Short film research, coasting - by Dani

Coasting.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX2OzvixVp4

Director: Federico Forcolini

Virgin Media Shorts/ YouTube

The Tivo award winner 2011 and the winner of the Smalls under 5min shorts competition 2011. He was also selected for the Cannes Short Film Corner 2011, and each of these awards was for his short film; coasting.

Synopsis: This film is about two old friends that go for their weekly walk to get to the top of the hill, when there they eye up the local surfers with their binoculars.

This short film interested me due to the dramatic use of stereotypes from the audience and how these stereotypes can change your view on the film or add aspects of comedy to the film.

Representation

The use of stereotypes in this short film is what causes it to become slightly comedic. It is due to stereotypes that we assume the two old ladies are hiking to the perfect spot to bird watch, and in fact it is quite the opposite. This causes surprise in the audience which is possibly one of the main factors for the comedic values of the film, which without stereotypes would not have been possible.

Narrative

The chronology is linear as it flows from the beginning to end with the events in the order that they happen, however we don’t know what the film is about until the very end. In contrast to the short film ‘Goodbye, Mr Bojangles’ which tells the audience what is happening/ has happened at the very start of the film, however in the film ‘Coasting’ there are aspects of the storytelling of the film that are non-linear, for example the key event is not mentioned until the end. This is what creates comedy, as the build-up to the end of the film greatly suggests what the film is about, however right at the end, goes a completely different way with it altogether.

Genre

There is no obvious genre to the short film, as the nature of the film only becomes comedic at the end of the film, therefore it is hard to categorise it as comedy, because there is not enough of it. Aspects of Rick Altman’s theory were present in this short film and the ideas about semantic and syntactic codes are used. In the film ‘coasting’ the use of iconography, for example the old ladies with their binoculars and dialogue is used to build up the idea that something else is going to happen and will be unexpected by the audience. However it does not follow the common narrative features, present in most films of the same genre, perhaps because there is no clear genre. There are no typical plot developments either, was the opposite of what we expect, happens.

Audience

This film was the Tivo award winner for 2011 which there are articles about on the website I found it: Virgin Media Shorts. He was also the winner of the Smalls under 5min shorts competition for 2011. It was selected for the Cannes short film corner 2011, and also won the award for best female character, each of these awards have been in the same year too.

Media Language

The use of an eyeline match is effective when we see the unveiling of the unexpected. We see this shot of the two ladies, with the use of depth of field and this is the last time for us still to think they are going birdwatching. All the suspsense of the hike has built up about what they are going to go and watch and now we are about to find out what it was. The effect of the second part of the eyeline match is made more effective by the creative use of props. This shot is edited with post production work to create the feel as if it is a point of view shot, with us looking out of the binoculars.