2 Short Film Analysis

The Big Shave

The Big Shave (1967) is a short film directed by Martin Scorsese and lasts approximately 6 minutes. The Big Shave is also known as Viet ‘67 due to the illiteral meaning of the film and the subliminal messages to the war between, mainly, the USA and North Vietnam.

Mise en scene
The man in the film, Peter Burnuth, is shown to be standing in a very white and clean bathroom. Connotations of the colour white in media represent clean and pure and even good. He goes over to a cabinet and picks up a razor and starts to shave. This seems normal untill he finishes and then starts again. When watching it I thought he had missed something so was shaving it again but in fact he was shaving his whole face. he repeats this phase a nunber of times with blood almost oozing from his face, hereby giving the film a conotation to the naam war. The repetitive shaving and blood loss is supposed to represent the amount of American soldiers who died in the war or so some critics think.

Camera Angles
We start of with a medium shot of the man, he looks clean and good and we know not of what he is about to do. We then have a lot of close up shots to show the man shaving repeatidly and even some extreme close ups which to me show the man has finished shaving but is going to carry on to represent the way the American government were in regards to the 'Naam war.

Editing
There was not much editing needed as the blood that spilled from the man was all in the actual film. Also, due to it being an old short movie, there wasnt a great deal the director could do, even if it was Scorcese.

Sound
The only sound we hear is a track recorded in 1939 called"I cant get started" by Bunny Berigan.
It accompanies the short film and in a way, sets the mood.




The Black Hole

The black hole is a short film directed by Phil and Olly in 2008. It falls into the short film category due to its length of 2 and a half minutes which is short, even for this type of film. In brief, it is about a man who is granted a girft but takes it for granted which is a reference to the society we live in.


Mise en scene
The film starts with the only character in the film standing next to a photocopier. He is a young white adult, probably around his late 20's. He is becoming quickly frustrated when the photocopier will not print his work and the looks at his watch show he is not enjoying himself. Eventually, when the photcopier gives him his work, it is something completely different: A black hole on a piece of paper. The man sets it aside, takes a swig of his water and places the cup where the black hole is, only to find the cup dissapears into it. This promts him to place the black hole on the vending machine and to his shock, he manages to put his hand through the glass and pull out a chocolate bar. You can see by his facial expressions that his mind is concoting a plan which is a great effect as there is no dialogue in the piece. He uses the black hole to open a locked door and in the room he is enters is the companies safe box. He again uses the black hole to circumvent the security and quickly begins taking money from both the safe and at the smae time, the company. The morale of the story kicks in now when he begins to take more and more and eventually, can't reach any more so he decides to climb through the hole and into the safe, his mistake being he knocks the paper down and is now trapped in the safe.

Editing
At the very start of the film, we see a fade disolve and then the credits apear. It's very effective as the disolve is the same as the black hole on the piece of paper. Apart from that, we just see a lot of changes in the tempo of the cuts. The film goes against the usual conventions of a short film by using fast cuts when the mood is dull and slow cuts when the tempo has increased.

Camera Angles
The first camera angle we see is a pan to the right and when it becoms stationary, is focuses on a medium long shot of the man and the photocopier. Whilst the camera changes, we still stay with medium close ups for most of the film untill the guy eats his chocolate bar. At this point, we get an extreme close up which is the same when he realises he is going to go into the closed door. The shots stay close up the man so we can see his expressions as he becomes greedier and greedier.


Sound
The sounds we hear are mainly ambient. It is that of the photocopier and then of every thing the man does; Opening the door, moving the paper, eating a chocolate, collecting the money and whilst this is all happening the photocopier is still making noises. Apart from that there are only two different sounds. These are, the sound that has been included when the man puts his arm through the black hole, and the sound of him laughing sadisticly to himself.