'Musca' By Stefan Parker - Short Film Research - Sam Swinson

'Musca' By Stefan Parker - Short Film Research - Sam Swinson

About the Film (Director, Release date, Overall plot and Issues):

This short film is a 4 minute short that was created by Stefan Parker. It was released on  the 30th October 2014. I found this short film on Vimeo which is a video sharing platform.

In this short film we see a male protagonist as he is having what appears to b his breakfast in a dinner. While the protagonist is having his breakfast a fly starts trying to communicate with him. However, the fly gets killed by the cook when the protagonist's breakfast is given to him. Then at the end of the film we see the man become a fly.

This film created lots of tension and keeps the audience in suspense and on the edge of their seats as they don't know what is going to happen next. Additionally, it plays with the idea that there is an afterlife and in this case when you die you will become a fly. This is suggested to the audience by the fly communicated with the protagonist and it is suggested by the final shot where we see a fly in the frame after the protagonist has died. On top of this, the film shows small signs of the dark comedy genre as well a thriller because of the tense nature of the film.

Concepts:

I will be applying 3 media concepts to this short film. I will apply:

• Narrative
• Media Language
• Audience

Each concept will be colour coded to make it easier to see where I have applied each concept to the short film.

Analysis:

Narrative & Media Language:

• I think that this short film is a closed narrative structure because at the end of the film we see a resolution as the protagonist is then seen as a fly.
• However, the last shot of the film which is a long shot at a worm's eye view angle of a fly (Figure 1) connotes different meaning to different people which means different audience members will interpret the shot differently.
• I thought it connoted that the protagonist turned into a fly after he died.
• Also, this is a restricted narrative because we only know as much as the protagonist does.
• In addition, this is a chronological linear narrative because all the events of the story are in order and it is a circular narrative because we start with a long shot outside the dinner and end with a long shot outside the dinner.

Figure 1

• Todorov's narrative theory can be applied to this short film:
• His theory is that all linear narratives follow the same 5 part structure:
• Equilibrium - where everything is normal 
• Disequilibrium - where something or someone disrupts the equilibrium
• Confrontation - the protagonist recognises the disruption
• Resolution - the disruption gets resolved
• New Equilibrium - there is a new normality and the world has changed because of previous stages. 
• The opening shot is an establishing shot of the dinner that the protagonist is in (Figure 2).
• This is a long shot that is doing a slow zoom camera movement.
• This shows the Equilibrium to the audience so that they can see what normality is like for all the characters.
• This is done because it means that when there is a disruption the audience can understand what the characters want life to return to. 
• From the Equilibrium the audience can see that everywhere is calm, for example, only one car has driven past and there are not pedestrians on the pavement.

Figure 2

• Then there is a mid shot of the protagonist sitting at his table (Figure 3). 
• This is the Disruption part of Todorov's theory.
• At the same time, some non-diegetic background music fades in.
• This music starts to build up tension in the piece and suggests to the audience that something is going to happen.
• Also, we know that it is a fly because there is an iconic diegetic buzzing sound which is associated with flies.
• In addition, the protagonist's facial expression shows that he is confused as he turns his head up to look for the fly that he can hear.
• Furthermore, while his head is following where the fly is going his facial expression show that he is curious about the fly.

Figure 3

• After this, there are a series cuts to close-ups and extreme close-ups as the fly is communicating with the protagonist.
• Then there is a POV shot from the protagonist's perspective (Figure 4) as he is writing which suggests that he is writing what the fly is trying to tell him.
• This is the Confrontation part of Todorov's theory where the protagonist is trying to make sense and understand what the fly is telling him.

Figure 4

• Then there is the Resolution stage of Todorov's narrative because the fly gets killed.
• There are a series of POV shots looking at the napkin where the fly is and close-ups on the protagonist (Figure 5).
• In the close-ups, his facial expression shows that he is trying to process the information that he has just been told to him by the fly (Figure 6).
• Then after the non-diegetic music has crescendoed, when the protagonist found out that the fly is John Brown, the music suddenly stops when the fly gets killed this means that suspense is building right up to when the fly gets killed which suggests to the audience that something is going to happen.
• There is a close-up of the protagonist as he leans in to ask the fly a question (Figure 7) when there is a sudden cut to a POV shot when the fly get killed by the cook with a newspaper (prop) (Figure 8).
• At the same time, the diegetic thud sound that this makes is very loud which makes the audience jump.
• This leaves the audience questioning what was going to be asked by the protagonist which adds to the enigma.

