Movie Rating Blogpost

In today's class, we got to choose a film of our choice, no matter good or bad, and "judge" or write a review on it using a given rubric. The short film of my choice was LAST MAN (2022), and here is my opinion on it:

LAST MAN (2022)/ Short Film

Tells a story which holds the audience's attention: 10

Demonstrates camera work and editing which enhances the story:10

Contains dialogue narration and/or background music which enhances the story: 5

Has compelling and interesting actors: 10 

 Total: 35/80

Using the Short Movie Judging Rubric, I judged the following short film, "LAST MAN," and gave it a score of 35/80. Starting with the first category, "Tells a story which holds the audience's attention", in my opinion, the short film has a rather inconclusive ending; the overall storytelling was ominous, but not in a mystery-like way, but instead gave the audience a sense of disconnection with the plot and the characters. In this particular film, the ending left the viewer with more questions than it gave answers, which normally would be captivating, but in this particular film, it took away from the main focus of the film.

Moving on to the second category, "Demonstrates camera work and editing which enhances the story", I believe that the camera work wasn't totally horrible, but definitely didn't add to any elements of the film. The quality of the camera was quite distracting. The camera quality often shifted between sometimes detailed, to having a shot that blends together with the color scheme so much that the image loses a clear outline, making it a wash of color. Another major factor that deteriorated the quality of the film was the random focus on an object that was seemingly unimportant to the film. While it explained where sounds were coming from, it made the film feel incoherent. 

In the third category is where I found the film most lacked, "Contains dialogue narration and/or background music which enhances the story". For starters, there was what seemed like random music and sounds that didn't really add anything more than a dramatic effect; it didn't explain what was going on or give any details on the background of the film. It more so distracted the audience and made them question why certain sounds were added and what meaning they were supposed to add to the film, which I would argue is something short films shouldn't normally do. Moreover, the dialogue was really the icing on the cake, as one would say, it explained nothing about the film, and mostly made the audience make inferences. There was actually not much dialogue in the film, which made the film more confusing than it already was. Most of the dialogue, as well as the music, added dramatic effect and sometimes explained small parts of the film, but left most of it to interpretation. 

The last category, "Has compelling and interesting actors",  in my opinion, was nothing more than mediocre. The characters were, as I would describe them, odd.  The facial expressions weren't quite right with the sound of the character's tone. One of the characters didn't show their face, which, of course, didn't aid in their interpretation of emotion. Most of the time, their bodily expressions were overly exaggerated while the tone of their voice sounded more moderate. The characters added to the disjointed feel of the overall film, and I believe that was one of the main reasons the film felt odd and confusing. Not being able to identify who the characters are and what relations they have to each other misleads the audience and results in a poorly made film. 

CASE STUDY- MISE EN SCENE

Hello! today in class we practiced a little more of the writing about what we see in clips and describing how the audience should feel when looking at particular scenes. I picked a particularly gory clip (on accident) so I cut out most of the action and wrote about what I could.

The Platform - Trimagasi's death Scene (HD 1080p)

 

The blurry, high-key (0:01) lighting at the beginning of the clip sends almost an eerie vibe to the whole scene, soon after the character who was in shallow focus is then shifted to a clip of that same character with a prop (a knife) and then another character tied up (0:10), with a facial expression that looks almost disoriented or dazed. The camera then shifts back with a mid-shot of the character (0:15) caressing the prop (the knife) and making what sounds like a non-diegetic sound added for the special effect of enhancing the terror or anticipation the viewer should feel when seeing this scene. Then a clip with a low angle of the character slowly walking up to the tied up character is shown and zooming in slowly towards his poker face, making him look relentless and unmerciful (0:19). In a conversation between the two characters as the knife approaches the character who is tied up, it is revealed that the person holding the knife wants to take meat off the other character's body so he can eat. The makeup of the two characters, which makes them look dirty and the character who is tied up looking bruised, combined with the background sound of what seems like a low hum, adds to the tension of this scene. By this point (1:09), there seems to be low-key dim lighting around both characters, and a tear rolls down the face of the character who looks to be tied up with white bedsheets up to his neck. This, combined with the contrast of the dark background (symbolizing perhaps death or doom) and the bright white bedsheets wrapped around the character, comes to create a sense of defeat from the tied-up character as well as pain. As the old character holding the knife smiles (1:11) with a complacent look towards the defeated character, the audience questions what will happen next and feels disturbed by his next moves. The old man then proceeds to use the torn-up white bed sheet (prop) to cover the mouth of the injured tied-up character (1:17).

                                                              My chosen edited clip: