Short film research, Gone south- Jake Woolven

Gone south

I found this short film (Gone South) on Vimeo by searching "short films." This short film is about two bikers travelling across America. It is approximately 5 minutes long and was directed by Skyler Nielsen. In this short film The narrative shows how their journey transitions through long shots with what appears to be a drone or some kind of jib. In this there is no talking however you can tell what is happening by other media language such as body language and facial expression.


For this short film I will be focusing on


- Narrative
- Audience
- Representation


To begin, within this short film, the narrative is told through what we see. This means that you can guess what is happening by what you are shown. For example, you are able to tell the passing of time by how the setting changes. The lighting also affects this by becoming lighter and darker throughout the short film allowing us to infer it was over multiple days. The terrain they are going over changes as the film goes on suggesting they are going long distances. In this, Barthes codes allow us to get greater insight into the story. For example there is alot of enigma as this has little to no dialouge at all. However, in this short film it is hard to find Todorov's theorys of narrative as I cannot find where the stages of narrative occur such as the Equilibrium, Distruption, Realisation, Restored order and new equilibrium.

The representation of the main characters is that they are both middle aged men. This infers that they work and have possibly known eachother for a long time. They also share similar hobbies mainly riding motor bikes. This is apparent by the narrative of the story being about them both going on a road trip across what we can infer is America, as it has a bystander giving information to the bikers which also infers that they are not from the US themselves.

They also appear to be wearing quite nice clothes and have expensive motor bikes. This represents that they have a lot of disposable income and infers that they are middle class.

 

Later in the short film, they drop the bikes which represents that maybe they don't care about the bikes or they are enjoying the moment which represents that money is not an issue to them. However, we see them laugh it off as if they know that it was a silly thing to attempt which shows they are having fun on their trip.

The audience that this is targeting is possibly a more mature demogtraphic. This is as it has lots of extreme long shots of scenery which would be more appealing to older more mature audiences. It may also be trying to target more educated audiences. This is as the audiences have to infer alot of things on their own as it is a silent film and there is alot of enigma. This means there is a more niche audience meaning it may not appeal to a large audience.



From this short film I have taken inspiration from the extreme long shots. I found that it gave a great insight to where the short film was set and where they are headed next. I also liked how there is little to no diaglouge. This is as the extreme long shots and non verbal communication of the characters gave us information on the narrative.  However because of this there are parts of the narrative which are left out which could make the short film more appealing to larger audiences.