Figure 5

Figure 6 

Figure 7

Figure 8

• After this, there is a cut as the protagonist gets killed by a van as he walked into the road in a long shot outside the dinner (Figure 9).
• There is a diegetic sound of car brakes showing that the van driver tried to stop before hitting the protagonist.
• Also, this is followed by the diegetic sound of a car alarm and people yelling in a panic because a man has just been killed.
• Then the camera pans upwards towards the sky to create a worm eye view long shot of a fly frantically flying around the frame (Figure 10).
• This is paired with a deigetic sound of a buzzing which suggest the protagonist is now the fly.
• At the same time, the tense non-diegetic background music fades in to convey a slightly sinister ending.
• This is the New Equilibrium part of Todorov's narrative as the new normal for the world involves the protagonist being a fly.

Figure 9

Figure 10

• On top of this, Ronald Barthes theory of codes, for example, the enigma code can be applied to this film:
• For example, right at the start of the film when there is a mid shot showing the fly (Figure 11) this created enigma because the audience wants to know why there is a focus on the fly.
• Also, they want to know what significance the fly has to the story of the film.

Figure 11

Audience:

• I found this film on Vimeo under the comedy and narrative categories.

• Demographic:
• the demographic for the film includes both males and females around the age of 20-40.
• this is because the film deals with death which is a serious issue that older people will understand better.
• also, the dark comedy part of this film will be better understood by an older audience.
• Psychographic:
• this film is for people that like dark humor.
• also, it is for people that have an interest in the afterlife because this film has interesting thoughts on what happens when you die.
• The target audience would find this film pleasing for a number of reasons:
• the film has an interesting end which gets the audience to think about whether the protagonist has become a fly.
•  it intrigues the audience with the enigma surround the fly that the protagonist meets.
• also, it keeps the audience on the edge of their seats with the tense non-diegetic music that build up and crescendos as something is about to happen.
• in addition, it doesn't leave the audience with a cliffhanger, for example, if the end of the film didn't show the fly again then it would be a less pleasurable film.
• on top of this, the build-up to the ending is done very well because the whole piece is very tight in terms of its construction leaving the audience shocked when the protagonist dies.
• This film was distributed by Dogwoof which is responsible for distributing many awards winning short films.

• This short film was screen at:
• Official Selection Cornwall Film Festival 2014
• Official Selection Landshut Film Festival 2015
• Official Selection Shooting People Film of the Month 2015
• Official Selection Plymouth Film Festival 2015 - Nominee for Best Fiction
• Official Selection International Fantastic Film Festival of Reunion Island
• Official Selection London Indie Film Festival
• These are all placed where keen film enthusiasts go which suggests they are part of the target audience for this film.
• Production Team:
• Director - Stefan Parker
• Producer - Stefan Parker
• Producer - Tara Tchablakian

Titling:

• The title of Musca is very interesting:
• Firstly, the work Musca in Latin means a genus species of fly.
• This relates directly or denotes to the film because it is about a fly.
• Also, the title is in pure white and the background is black which could represent the small nature of a fly (Figure 12).
• On top of this, the transition from the title is very clever because the text disappears with a wipe across the screen as a car drives past (Figure 13).
• This is clever because it is the same as when the protagonist gets hit by the van which means this is a foreshadow of what will happen later in the film.

Figure 12

Figure 13

Short film on Vimeo:

Musca - A Short Film from Stefan Parker on Vimeo.

Inspiration (relating this research to my short film):

What in particular you found inspiring, or CREATIVE about the use of the concept in the film?

I liked lots of aspects of this short film and found lots of parts of it inspiring in different ways:

• To start I found the tilting very inspiring because it was short and easy to remember, however, it had deep meaning because in Latin it means fly. Also, the wipe transition used to get rid of the text is the same way that the protagonist dies at the end of the film which adds to the circular narrative structure. This inspires me to think carefully about the title of my short film to see if I can create any hidden meaning in it.
• On top of this, the use of chronological, linear, circular and restricted narrative works very well and makes me want to see if I can add any of them into my short film. This is because it works well to help keep the audience interested and it ties in very well with enigma and Barthes other code the Action code.
• Finally,  I like the final shot because from the diegetic sound we know what the protagonist is dead or seriously injured so the final part of the shot we see a fly which connotes he has become the fly. I like this style of ending because is means that audience has to be carefully looking for clues about the ending. I would like to implement a shot like this into my short film because it is something that is interpreted differently by different people and it connotes meaning to the audience.