Film Studies Blog

The Ideas No. 1 - A love film My first idea was to make a film encapsulating my ideas of what love is. I first did this by thinking about my ideas of romantic love in my relationship but then I branched out to family love and finally love of friends. and the conflict inside each of them. I wanted to present this as more of a slideshow of emotions rather than a cohesive narrative but problems occurred when I started to write a draft as I needed some sort of narrative to allow a sense of movement in the film, and in my opinion love is a fluid that flows through people and having a film that felt still wasn't appealing to me. The techniques I thought of using to create this fluidity involved mainly editing and cinematography. I wanted to use loads of close-ups and pan and tracking shots to make movement a key aspect of the short film, but I found conflict in this as it prevented me from using more relaxed ways of shooting to show eloquent moments between the relationships of the

The Films The four short films that I found interesting are listed below: (in the order that I watched them.) 1) Curfew (2012) directed by Shawn Christensen 2)  La Jetée (1962) directed by Chris Marker 3)  Swimmer (2012) directed by Lynne Ramsay 4) Meshes of  the Afternoon (1943) directed by Maya Daren and Alexander Hammid Curfew Curfew is a very stylistic film, employing the use of both the camera and lighting to show off its distinct style. Throughout the film the camera changes from slow, steady cam shots to more handheld sporadic shots, changing the style depending on the environment, from the inside of the bowling alley to Richie's old apartment for example. This use of contrapuntal filming changes the tone in the film frequently, making it a more light hearted film into a film similar to DRIVE or Taxi Driver. This idea is reinforced by the slow zoom, pan and tracking shots in the short. These add a dramatic feeling to the film, making the audien