'Wire Cutters' Jordan Spencer's Short Film Analysis

'Wire Cutters' is an animated short Directed, written and created by Jack Anderson and was released on 27th of August 2015. watched on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bs4LOtIuxg

It is a short basic story with no dialogue and consists of two characters, one of which is who i would consider the protagonist and he is a mining robot on the abandoned planet, possibly earth, and he carries a box around and it keeps him charged and alive however the box uses wind power with a kite to charge itself. the robot is looking for green rocks hidden in stones. he then comes across a bigger robot with a charging box and they learn they can work together to gather more rocks and share them out, all is good until they realise that when there is 1 rock left someone will end up with more and the second robot docent like this and gets agitated and tries to kill the first robot, until he gets him tanged up in the kite and robot 1 cuts the rope getting rid of robot 2, but then he sees that without robot 2 his box will blow up and can't plug in to himself to stop it. what i gather through this story is that you need balance to do well and you also need teamwork however when things get unfair blood will be spilt. It shows how selfish people can be. 

Robot 1 (left) Robot 2 (right)

Representation is used in this film because in my opinion it shows how different work rivals could work together but don't, for example Apple and Microsoft, or Windows. to me i see that they could keep working together and they would collect more rocks, or sell more products or whatever the companies do, however as soon as one thing goes wrong they completely turn and throw the blame at each other and turn on each other. So what i find interesting is how well this shows it because they collect so many more rocks this way and completely ignore that because one thing goes wrong when he gives the spare rock to himself. it also represents how greedy people can be because they want the most they can get without thinking about the long run, so i think it represents people in the work place and rival companies. 

Genre, the genre of this film to me is Sci- fi because its set in this apocalyptic world with robots mining green glowing rocks. i think that the atmosphere and feeling of sci-fi it captured well because they started of with a establishing shot of these clouds going over a beige coloured sky in a time-lapse and its very smoggy as well so i think that it shows us that this is something we've never seen before and makes us think its out of this world.

Narrative in Wire Cutters i think is interestingly used because it has no dialogue and so we see the story chronologically unfold as we learn what they do and a lot of the story is driven through facial expression and different types of shots so this helps us to understand the plot too and that its quite a lighthearted story, until were lead to that and then Robot 2 tries to kill him. 

One Mans Loss

One mans loss is a short film about a homeless man and a rude rich man who's cheats on his girlfriend, the rich mans clothes are then thrown out of a window and the homeless man proceeds to take them and wear them, hence the title One mans loss.

The title One Mans Loss is very clever as it relates to the story directly, "One Mans Loss" suggests to the audience that it comes from the idiom "one mans loss is another mans gain" this connotes to the audience the contents of the film and coupled with the film poster gives them a very good idea as to what to expect from the film. As far as genre goes it doesn't strictly follow the rules of one genre and so is open to interpretation, this means its audience is massive as it is not confined to one specific group of people it appeals to all and all can respect it and its narrative. 

In terms of narrative in this film there isn't all that much to talk about, this is a rare type of film as it happens to be a plot-less film. In order for a film to have a plot it needs to have main character etc... this doesn't, it has three characters, the homeless man, the jerk boyfriend, and the girlfriend, all are equally important to the story, and so there is no real plot. at the start of the film a mean wealthy man nearly hits a homeless man, he then proceeds home where he argues with his girlfriend who has just discovered he has been un faithful, we then see the homeless man step on glass and sit on a curb to pull it out, the girlfriend then throws the unfaithful mans clothes out the window of their apartment and the homeless man happens to be sitting below he then changes into the clothes and gets the girl. This story structure is strange not only because it doesn't have a plot but because there isn't really any inciting incident its essentially just the audience watching these two mens luck change. 

The characters were represented in a very thoughtful and clever manor, as the audience we are supposed to like the homeless man, hate the wealthy man, and sympathies for the woman. They do this in a very clever way. 

We dislike the wealthy man because right from the outset of the film he is shown to be horrible nearly running over the homeless man and cheating on his girlfriend, this makes the audience take an immediate dislike to the man as he is shown in a horrible light, however the smartest thing about it is that they showed him in a couple scenes looking remorseful which made the audience feel sympathy for him and in turn intensified the emotional reaction we had to him by making him feel human and not a complete monster.

We are made to feel sympathy towards the homeless man as he is shown as a victim, for example at the start we see him nearly get run down, and near the end we see him step on a shard of glass these incidents make us feel sympathetic to his situation which makes seeing his luck change all that bit more entertaining, this is because people love to see underdogs do well because the audience are made to feel like they deserve it more than anyone else. 

We feel sympathetic for the woman in the story for the same reasons as the homeless man she is shown to be a victim and so we innately want to see her succeed as we feel she deserves it.

The camera work in the film is very interesting, it used a lot of natural light which helped to create and authentic feel to go along with the authenticity of the story, as well as that they used lots of close ups to really capture the emotions on the characters faces which was vital as the short had to create very strong emotions for all the characters and it had to tell the audience a lot through body and facial expressions alone, these shots helped to translate that. 

