipulation leading to something provocative and unforgettable. Coming in at 14 minutes, you might expect a piece with more scope for narrative and obvious thematic aspects, but Threlfall defies such an expectation in two ways: the first in a reversal of chronology and the second in the fact that the film is completely observatory. We focus onto a single suburban area, starting at the night after the event and finishing with the unexpected occurrence itself; through such a device the audience is allowe...

The Ellington Kid ; dir. Dan Sully, 2013 One of the more enigmatic and popular pieces we were given to research was  The Ellington Kid,  a five minute dark-comedy/drama/crime piece set playfully within the conversation of two young men in a kebab shop. It must be said from the get-go that this came out as perhaps my least favourite film of them all, but that doesn't mean to imply it as unhelpful in the process of research; whilst I didn't personally attach myself to the humour at hand, a collaboration with  Vice UK  meant that it gained some real traction at release, particularly within a younger demographic with a Youtube release as well. The story is told in colloquial fashion between two friends, with urban rumour circulating around the recent stabbing of a certain  Ellington Kid . With some nice editing in speed and grading to give the effect of storytelling, the narrative unfolds, right onto the pair's doorstep in the kebab shop; I won't ruin the '...

The Arrival , dir. Daniel Montanarini, 2016 The second of the set texts I will be reporting upon here is, as stated, The Arrival. An understated and conceptually simple piece taking beats from theatre, television and perhaps even advertising in turn, the cohesion and polish in the 5 minute running time here are fascinating from the perspective of creative influence, especially given the restrictions we have pertaining to our NEA film. Minimalism runs through the very heart of the runtime, in both a technical and creative sense; the film presents a single closing frame, gradually focusing upon a single woman's interior monologue, as she debates the decision of whether to keep a newfound pregnancy. This cohesion of emotion and technicality is the core of not only the indecision being shown here, but this style of short filmmaking to a wider degree; the possibilities presented by the format for abstract and less narratively bound stories are best encompassed by such (typically sho...

Slap , dir. Nick Rowland, 2015 It seemed appropriate to begin the rundown of short films that we have been given with the one that left the greatest impression on me, personally; the BAFTA nominated  Slap , in its brutal tone and presentation, left me reeling. At 25 minutes in length, it holds no bars in the story of a young boxer at odds with a society that shuns his form of self-expression. With the tonal and dramatic influence of  Billy Elliot  in a brutally short format,  Slap  pulls no punches; from the blood-pumping fast-cutting scenes of cathartic boxing to beautifully stripped scenes of our protagonist's escape through make-up (hence the title) and women's clothing, the intention is a piece of high emotion.  Slap  holds a mirror up to the hypocrisies of society when it comes to an evidently fragile definition of masculinity; our protagonist so disallowed to define his identity beyond a preconception. As for micro-elements, apart from the ...

A  short film  is any motion picture not long enough to be considered a feature  film . The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a  short film  as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all credits". Well there's the definition, but what is a short film in the context of wanting to produce one? The limitations given to us (beyond a 5 minute maximum running time) are surprisingly open ended, and in a medium often defined by a lack of definition - as in the facilitation for abstract ideas - the possibilities for a short filmmaker are seemingly limitless. The fact is that a short film can be anything from a biting, grit-filled tale of tragedy and commentary, to a wonderfully meaningless (in the best sense of the word) comedy, to something completely incomprehensible. As much as such a lack of guidelining could seem intimidating at first, you have to approach the prospect optimistically; to choose to s...

Hello there! My name is Spike, and this is a blog dedicated to the development of my A-Level Film Studies coursework. I know that doesn't sound like the most exciting prospect in the world, but bear with me; the idea is to develop a short film (of 5 minutes or less) through a number of creative decisions and influences, and to mark them all neatly through this convenient little blog. Something about me then. I'm seventeen years old and taking Film Studies at Hills Road Sixth Form College alongside English Literature and Classical Civilisations. Now both of those other subjects (as fascinating as they sound, I know) are fine and all, but film's really where my interest lies. I hope to one day be able to tell stories through such a medium, and this seems as good a place as any to begin the development of my first production. I'll be sure to write more about my initial reactions to the project brief in a later post, but I should probably fling some general genre prefe...