ANALYSIS OF SHORT FILM

I have been watching and analysing short films. I watched and analysed a short film 'Dipper'. This was a 10 minute professionally directed film which featured on the BBC short film website. We watched the film 3 times, within the first viewing I got a feel for the narrative and tried to understand what was happening throughtout it, in the second and third viewing I made notes on camera work, editing, sound and mise en scene.These notes would then help me in being able to answer an essay question which was set 'Discuss the techniques used in 'The Dipper' to create a sense of enigma (mystery)'  

PJ Harling in ‘The Dipper’ uses an array of different techniques in order to create a sense of enigma. These techniques include editing, sound, camera angles and mise en scene.

Camera work/angles are important in this short film. In the first few minutes the use of eye level and waist level shots brings a link to the title because he is a pickpocket and is therefore just looking at people possessions and pockets. This brings in a link with mise en scene; the use of a ‘gold’ watch which the pickpocket knows is a fake and a woman’s engagement ring and designer handbag which suggest she has money and is worth stealing. The pickpocket uses people’s possessions as a way of judging whether people are wealthy or not, this links in with the tagline which is used at the beginning when there are long shots of people on the street, the tag is ‘you should never judge a book by its cover’, this is also used at the end once the story and twist have been unravelled.

In order to create a sense of enigma the director first used a voiceover which was a non diagetic sound as you couldn’t see the actor at this point but was used so you knew what he was thinking which was used a lot throughout the film along with point of view shots.

Tension is created through the use of music which he begins when he starts to pursue his target, kind of like how a predator stalks his prey. He is in power. Fast cuts are used in this narrative sequence to create a fast pace.

Enigma is created once the pickpocket reaches the policeman. He again uses the excuse of an interview however his clothes suggest otherwise. The woman’s purse is important as it unravels a mystery when opened. A man’s identity card is revealed which then triggers a black and white flash, this then stimulates a flashback. We realise the ambulance we had been watching through the point of view shot at the beginning was of the pickpocket, as we are now seeing through the eyes of the woman and she is watching him watching the ambulance. We also now know that the woman who called the ambulance was the woman who got her purse stolen. This flashback is now narrated by her and we follow her as she watches him, this creates a sense of enigma as we don’t know whether she saw him injure the man that is being put in the ambulance or if she is just trying to set him up and lure him in. When the scene then cuts back to the pickpocket and the policeman the camera pans up to her standing in the distance on a hill, this shows she now has the power of watching over him. A split screen of her looking smug and he is frozen. She then walks away out of the shot; this suggests that he isn’t going to be going anywhere. The last thing you hear whilst this is shown is the tag line again, which sums up the narrative of the story. However you are still left with that sense of enigma as the story still isn’t unravelled fully and you are still left unsure as to what her motives actually were.