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Marie’s Dictionary is a short interview-based film with verité scenes by Go Project Films, the film production arm of the Global Oneness Project, a multimedia education platform.

This film is about Marie Wilcox, the last fluent speaker of the Wukchumni language, and her efforts to keep the language alive. Here are 6 ways the filmmakers document Marie’s story to reveal steadfastness and her commitment to family and history.

1. Using a slider to introduce motion in a film full of subtle movements. (00:39)

The filmmakers use a slider throughout the video to bring a sense of smooth cinematic movement to an overall still film. One example is the second shot of the film, a wide shot behind Marie that dollys-in on her sitting at the computer. This dolly shot serves to bring the viewer closer to what occupies Marie’s time. The composition of this shot is also lovely, using the white fridge and white corner to frame Marie. The quality of light is soft and the scenes are all somewhat dim, suggesting a reliance on natural light.

2. A four-shot sequence to introduce crucial information (00:43)

This is a foundational element of filmmaking done well: the filmmakers use 3-4 shots to create tight sequences throughout. Here is one example:

SHOT 1: WS, dolly-in from behind (same as image above) – establishes the scene

SHOT 2: ECU of the keyboard – shows in-the-moment action

SHOT 3: MS of Marie looking at the computer screen – shows who is acting

SHOT 4: CU of scrolling through the computer screen – shows what is being typed

3. A motivated tracking shot to connect the new character with Marie. (5:49)

As a new character enters the room, a motivated tracking shot follows the glass of water to Marie as the youth hands her the glass. Though the viewer doesn’t know who this is yet, this action (and the tracking motion) conveys a tenderness between Marie and the youth.

4. An unmotivated tilt to reveal a relationship. (6:10 – 6:20)

This lovely unmotivated shot begins on the new character’s face, lingering for two seconds, before slowly tilting down and focusing on Marie, ending in a close-up, over-the-shoulder shot. This shot establishes the relationship between the two as Marie’s voiceover says, “Me and my grandson are trying to record our dictionary from A to Z.”

5. Sound/picture juxtaposition to establish remoteness. (6:48)

It would be easy to see this as a pretty landscape shot, but Marie’s words color this shot with a tinge of loneliness. She says, “No one seems to want to learn…”

6. Ending the way it began: a reverse dolly shot to exit Marie’s world. (8:25)

This shot matches the frame from #1 (see first image) but in reverse to draw the viewer out from Marie’s world. The film ends on a medium close-up of Marie recording a story in the Wukchumni language – the same shot as the opening frame. It’s a neat way to bookend Marie’s story.

I appreciate the different ways the filmmakers introduced movement into this story full of subtle, yet significant, actions. Paired with the lesson plan, it creates a compelling educational experience for students and the general public.

–Alisha Wang Saville

The Backwater Gospel from The Animation Workshop on Vimeo.

The Backwater Gospel is animation and filmmaking at its best.  It still surprises me to this date that this was an undergraduate project.  Everything has a grungy wooden texture from the dusty town to gritty townspeople’s skin.  It’s rustic, the laws of the old west seem to apply.  Everything is very purposefully chosen.  Shots include very clean silhouettes, exact placement and framing of buildings to characters.  Interactions and body language are pre-determined.  What I love about animation is that everything can be exactly the way you envisioned, and this precision applies here.

Even in the day the scenes feel dark and it has the trademark of quick succession angular shots taken from the horror genre.  The color palettes are black and white, blue washes, sepia tones, grotesque greens, sickly yellows, and dark shades of reds.  At the beginning we see a man fall to his death, the undertaker then arrives as an angel of death, and quietly goes about measuring the man for his coffin setting the tone for the remainder of the film.

We go from long arid landscape shots, to grizzly close ups of the townspeople. The appearance of the crows expects that death will befall someone of Backwater.  To prevent being taken, the God-fearing citizens walk zombie like to church for salvation day in and out.  Their hymns are almost a slow sounding moan.  In tandem, the town Tramp sings of the Undertaker while the Preacher purses his lips in disgust.  The Tramp only smiles.  In this film, it will only be the Tramp, the Undertaker, and the Preacher, who express satisfaction – but Death is the only winner in the end.

Beginning his sermon, the Preacher sets the story in motion, “One bad apple.  That’s all it takes… Do you want to save that barrel?  Then throw out that apple… But if you fail to destroy that apple… the punishment was Death.”  During this speech we continually cut back to the Tramp, alluding that the Preacher is turning the town against their “bad apple”.

Still smiling, the Tramp interrupts the sermon announcing the Undertaker.  The town then flees into their homes, we see close ups of boarded up windows and doors.  Distorted wide lens shots are coupled with extreme and uncomfortable close ups and leaves the audience itself on edge of what will happen next.  This of course is the stillness of Fear and Death – both key players in this story.  We wait, along with the townsfolk for who the Undertaker has come for.  One frame shots are interlaced with distorted ghostly figured, crucifixes, and violent imagery of the anarchy to come.

After seven days the Undertaker has still not moved.  The Preacher rings the church bells and the town carefully leave the safety of their homes.  The Preacher blindly singles out the Tramp, faulting him for the torment and fear of the unknown.  “…we have been tormented because that son of perdition refuses to fear …The Lord wants us to destroy the bad apple… I say: the blasphemer shall be stoned!”  The crucifix again appears, shot by shot: one cool palette shot of Death’s wings, then the fiery palette of the Preacher bringing the congregation to action.  The chaos that ensues is a witch hunt for deliverance.

The Tramp is now the only character with any saturation of color, separating him from the crowd.  The camera shots almost feel handheld and shaky.  As the Preacher’s assistant leaves the final blow, we zoom out to see the crucifix repeated in the Tramp’s dead body.

Everyone waits in anticipation for the Undertaker to take the body and leave.  The undertaker simply stays smiling, causing further panic.  Ultimately in the fear of the unknown, the townsfolks turn on each other – “It ain’t gonna be me!” and begin to slaughter each other to save themselves.  This violence leads to the full destruction of the town that come morning, leaves a blood bath.  The Undertaker has sat in place this entire time, but finally moves.  He whistles the Tramps song from the beginning and ends the film where he began – measuring a body for a coffin.

This film is beautifully shot.  Wide landscapes make us feel the expanse of this world and Backwater’s tiny place in it.  Shot from above or below make us equally scared or imposing.  What I really love is the repetition of themes.  The director chooses very intense and direct moments to show characters with pupils to humanize them such as when the Tramp is murdered, or the Preacher’s assistant realizes the mistake he’s made.  In divergence, when characters lose their morality they’re eyes are either dark black pits, or white silhouettes.  It’s certainly a comment on societal conformity, and primarily the hold fear can have on humanity.  It brings to question believes, priorities, inclusion and exclusion, and the power of crowd psychology.  Past that, I think this film can be taken with a grain of salt, simply as a must watch fantastic visual experience.

In The Air Is Christopher Gray (2013) from Felix Massie on Vimeo.

One of the main reasons I love this film is that it takes on a familiar coming of age story that you don’t often see in animated film.  It fits perfectly with the simplistic line style of a suburban home that could be located literally anywhere in America.  The warm sound of summer and playing with neighborhood friends down the street is pure nostalgia.  Which is why it’s so wonderfully comedic, and at times upsetting, when the side plot is over the top traumatic.  If I had to describe the feel, I’d say it’s if the film American Beauty was severely condensed and combined with an episode of South Park.

When I consider my favorite films, the top picks are media that play with expectations.  At its center, this is a story of young unrequited love.  Something that many can relate back to their early teenage years to the point of their first heartbreak.  The film predominately uses wide-shot scenes on a plain white background, as if we’re watching the world unfold in a framed picture of a child’s drawing.  They pan slightly, but usually retaining the housing backgrounds.  Occasionally there is a slow zoom in, typically on Barry Flint’s scenes.  This in effect is used to separate it from the more lighthearted feel of the storyline, and to “bring us into the real world” per say.  Life is not so flat and simple.  Few scenes deviate from this, such as when Christopher is walking with his best friend.  It’s a slow panning shot as they travel down the train tracks, discussing love and how Christopher will ultimately win over Stacy with a daredevil feat.  Or the slow motion shot of Christopher mid-jump as Stacy’s mom, not Stacy, answers the front door.  Such weight is placed on these scenes, but on Christopher’s tale not Johnny.  The character is literally being suffocated but the audience still wonders instead, “where is Stacy?”

The comedic timing is fantastic.  They implement both audio and visual jokes throughout.  First the relationship between the narrator and the kids’ conversations is pure repeat/callback comedy.  Delivery is everything and often the narrator sets up jokes for Christopher to unknowingly finish.  Moments such as the early bird getting the worm or the heart shaped tree scene I believe can only be accomplished in an animated medium.

