"Grace" - Short Film Analysis

The first shot is a long shot of Grace exiting her house. We can tell that she comes from a fairly poor family as from the size of the shot we can see that her house is very close to her neighbors house. Also the things around it seem a bit run down and abused, such as the gate and water butt. There is also a wired fence separating the two houses which is not aesthetically pleasing and would be the cheapest option to separate the two houses.

There is then two shots of Grace riding her bicycle, firstly down an old country road and then down a main road. These are both shot at an high angle as if the camera is following her. From these two shots we can see that Grace is on her own, there are no cars or other people surrounding her, this tells us that maybe it is quite early in the morning. The shot of Grace on the main road is when you start to question what she is doing. This is because she turns off the main road down an old dust road. This is strange on its own but we can also tell this is odd because the camera which has been following her the whole time actually carries on down the main road instead of following her. There is then a fade to black to reveal the title of the short film. During these two shots there is non-diegetic music in the back round, it is only quiet and only consists of a few instruments. It is just enough to give the beginning an eerie feel and build some suspense. Along with this there is diegetic sound also, this is prominently the sound of birds tweeting but also the sound of the bike. All the sound carries on when the title comes on screen, which along with the plain black background and simple font really works well here.

 After this we then see Grace's face for the first time along with another character. She is waking up a boy. There is a long shot which sees them sitting down in the middle of a deserted field. She tells him he has been asleep for "too long". It is shown that the boy is older through the way he looks and his voice. This is a common convention used typically in thrillers but also in drama, this is enigma. It instantly makes us start asking questions, for example "Who is the boy, how does she know him" and"Why is he asleep in a field". Through the use of props and costume we build up a picture in our minds of what Grace's character and personality is like and start to warm to her. We see a teddy bear in her bag and her water bottle which has a smiley face on it, also she is wearing very childish clothes and the colour of her clothes is very girly. They then proceed to have a conversation about how the boy doesn't notice her in school and he calls her "cute". Through the dialogue it is very clear she has a crush on him.

Through the conversation they then go in for a kiss. The first time it begins with a close up and then cuts to a long shot. The second and most important time it is a close up all the way through. When they pull away we see that he has left a speck of blood on her cheek. This is very odd and is where things take a turn for the worst.



 When the boy has gone out of shot there is an eye line match from Grace to the boy. This is the reveal shot. He is lying down, dead, and with a bloody nose. The non-diegetic sound then changes from the previous tune to a high pitched note held, just one instrument and is very piercing. This adds to the shocked and confused feel the film has which the director has cleverly created. We, as an audience, think that this is the only shock but as Grace gets up to leave the camera follows. It zooms out into a high angle extreme long shot revealing a car crash scene, involving the boy and another man. Through Graces actions of going there so casually it is clear that she has made the trip several times and isn't phased by it - which is very disturbing. The lighting in this shot and throughout this short film is very different and in-stereotypical as usually in a short film containing death it is very dark and gloomy but in this it is very bright and yellow lighting. This may be because we are seeing the situation through Graces point of view which is normal and quite peaceful. This then massively uses enigma again and leaves the audience with so many questions and luckily there is a fade to black followed by a screen of on screen narration about what happened after they were eventually found.

https://vimeo.com/128282019