'Alive In Joburg' By Neill Blomkamp - Short Film Research - Sam Swinson

'Alive In Joburg' By Neill Blomkamp - Short Film Research - Sam Swinson

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

This short film is a 6 minute short that was created by Neill Blomkamp. It was initially released in 2005 and then it was officially released in 2006. I found this short film on YouTube which is a video sharing platform.

This short film is about the human race having to deal with extra-terrestrial beings invading Earth. These extra-terrestrials have massive spaceships that fly above the city and tap into the electricity and water supplies. The aliens were used a slave labour and they had to live in "conditions that were not good". This film takes place in South Africa in the 1990's which means that the aliens were forced to live with the already oppressed black population. This caused conflict with both the non-white and white populations.

This short film has a found footage style to it which is very interesting and helps the audience believe that this actually happened. On top of this, the film has an interesting part to it because all the interviews with people that don't mention extraterrestrials are taken from real interviews with South Africans and they are talking about Zimbabwean Refugees. This short film is of the Si-Fi genre because of the aliens. Also, the use of guns and soldiers shows the action and adventure genre.

Concepts:

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

• Narrative
• Media Language
• Genre

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:

• The film starts with an extreme long shot of an alien spaceship and an overturned truck in the middle of the road (Figure 1).
• The camerawork suggests that this is a found footage style film because the camera is shaky.
• Straight away this is a use of Barthes enigma code because the audience is wondering why the truck is overturned.
• Also, the audience is wondering why there is a spaceship in the sky.
• There is a build up of non-diegetic background music that is hard hitting dramatic music to emphasise these soldiers going towards the spaceship.

Figure 1

• Next, there is a close-up on a character that appears to be some kind of scientist because of the book props behind him and the setting of the shot appears to be in a lab library (Figure 2).
• He starts talking about the aliens like a narrator and he is giving extra information about the aliens to the audience to help them understand what is going on.
• His facial expression shows confusions and betrayal because the government forced the aliens to be slaves for them.
• On top of this, his body language is very stiff and serious because the situation that the human race is in is very serious.

Figure 2

• After this, there is a mid shot of an alien robot and then there is a cut to a long shot of two soldiers as the get of a helicopter (Figure 3, 4).
• This is use of Barthes Action Code because the audience can sense that a shootout is going to happen between the human soldiers and the alien.

Figure 3

Figure 4

• Then during the shootout, there is a build up of non-diegetic background music which build up suspense.
• The music is dramatic action music to keep the audience interested in the action.
• Additionally, there is a long shot of the two soldiers standing behind a pillar when the alien throws a truck at them (Figure 5).
• This adds tension to the piece because the audience is not sure if the soldiers are going to survive or not because the truck gets very close to the soldiers and hits the pillar the are standing behind.

Figure 5

• Next, the audience is told that this takes place in South Africa in 1990 which suggests to the audience that the aliens could be treated the same as the black people at that time.
• A close-up of the scientist character as he talks about how the aliens are treated further emphasises the point that the aliens were treated like black people and were living in poor conditions (Figure 6).
• The dialogue is "they were living in conditions that were really not good".
• The use of a close-up is to put emphasis on the facial expression of the character which shows he is sympathizing with the aliens.

Figure 6

• After this, there is an increase in pace during a shootout involving both the aliens and the police force (Figure 7).
• There is a build up of non-diegetic background music to add tension.
• Also, this shows Levi-Strauss's narrative theory of Binary Opposites because the aliens are powerless and are trying to fight to get fair treatment and the police force are powerful and are trying to fight the aliens to keep them in their place.
• There are lots of cuts and shaky camerawork to make the audience feel the suspesnse.

Figure 8

• Next, we get a sequence where we can hear the narrator and we are seeing the conditions the aliens live in and the aliens themselves (Figure 8).
• During the diegetic off-screen dialogue we here the scientist say "the government was creating a fear" to "stop anyone from rising up".
• This again links back to the powerful vs the powerless because the powerful are stopping the aliens from rising up by using some aliens as examples and killing them.
• This is using of force by the powerful to keep the powerless without power.
• In addition, we sympathise with the aliens because we can see the terrible conditions they are living in.

Figure 8

• After this, we get a mid shot of a black character while wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a gun to protect himself (Figure 9).
• This is a real person talking about his experience with Zimbabwean refugees.
• I can tell this because the person doesn't talk about the aliens specifically and in the subtitles, there are brackets to relate this to the aliens.
• This is an effective way to use real life footage and use it in the film.

Figure 9

• Then there is a mid shot of a police helicopter piolet as he describes the ship (Figure 10).
• His facial expression shows that he is frightened of the ships because of the scale of them.
• The diegetic dialogue is "you are talking about ships that are a kilometer in length".
• This puts into perspective how big the ships are and puts emphasis on the audience.
• Also, this makes the audience understand why the humans are worried about the aliens, hence, why they are so tough on them.

Figure 10

• After this, there is a close-up on an old woman.
• She says that murder hand violence has increased since the aliens arrived.
• This again is real life footage that has been repurposed to fit the film.
• The facial expression of the woman shows her frustration about the aliens being here and she thinks that they should not be allowed here. 

