"lovsick" Charlie

Love sick
Director: Kevin Lacey
Date of production: April 19, 2011
Where it was found and watched from: Youtube

The beginning is the resolution of a previous relationship, he then found what he thought was the girl of his dreams, and went to great lengths to follow her, it is all the stages of toderovs narrative theory in the space of three minutes. After finding “the love o his life” the original disruption occurs again, a voice over of him explaining to himself in his mind how they will last for ever, or maybe not. After the second disruption (or rejection) he then says the same again “I think she might be the one” and the story continues for a third time of him chasing after someone who will not love him back.
I chose this short film because after viewing it I thought it was a sweet film, with a message conveyed in it, the message being don’t fall in love to easily. The film started with hi ending a relationship, then he chases a new relationship almost instantly after, I exciting and creative because the film made the audience wonder if he would ever find love, as well a question pondered by the main character.
Representation:

-The social groups relevant to the film are males, females, and couples. Maybe to a very small extend teenagers. Because that teenager on the bike, and the couple in the coffee shop when it turns out that the “girl of his dreams” is in a relationship.

-The man as a stereotype, is typically “love sick” and this is represented to the audience in a very slapstick kind of way, although rather cheesy it still helps us build a solid representation of the man, in that when he sees this girl get on the train she say him staring and smiled and the man just stood there with his mouth open practically dribbling, this is very been there done that and although overdone it still is a very effective way of conveying a message of love.

-In my opinion the film is a short film who’s background is solely romantic comedy, this would have an expecting audience and therefore would help shape the characters representation, for example if someone expected to see a thriller and saw that they would have different representations of the characters but because the audience DO have an expectation they expect to see what they do.

-The film does deal with real issues but to a much more blown out of proportion extend, for example, it is seen as a very over the top stereotype to see a girl and run after her. But that is perhaps and extreme extent of the issue of falling in love. The ideology behind the media text is to wonder whether this man is going to keep falling for different girls or whether he will eventually realise what he is doing.

Narrative:

-It’s a short film therefore the narrative and plot both have to be established rapidly, this will cause the audience to make more guesses as to what is going to happen because a normal length film has one and a half + hours to go in multiple directions, where as “lovesick” only had two possible directions to go in, he gets the girl or he doesn’t, and that’s the effect of the audience, the will have to guess which way the plot will go.

-The chronology of the narrative is linear, it does jump from past to present of future, it stays as one piece of time.

-The theory of narrative for this short I think falls best into the category of a romantic comedy and nothing backs up toderrovs theory on narrative better than a romantic comedy, however the film is a short film therefore not all aspect of the film directly follow the theory, there is not enough time for the struggle to repair disruption, instead the theory for love sick goes… equilibrium, disruption, closure to one relationship and instant equilibrium again before chasing the next girl.

-The beginning of the film starts the way the film ends but turned on its head, to explain, the film begins with a girl rejecting or dumping him, however he uses a phrase “I thought we would be together for ever” then after following the second girl he says the same phrase again before a third woman runs past, and the film ends before we can see him fail a third time and use the phrase again.

Genre:

-The genre identifiable in the film Is romantic comedy, as previously mentioned short films don’t have the time that films can play with to send the message of the genre across to the audience, however the short film with the romantic comedy has to cut down the processes of genres effectiveness because of the limitation on time. Short films typically use genre as a method of giving the film a backbone and is then the director’s job to give the short film the twist that it needs so it isn’t too long but the message is still very clear throughout the film. As relatable to john fisk, The film embodies the crucial ideological concerns to the time in which they are popular while working with a time budget.

-The appeal of using genre codes and conventions are that is away of metaphorically spoon feeding the audience into knowing what the film is a bout and helping them understand key points, codes and conventions are what the audience sub consciously make sense of in order to understand any sudden change of direction of a films narrative/ plot.

Audience:

-The website (YouTube) in terms of the audiences demographic is aged between 5 years of age upwards, obviously that’s for the website YouTube, it’s not for the demographic of people watching short films, the age of demographic for people watching the short film would be between 18 and 40 of both genders slightly female majority, however the psychographic of someone watching the films are someone who is interested in romance or other short film genres, basically YouTube is a huge online database for short films, so the demographic and psychographic information for the people using the website is really wide because there are thousands of shorts on this website on thousands of channels. Mostly films lovers and media students, people of young age and general film fans.

-The audience may feel a sense of self-enjoyment as the man in the film is hopeless and consistently wonders “why it always goes wrong” maybe knowing that you as a person knows when to give up would make the audience pleased that you’re not putting yourself in that awkward position like the man is all the time, to contrast maybe the determination of the man’s ambition may cause the audience to connotes feelings towards the man that “its sweet” and nice that he doesn’t give up and romantic, however it is probably females that would connote these feelings.

-The film has been posted on numerous short film dedicated YouTube channels and on other online short film databases, also was screened and fringe film festival in 2011 where it won the critics’ choice award.

 “Kevin lacy is a screenwriter and director who continuously impresses with his unique sense of style and knack for strong story telling” quote from fringe film festival blog.