There’s also a certain anonymity to the faceless stick figures.  It’s easy to project ourselves or people we know onto these characters.  Which is why it’s so shocking as a viewer once these personas are contrasted by a stark and dark narrative.  Their motions are basic, but you can fit personalities from energy, walk cycle styles, and if they feel more reserved versus outgoing.

Massie makes use of lighting to heavily set the tone of these scenes.  “The storm coming” is literally building up to Johnny’s incident.  The script continually alludes to how this slice of suburban life will ultimately take a turn.  From saying it will be the last time Barry will smile, to at 4:28 directly tapping Johnny Flint on the nose stating, “we all die someday”.  Christopher easily bikes away from the constrictor scene and into the next leaving clouds behind as both stories continue in tandem.  It’s not until the “heartbreak” scene that the clouds catch up.  At the exact moment Gabriel lifts up the stick, we hear a clash of thunder, the sound of Flint firing his gun, and Christopher puts his hand over his heart as if he’s been shot.

The two storylines of unrequited love versus the very disturbing event of a child being killed by his pet snake give us a duality of trauma.  Both tales end in the same place.  Both are heartbroken in severely different ways.  The shot slowly pans out from a rainy blood bath, while light-hearted audio twinkling piano music is overlapped.

From this film I think we can take away a few key topics. 1. Delivery and timing are crucial. 2. Story can uphold a film even if your visuals are simple.  3. Don’t be afraid to contrast your visuals and your tone of content.  Playing with audience preconceptions can be highly successful if accomplished properly.  Overall this is a great little film that still centers around one unanswered question, “will the boy win over the girl?”

 

LOOKING OUT from Greg Dennis on Vimeo.

Act I:

Looking Out could be a define as a story of rebirth and an homage to the human spirit.  The editor begins with a false sense of serenity.  Soft music and a black background.  The narrator begins to speak over ambient waves lapping.  Clips are slowly cross-fade into one another.  It feels calm and collected as we watch our protagonist paddle across the screen.  Were very purposefully being lulled into a sense of tranquility. As the narrator describes three aspects humans need to fulfill, our visuals match the voice over.  This is repeated throughout the multiple cuts following.  With “Autonomy” we view Pa alone.  “Competent” jump cuts to a shaky cam shot.  The visuals blur more, she appears to be moving faster.  The audio brings in the splashes of her paddle as it smacks the water.  This editing is giving us a sense of urgency, and we almost feel she’s struggling to prove herself.  “Relatedness” then cuts the ambient sound and leaves us on an eerie musical note.  Pa is alone, centered in the middle of a hazy shot where the fog almost mixes the sky and sea.  There’s a tense isolation where the editor visually brings us into this wide empty space with our protagonist.

Throughout the film we see these methods repeated.  Soft music and serene scenes are contrasted by stark jump cuts and loud sudden noises.  The editor actually makes some really great abstract choices to change the tone of the narrative.  This is probably my favorite shot of the film to see broken down.  Light waves lapping audio hastily jumps to harsh buzzed sounds and white noise.  A solo shot of Pa in her boat is duplicated and flipped.  Jump cuts are interspersed with deep sepia tone instances that only last one frame each. The quick succession of screens and edited footage is purposefully uncomfortable to watch.  Is she alone or independent?  The visuals seem to foreshadow the duality of this activity as well as our protagonist’s personal relation to solo kayaking.  They allowed themselves to have some fun and really experiment with the viewers preconceived expectations.

Act II:

How do you bring your viewer into a trauma?  They take Pa to where her accidents occurred.  Pa describes going unconscious as ambient music plays in the background.  It’s almost as if we’re fading back in from this coma with her.  A wide fly over connects to the story showing green fields, matching shots of Pa interacting with large hay bales, anticipatory music, and wind sound effects.  Editors place a light echoing effect on Pa’s audio describing the accident, and it feels ghostly with white flashes and one frame cuts.  The editing gives us a dream like state, it feels and sounds hazy.  The traumatic memories and even the footage appears to have darker levels than the previous shots.  Through archival photos she recounts her secondary accident sustaining brain injuries.  The tone is slow and heavy, offset by soft audio of a heart monitor.