Figure 11

• Next, we find out that the aliens have been sucking out the water and electricity from the ground.
• There is a big close-up on the scientist as he says this to put emphasis on it (Figure 12).
• Also, this facial expression shows that he is confused what the aliens are doing.
• This adds enigma because the audience doesn't know what the audience are doing and why they are doing it.

Figure 12

• After this, the scientist says (non-diegetic off-screen dialogue (Figure 13)) "I just hope we will be able to create a standard of living.".
• There is a build up of non-diegetic background music that sounds like is building to a resolution of the problem that they are having, also, it is dramatic music.
• This hits the audience hard with the equality part of his dialogue because it makes the audience think about the key issues of the film which is equality and a good standard of living for any living being.

Figure 13

Genre

• This short film is part of a few different genres:
• Science-Fiction
• Action-Adventure
• Social Realism
• Drama
• Rick Altman's Genre theory can be applied well to this short film:
• His theory is that certain film genre will have typical visual codes which he called semantic codes. 
• The semantic codes in this film are:
• Action-Adventure - Gun, soldier, fast paced editing (lots of cuts in a short space of time).

• Si-Fi - Spaceship, aliens.

• Social Realism - Real topic/issue, real footage that was adapted for this film.

• Drama - dramatic non-diegetic background music.

Short Film on YouTube:

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 I found lots of parts of it inspiring in different ways.

• The real footage part of the film is very inspiring. This is because it adds meaning to the film because of the social realism genre and it puts more emphasis on the issues because of the re-used footage. Therefore, this inspires me to see if I can implement some repurposed real footage into my short film to put emphasis on the issues or theme of the short film.
• On top of this, I really liked the found footage style of the rest of the short film because it makes the audience think the whole thing is real and really helps the audience sympathise with the characters. Therefore, I am going to see if the shaky camerawork and found footage style of film will fit my short film. Also, it will fit better if I choose to do the social realism genre for my short film.

Jakes Evaluation of foundation portfolio

'The Arrival' Zen Design Studios 2016 Analysis By Connor Hilton

'The Arrival' Zen Design Studios 2016

Research By Connor Hilton

About the film:

A character named Anna sits and waits inside a coffee shop contemplating a big decision. The whole film is shot in one take and is narrated by the main character. She is deciding whether or not to keep a baby and is waiting for her partner to get there so she can talk to them about it.

Concepts: 

• Narrative
•  Representation
• Media Language

Analysis:

Title Screen

As you can see, the title screen is very simple yet effective, which relates to the film because it is shot all in one take which is also simple yet effective when done right. 

• In the first shot we seen Anna, the main character, come in through a frosty door into the warmth of a cafe.
• The waiter approaches her table and she orders a coffee, which we hear through diegetic dialogue.
• After a brief moment we here diegetic dialogue of Anna's voice, however, the voice is much louder and clearer so it is indicated that we are hearing Anna's thoughts.
• She thinks "I should've ordered a decaf or a tea...No it's fine", this is enigmatic as it makes us wonder why she wouldn't want a normal coffee while also showing indecisiveness. This furthers the plot.

Long Shot of Anna Entering Cafe

• We learn that Anna is waiting for somebody and has arrived early, giving herself some time to think about what she is going to say "You...We made me pregnant", this is showing that she initially gave the man the responsibility and then corrected herself.
• We also learn through diegetic dialogue that Anna is pregnant and is deciding whether to keep the baby or not, this is a very political issue that many women struggle with in their lives so it is a feminine issue. 
• This reveals the answer to the question as to why she thought she should have a decaf or a tea. 
• As the film continues the plot becomes more enticing because more details are being revealed which attracts the audience into the film.
• It is also indicated that Anna planned on aborting the pregnancy, yet hasn't fully decided.
   

  

  LS of Anna Contemplating her decision

   
• Next, Anna begins to question the amount of time she has left.
• The camera slowly zooms in from the LS and the shot begins to shrink within the frame.
• This could relate to Anna's diegetic dialogue about time and how much she has left to have children and that amount of time shrinking.
• A younger couple enters the cafe and Anna watches as they walk to the counter holding hands, envious of what they have.
  

  

  Mid Shot of Anna watching young couple

• Anna then begins to think about the other possibilities she has in this decision.
• We hear this through more diegetic dialogue "What if he wants to keep it?" , "We're not in love." and "I can't even remember what colour his eyes are...they're blue".
• All of this links to her being even more indecisive about the big decision that is faced by the social group of women all the time.

• Lastly, we see another mid shot of Anna, but, her eyes are locked onto something. 
• Her body language is frozen and suggests she is uncomfortable.
• We hear a child's cry via a diegetic sound, revealing what she is looking at. 
• Anna overflows her coffee with milk because she was focused on the child entering the cafe.
• After this disruption, she starts to think about what the baby will be like, indicating that she has now changed her mind and wants to keep the baby. 
• We hear through diegetic dialogue "Will it be a girl or a boy?"and "What if it's twins?" which further suggests that she wants to keep the child. 

