5 - Short Film Analysis - LoveField

The short film begins with the title card ‘LOVEFIELD’; it is presented in white lettering over a long shot view of a beautiful but isolated land/field, this immediately sets the audience an overview of the films context. Over this title card and throughout the rest of the short film plays a piece of music which constantly varies from low to high pitches, which may invoke a range of thoughts and emotions such as tension for the audience. While the music plays the camera is constantly exploring the empty field to ensure the seclusion of the area. Shortly after, the camera is zoomed into a jet black crow; this could have been used by filmmakers to foreshadow death. As the camera gets lost in-between the grass field, the audience begin to hear a constant ‘tooting’ sound of what may be a cut off phone line, which begins to get louder. However the object is not yet shown. I found this helps to create greater intensity. As soon as the object (phone) that was in charge of the sound is revealed, it is obvious to the audience that there is someone on this secluded land after all. This leaves the audience in great confusion and suspense. Suddenly we begin to hear Squamish yells and shrieks from a young women that is in pain and tissues of red blood are presented to emphasize on the danger and seriousness of the situation. The music rapidly becomes louder and the woman’s yells and movements stop unexpectedly, when a man abruptly digs a knife covered in blood into the ground, leaving the audience assume she is dead. We are then immediately accompanied by thE ‘killers’ presence and the camera focuses on him from a side view, zooming in to show that the character has a tattoo of a skull on his right arm, the skull is the third symbol that has been associated to death in this short film so far. The camera work that is next used assist the audience to assume that he is the killer as we watch the camera follow the man running back to his car in haste. At this point making the audience presume that he’s running away.
However, we get a close up of the man hastily trying to open the trunk of the car, as all this is happening the crows cawing in the background becomes louder and more regular , reinforcing the representation of something bad occurring but also keeping the audience at unease. The man carries a piece of cloth out of the trunk and walks back to the mysterious lady whom the audience believe is now dead or hurt. Meanwhile there are constant cuts between the crow and the man, in which at one point they match eye contact; this use of transition may be used to show that although the field is isolated there is still something out their watching him. The man returns to the woman and at this point the camera is now positioned at a low angle and the music becomes harsher with more piercing and violent strings, this may be used to reflect back to the brutal situation that the character now finds himself in. HOWEVER, seconds later the audience is presented with the sound of a new born baby cry, and the audience may now be alarmed by the huge smile of the so called ‘killers’ face as he carries the baby and cries out ‘it’s a boy’, the mother is then introduced in a extreme close-up emphasizing on her smile and happiness of the new born baby.
I really enjoyed the twist of the short film, making the audience visually believe that something was going to happen when in fact the complete opposite occurred (Death-Birth).

I believe this video is very conventional. It follows many of the conventions used in short films. for example, in this film there is a very minimal use of dialogue. The use of very little dialogue is a convention of short film. By using little dialogue it is meant that the music has to play a huge part in the film. The soundtrack alone has to create the mood of the film. Also, the soundtrack has to create a narrative for the film because there are no words used to convey the story. Another convention used in this short film is the use of minimal characters. This means that within the duration of the film the characters have to become well known to the audience and as a result short films cant use many characters or the story will just be all over the place and feel incomplete.