In terms of sound there was a non diegetic sound of a piano in the background of some shots which helped to really create an atmosphere and emotion in each shot it was featured. the sound also revealed to the audience that the woman in the short was French explaining the reaction she had to finding out about her boyfriend as the viewer passes the behaviour off as normal in different cultures as her reaction is very dramatic. 

One Minute Time Machine

The One Minute Time Machine is a romantic comedy short with a sci-fi twist its about 5 min's and 40 seconds long. The short film is about a man trying to pick up a woman on a bench by travelling one minute back in time every time he messes up the 'chat up line'. 

He then gets told by the woman that every time he presses the button to go back in time he kills a version of himself, this new information leaves the protagonist distraught and in an effort to fix the problem the woman travels back in time and begins to try and chat him up. 

The title of the short is used to give and indication to the audience as to what the films genre is and gives the audience a general idea of what they can expect. This is due to the semantic code of the films title, for example "Time Machine" is a made up piece of technology used to travel through time this has connotations of science, this mixed with the knowledge that this science is not yet possible tells the audience that the film is more than likely going to have something to do with science fiction. This title is so important not only in letting the audience know what they are getting in for but in informing them of what to expect. Because its a short film there isn't a lot of time to set up the story and so the audience must fill in blanks this is easier to do when the audience already has a rough idea of what to expect. 

The only set up to the story is at the beginning where the protagonists sit on a park bench next to a beautiful lady and then attempts to hit on her, i then goes wrong and he travels back in time to correct his mistakes. This is enough information to tell the audience how the film is going to go and what it is going to be about in the quickest way possible as its a short film. The inciting incident happened off screen and the viewer is supposed to figure out that he saw her decided she was pretty and then went and attempted to talk to her. 

The Rising Action of the short is when the protagonist try's to hit on the girl and keeps failing and so has to keep travelling back in time. There's a lot of comedy in this part of the short as we see the protagonist make lots of relatable and silly mistakes that lose the interest of the girl, this is comedic because the audience can relate to having tried to pick girls up and failing in similar ways/ or having had people try and pick you up but fail in similar ways, 

This reliability creates comedy through relief theory. Comedy is also created through incongruity as the more he hits on her the more sexual the conversation becomes, creating incongruous comedy for the viewer.

The Climax of the short is when the protagonist discovers that he has been killing himself every-time he goes back in time, this in turn creates comedy due to his reaction to the new discovery, he begins to sob and sulk after finding out how many times he has killed himself, there is then a montage of the alternate universe's we're he has died and shows the different reactions of the woman to the situation which creates comedy as well as engaging the audience. 

The Resolution/Twist of the short is when we see the woman who he was trying to pick up then push the button and kill herself in order to fix him and get the chat back on track so he never finds out about killing himself, this twist is unexpected and romantic as she chooses to kill her alternate self's life to help him and to allow the date/chat to keep flowing as it was, we then see her repeatedly mess up and keep pressing the button, credits then roll as the audience can tell whats going on and how it will end.

The film is primarily aimed at the sci-fi/ and romantic community, any age above about 16 due to the taboo areas of the film, we know this because of the conventions the film follows the conventions of sci-fi and romantic films meaning that it must share an audience with those two genres. Although this is primarily aimed at fans of those genres, it could easily work for any audience type as it is so relatable and easy to watch meaning the audience doesn't need to try to hard to follow it and the comedy in it isn't specific to one type of person its relatable and understandable to all people. This means that the film can connect with a march larger margin of people as its so easy to watch for all. 

The sound used throughout the short film is a very light hearted, and sounds like the music Disney make for there films, this works very well with the story and genre of the film, the soundtrack is fantasy sounding enough to match the sci-fi part of the short (time travel) but light and emotional enough for it to work with the emotional side of the story (the romance between the two characters) the diegetic sound of the button being pressed works very well with what its supposed to be and makes the time travel feel that bit more believable in order to allow the audience to easily be absorbed in the film.  

The camera angles throughout the short are relatively straight forward a lot of them are locked off shots and follow the rule of thirds, the majority of the shots we see are the long shots of them on the bench and the close ups and over the shoulder shots of them as they talk to each other. The simple cinematography allows the audience to watch the short comfortably without being distracted with any un-necessary camera techniques, they are also sure to not use any camera techniques that might not fit the narrative for example using a blocking shot would connote contradictory feelings to whats going on in the scene confusing the viewer and disturbing the flow of the narrative. 

The characters are represented in a normal way at the start of the short, then as the film develops the characters traits and personality's quickly become irregular and non-stereotypical, this development of characters traits is used to create comedy so that viewers find the characters behaviors/personality's funny bringing the film towards the comedy genre and opening up the variety of the audience as well as to combat the quite drastic nature of the story, otherwise the story could be seen as dark and morbid, however the characters goofy and strange traits allow the viewers to see the comedy rather than the tragedy.