Overview:

Narrative:

The narrative is linear, Anna starts off  with the mindset that she wants to abort the pregnancy, however with the time she has to think, she realizes that she may want to keep the baby. There are certain key events that fit into the plot such as the young couple entering the cafe, the child entering the cafe and her spilling the coffee as she realizes that she may want to keep the baby. I don't however, feel that the story follows Todorov's theory because there are parts of the plot that are missing, there doesn't seem to be a final equilibrium, Anna hasn't fully decided or discussed anything with her partner. This means that the narrative is open ended, it leaves the viewer to decide what happened. 

Representation:

The arrival shows some key examples of issues that face the social group of women and young couples deciding to have a baby. The baby is the result of a 'one night stand', which is another social issue that faces the social group. It shows that the decision to keep a baby is tough and should be thought about thoroughly.  

The Short Film (The Arrival):

Connor Hilton's About A Girl Analysis

Introduction

In this blog post I am going to be discussing how the 4 technical codes create the image of the girl in the films social class and how the girl's age is represented. The short film 'About a Girl' is about a young low class girl living in Britain. The 4 technical codes represent this to make the girl's situation clear to the audience. The film also represents the girls age group in both positive and negative ways and highlights the reality of some peoples situations.

Representation of Class:

Through the use of the 4 technical codes we can clearly see that the girl in the film is of low class. One way that this is shown is her costume. Her costume consists of a white puffy jacket and some jeans that are rolled up at the bottom so they could have been passed down from a older sibling.

We can also tell she is low class because of the setting she appears to be living in is shown and it appears to be council housing which is cheap housing that is provided by the council in Britain.The houses are all very similar and are attached to each other to save space.

Throughout the sequence we can see the character walking in different areas, from what we can see in the background the areas are run-down
and old which further emphasises that the area she lives in reflects her class.

There is also a very short shot of the girl with her Mum and Sister in a car park after they have been shopping. The Mum is scratching at a scratch card which is an indicator that she is ambitious and could use the extra money. Buying scratch cards often is a sign that the person has a low-income and is of lower class.

The girl also has many pieces of dialogue that suggest she is from a low income family. For example, she is talking about her Dad and says "He's dead busy with work...Well, looking for work actually" which means that the Dad doesn't have a job so the income for the family is coming from the council.

There is also a scene where the girl's dad buys her a Coke and a bag of crisps after she watches him play football on Sunday. Which is treated as a big treat as the girl says "Bless" after explaining that he buys her a bag of crisps and a Coke. This further supports the fact that the family is of low class.

There is another scene where the girl is traveling on the bus with a few friends and they are singing Britney Spears songs loudly. Firstly, they are traveling on a bus which could be seen as a low class thing, however, a lot of people get the bus because it is convenient. Secondly, the girls are singing loudly on public transport which in some ways could be seen as a sort of anti-social behavior.

Also, there is a scene where the girl is in a perfume store and is spraying the tester spray on her wrists rather than using the white paper provided to test the perfume. This is essentially shoplifting which is an indicator of low class because she can't afford to buy the perfume. When the shopping assistant comes to confront/question her she lies about her Mum being blind and that she is taking the smell home for her. This also indicates low class because she is lying to get out of spending any money.

Representation of Age:

The representation of age in 'About a Girl' is mainly a negative representation because the girl is only 13 and has gotten pregnant and then throws the newborn baby in the river after hiding her pregnancy from her family.

The first representation of age in 'About a Girl' is the title screen. It looks like the title is being typed out on a mobile phone because that age group is seen to always be on their phone and talking to friends on their phone.

Another representation of age that we see is the scenes where the girl is singing Britney Spears songs alone and with her friends. When Britney Spears was popular, a lot of teenage girls looked up to her and were big fans of her music. This meant that the teenage girls saw what Britney Spears did and wanted to do it themselves.

The way that the girl speaks in the film also represents the slang filled language that teenagers use. She also seems to use filler words a lot and take a long time to find the words that she is thinking of such as 'thingy'. The girl also talks about a lot of different things that don't really seem important but they are really telling the audience about her background and class.

The girl also tells stories of her parents arguing and when the family got a puppy off of one of the neighbors. They hid the puppy from their Mum for 2 days until she found it and got someone to put it in the canal, they had named the dog 'Lucky' and when she told the story she said "It's not so fuckin' lucky now is it" which indicates she was angry at what her Mum did. This is also foreshadowing of the girl putting her baby in the river to hide/ get rid of it.

Lastly, the girls costume represents the way her age group dresses, like the old rolled up jeans and the puffy coat. However, it only depicts how the lower class of that age group dresses.

Conclusion:

Overall, the short film 'About a Girl' represents the lower classes of British people and teenagers growing up in a low class area of Britain. It shows mainly negative representations of teenagers as it highlights the issue of teenage pregnancy and the reality of some peoples trust situation with their parents as the girl didn't tell her Mum that she was pregnant and just attempted to deal with the situation herself.