Director: Douglas Ray
.jpg)
‘Get Off My Land’ is a short film written and directed
Douglas Ray and promoted by the BBC – film networking which fundamentally
showcases up and coming British film makers. It was funded by the UK Film
Council and shot on location in the countryside. The films running time is
exactly: 04.42 minutes long. Quite well known British actors are in this film,
these being: Rafe Spall, Ruth Wilson and Robert Glenister. Get Off My Land would come under the genre of
black comedy, this is because of the dark comedy used at the ending when the
farmer says “got a feeling this a public footpath”, which shows a dark humour
in the fact he didn’t have to kill the ‘trespassers’ but is smiling at the fact
he did. The target audience for this would be people over the age of 15 due to
the violence shown; also being that it is a short film you would expect older
adults to watch it as they are more likely to have an interest in watching
short films than the younger generations do.
The narrative for this short film is about land owner ship; it
shows a young couple walking through a field in the countryside, who eventually
get stopped by a farmer as he approaches them as he believes they are
trespassing on ‘his land.’ The couple are convinced they are walking on a
public footpath and not on his private property. Soon the boyfriend and farmer
have a verbal confrontation with each other about who actually owns the land
which results in the farmer saying “someone probably fought for it”, in which
the boyfriend then wishes to fight, the farmers walks off to then return with a
shotgun, murdering them both.
As it being a short film the film is restricted due to its
time frame to the locations, therefore only one location is used throughout, this being the countryside. Also, due to the time constraint the audience were only able to watch the
film from a subjective point of view. The dialogue was the most dominant
feature to the film although it was not over complicated. There was no
incidental music or non-diegetic sound only ambient sound. The opening titles
were simple and to the point as the same with the end credits, this gives the
film the tone of simplicity as its not elaborate etc.
A convention of short films is that there is always a twist
to the plot, this convention occurs in the film when the farmer kills the
boyfriend walks off and leaving the audience thinking he will leave the
girlfriend unharmed to only then cut to a n extreme long of the woods with no
noise until you suddenly hear another gunshot telling the audience that the
girlfriend has now been killed too.
The editing was simple and limited with just the use of
cuts; shot reverse shot (this can be seen when the boyfriend and farmer as
having the confrontation); jump cuts when it changed from the couple walking to
the scene when the famer approaches; and a simple fade at the start from the
couple walking in the distance to the titles. The pace of the editing increases
once the confrontation between the boyfriend and farmer heats up and then slows
back down for the editing pace then slows back down when the murders take
place.
The camera shots are not that varied either. The majority of
shots are either long shots to show the location, close ups to show the
characters facial expression and medium shots. There is also a pan at the
beginning showing the couple walking into the distance to where they would
eventually meet the farmer. The film contains handheld camerawork which gives
the audience a more realistic atmosphere to the film. The prime example of the
handheld camera work is when there is a close up on the girls face after her
boyfriend had been shot, her face is covered in blood and she is clearly in a
state of shock.
No comments:
Post a Comment