In the end, Pa regains most of her abilities but still finds speech extremely frustrating.  The camera shots now become longer.  The editor holds on these clips to make the viewer feel the time and effort Pa must put in to speaking.  We’re with our protagonist as she struggles.  As she improves her voice over is layered by matched actions of practicing speech.  Lots of soft focus shots such as close ups on letters, practicing speaking, her moving lips, and a rack focus from the page to her face.  Later a long singular shot is shown while Pa describes how it’s lonely at times.  The feeling of isolation as she struggles to speak.  The music is somber, again we’re held by the camera to be in this moment with Pa.  Suddenly the music picks up as she mentions paddling.  We cut to scenes of the sea and boat.  It makes her feel strong, and we see her arms plunge the paddle deep into the water.  Calm, happy music, and soft audio from the waves come in.  A shot of her alone in the water has a completely different feeling from the introduction of the piece.  Complimented by her voice over there’s a sense of independence versus isolation when paddling.  We match shots from a close up, medium, and wide shot of sea kayaking.  Here the editors show us that Pa alone in her boat is less isolation and more meditation.

Act III:
A beautiful overhead shot highlights Pa’s ability to go anywhere she wants, island hopping, in between gaping rocks, and a swell of music to denote her autonomy.  Even when Pa is out kayaking alone, she’s encircled by the environment.  There’s a connection being created visually to her surroundings.  The editors are setting up the conversation around pollution and environmentalism.  We began by making the viewer care about this character, now we’re invested in hearing her message.  We see a matched action as Pa points upwards, then zoom out to a shot of birds up on a cliff.  A shot follows a puffin’s flight as it soars out over the ocean.  The next shot of Pa mirrors this, her paddle almost like wings of her own.  The editing visualizes that like the bird, they can both fly forward. Descriptions of love and care for nature are complimented by beautiful aerial and environment shots.  The wide zoomed out shot then moves to a mid, then close shot – a zooming in to the kayaks.  Pa is a part of something bigger than herself.  She is surrounded by a team of like-minded people and the music follows this sense of belonging.  

Act IV:

The tone changes again as “There’s rubbish all over the place.”  We see trash scenes that hop from one to the next, each one cutting faster than before to give the audience a sense of unease.  The music is somber, and Pa states she’s “horrified” by the mess they find.  This is overlaid by shots of the team collecting the rubbish others have left behind. “It’s pretty hard to clean a beach and not feel good about it.”  Team member smile, the music picks up, and these choices yet again change how the audience feels about the scenes unfolding.

There’s a montage of beautiful nature centric shots.  It allows the viewer to reflect on the content of this story and inspired by Pa.  We see a wide shot as she climbs a cliff side and shot by shot close in on her ascent.  Pa’s story is about the Human Spirit, resiliency, and protecting the sea she desperately cares for.  “She spends her time not looking in but looking out”.  The music is upbeat and inspiring, we fade smoothly from shot to shot.  It’s cut to make us feel as though we’re walking side by side with Pa.  The team creates this connection to the character that leaves you feeling motivated.

The story ends on the note to help Pa, and to help yourself.  Be a better human for the environment, yourself, and others.  The cinematography, audio, and the end comment all reflect this throughout the film.  The production really exemplifies how easy it can be to guide your viewers emotions through clever editing techniques and sound design.  In short, employing contrasting editing properly can create intrigue, suspense, and immersion for your viewers.

 

 

The 2018 film “At Eternity’s Gate” directed by Julian Schnabel offers a clear example of outré filmmaking, and a fascinating look at how breaking the basic rules of cinema can create a jarringly impactful experience.

The film portrays the last seasons of Vincent Van Gogh’s life — but it is no cookie-cutter artist biopic. It is made up of specific scenes, seemingly lifted straight from the paintings you recognize from Amsterdam or Paris museums or your high school art history book. It has the deep effect of having brought stillness to life.

A lack of narrative structure is unique enough for a major motion picture. But then take into account the camera perspective and lack of focus in this film, and you’re in experimental territory. The “focus puller” received top billing in the credits, and that person’s work was truly integral to to the film. Here’s an interesting interview from the “lenser” —a job I wasn’t sure even existed. (In the trailer, check out the 47 second mark for a short example).

That’s because when Van Gogh has one of his “fits,” the perspective of the film begins to change, and the focus blurs from the edges on in. Eventually it takes over the entire frame. In critical scenes, the film is noticeably — almost completely — out of focus.

Yet somehow this risk works and the filmmaking choice imbues meaning and emotion. The audience feels inside the character’s eyes, and also out of control and at the mercy of the world around them. You also understand what it wold be like to “see” things differently and strangely, and what that would mean for you as an artist.

If you’ve read Van Gogh’s letters, you know what a confused, misunderstood, unwell, unwelcome, sensitive and kind person he was. The film does an excellent job of not just communicating that to the audience via writing and dialogue, but using the technology of the camera to put the audience inside the emotion. The cinematography is the vehicle for doing that — another trick they use is “split diopters,” sort of bifocals on the lens, which helps increase that sense of indescribable focus and shape. (1:37 in trailer)

Another technique that caused a noticeable reaction is the way secondary characters talk directly into the camera — straight down the lens — from what feels like just inches away. (In the trailer, the 18 second mark is a good example of that) It communicates the feeling and look of an interrogation, but it also makes the speaker look warped, almost inhuman. That’s another bit of characterization there, I think, of Van Gogh’s otherness and inability to connect with people and their inability to connect with him. I don’t know lenses well enough to know what technically is being used there, but the effect is very pronounced.

I’m a big fan of Schnabel, the director, but I know him more as a painter than as a filmmaker. And he definitely brought a multi-disciplinary approach to this work. His background in all types of arts — and into the inner mind of an artist and free thinker — is what makes this film work. That on top of the impeccable casting of Willem Dafoe as Vincent — he looks like a Van Gogh self portrait that just jumped out of its frame.

The film is still playing in second run theaters — I saw it at The Academy in Montavilla. A quick Google shows it playing at Cinema 21 and elsewhere. If you need to wait until it’s available on streaming services, make a point to watch this fascinating, original piece that shows you can break new ground in a well known, almost cliché story — if you think and shoot differently and take some creative risks with strong reasons for doing so.

 

-Tim Trainor

– Erika Bolstad

http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/nepal-defending-koshi

 

The opening to this video is one of the most impactful ways I have seen still photos used in a video piece in quite some time. They set up a studio with hanging lights and string to clip the photos to. Then they moved through that space to capture video of the still photos. As someone that comes from a still photography background I am always looking for creative and natural feeling ways to incorporate still images. I think this method was very successful in telling the story, and made the photos even more tangible to the view because they are printed out. The rack focus and slow pans really helped to set the mood for the dramatic narrative that was about to be told. The ominous music and forlorn quotes from local people set the stage very quickly that all is not okay. I appreciate the fact that the photos are faces of many locals and we are hearing the thoughts of the locals. All of these factors, in the first minute and 11 seconds, lead the viewer to a basic understanding of the important issue we are about to dive in to.

We are immediately brought into this world through the music and natural sounds that they blended together. This sound design throws you right in the middle of the Nepalese jungle and really gives you a feel for the surroundings. They also use some landscape time-lapse and general scene setting clips to push this even further. By the time the narration of the film starts we have a pretty good idea of place (02:00). These beginning clips are certainly jump cuts from scene to scene, but the motivation is also to start wide with landscape, move down to the water, and then to an individual utilizing that water. Even when they do text on screen they use a nice dead space composition to house the text (02:27).

 

After we gain bit more understanding about the history of the possible construction of a dam, they move forward to show us a little slice of life. Again, jumping from scene to scene. They seem to go mostly between close up and medium shots, all focusing on details of every day life there. This focus narrows down again to everyday water use in detail shots (03:15). These shots are important to the story because it makes us care about the people involved. Shooting the places that they live, in close up detail shots, puts us in their shoes. This leads us into hearing from the people who live in the area via on screen interviews. They cut between a super tight shot, with virtually no head room, to grab at the emotional parts of the interview and a medium shot for the more general factual parts of the interview. They use this two-camera interview style throughout most of the interviews in the piece. The interviews seem to be naturally lit, which feels nice for an intimate story.

Cleverly they jump back to the studio shot still images as a transition to talk about the next part of the story (04:12).

The story goes on in this fashion for another nine minutes. They use each technique throughout the whole film, which to me greatly helps in making it feel cohesive even when they are traveling to different areas. They also tie up the piece using the same studio technique as the intro with the stills, as well as video portraits with dozens of people in close up that drive the pace of the last minute of the story (11:20).

 

Greener Grass from Gulp Splash on Vimeo.

Recently, I learned about the SXSW awards, so I watched Greener Grass, a winning short film from 2016. The off-kilter comedy, written by Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe, is awkward and surreal. The film pairs normal moments – like one couple asking another, “are you guys going anywhere for the Fourth [of July]?” – with totally bizarre scenes like when a child suddenly turns into a dog and no one bats an eye. It’s set on a soccer field, where two women vie for “perfection,” passive-aggressively competing over children, husbands, and more in a decidedly weird and paranoid world. The entire film feels nostalgic, with many scenes having soft light and blurred edges. At several points, but especially at 10:03, the audio amplifies this feeling through a cheesy 1950’s-esque soundtrack.

While the overall narrative progresses linearly forward, the film feels like a play comprised of numerous, self-contained acts. This is emphasized by fade-to-black transitions between each scene. The acting is likewise theatric. However, since one of the points the film seems to be making is that people – in the film and in real life – are just performing to avoid being judged, the stilted acting fits.

There’s also a gradual building of suspense. First, we learn that one of the main character’s friends has been murdered. Then, at 5:07, there’s a dramatic point of view shift that clues us in further. Vignetting (i.e. shading around the edges) paired with loud breathing noises and shaking convey clearly that we’re now viewing the scene through an outsider’s eyes, possibly through binoculars. This voyeur POV is signaled again at 7:25 where a scene between the two moms continues but on the other side of a hazy windshield. A few minutes later, the breathing and dark shading start up again with a shallow depth of field that contributes to the binocular feel. This pattern of POV shifts at intervals increases the suspense until it reaches a tipping point, when the voyeur is finally revealed.

The producers employed other odd editing techniques that contributed to the overall oddness of the film. For example, at 5:32 a rather jarring j-cut with dramatic music signals the shift from one day on the soccer field to another. Another POV editing trick the filmmakers used happens at 6:35, where the viewer understands that they’re looking at the main characters through a dog’s eyes because of an unusually upward camera angle. They also used super tight shots to boost the uncomfortableness of the film, like at 1:32 and 3:38. Here, the camera is hyper-zoomed in on the character’s mouths which emphasizes how they are striving for superficial perfection while nailing the producer’s apparent goal of unnerving viewers.

Another interesting series of editing choices was made at 4:05, where one character’s jealousy for the other is revealed. This is shown through over-the-shoulder shots where the viewer is tuned in to what the jealous character is focusing on, and then the camera slides slowly towards her envious face as the scene transitions into her pastel daydream.

There is so much to say about this short film. In particular, there’s a lot to learn from it about how to use a persistent editing style to convey greater thematic meaning. I think it’s also a clear case of people who know the rules breaking the rules. Many of the editing choices, from music to transitions, would usually seem corny and amateur. But because the filmmakers employed them consistently and deliberately, the result is as captivating as it is strange.

-Ashley

Love Is Blind from Dan Hodgson on Vimeo.

A repost just in time for Valentine’s Day!

I came across this film totally on accident on a website for an Oregon business accelerator. It won and was nominated for a bunch of awards, including receiving a nomination at the Cannes Film Festival and BIFA, winning the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival for Best Narrative Short, receiving the grand prize at the Fenêtres Sur Courts, and more. Not knowing all this, for the first forty or so seconds I’m thinking, wait, what on earth am I watching? Then you get a snippet of the first plot point: the husband is deaf. Ah, so there will be a story. It’s a classic will-they-get-caught setup for suspense. One thing I want to point out before getting too in the weeds is that I think this film highlights why diversity – in filmmakers, actors, writers, interviewees and so on – is essential for capturing new and innovative stories. How often do you see a film where a main character is deaf? Where they’re using sign language? And it’s not an aside either, not just included for the sake of being diverse; it’s what pulls the whole plot together.

In addition to being a captivating (and funny) story, there’s a lot of great things going on here in terms of composition. Even in the first twenty-five seconds of this film, there at least a dozen different kinds of shots. It opens with a whip pan which throws you right into the rush of events. Then there’s a close-up, an over-the-should point of view shot, two seconds later there’s a cutaway, more over-the-shoulder….you get it. There’s a plethora of examples of matched action, like at nineteen seconds where the guy starts to remove the girl’s shirt and then we cut to a medium shot where the shirt’s halfway off. Another example is at twenty-eight seconds where she jumps into his arms. The fast pace of the sequence works to make the viewer feel like they’re part of the, well, action.

At fifty seconds, the filmmakers use a series of cutaways to show the husband coming home that reveal part – but not all – of what the main conflict in the story’s going to be. Every few seconds it seems like there’s a new plot point that introduces a new unanswered question. At 1:13 the camera moves down to reveal a barrette, and the viewer’s asking, “are those two going to get caught?” or, “how’s the other guy going to slip out?” This is achieved in part with parallel editing, where you see the story as it unfolds for each character. The film rides on the witness point during each shot, and the viewer is jostled between the three. Part of the film’s brilliance is that I found myself rooting for all of the characters at one point or another. I think the ending is fabulous, and I hope you enjoy it, too (but I don’t want to spoil it). By the way, the director, Dan Hodgson, has some other videos that I haven’t checked out yet (but plan to soon). You can find them on his Vimeo.

-Ashley Baker