Ottie's Film Blog

Slap, a BAFTA nominated short film directed by Nick Rowland is a film about a young teenage boxer who likes to dress up in drag and wear makeup behind closed doors. The film is a coming of age type film in which Conor, the boy in question is in conflict with his masculinity, hiding himself away from his girlfriend and his best friend, who are unaware of his tendency to dress up in his room. However, it all starts coming to light when he is dressing up in his room, but he hears his best friend  Tommy being beaten up by a gang of boys calling him 'queer', Connor has to decide whether to igore them and conceal his secret or go to the aid of his friend and reveal himself to a group of boys and his best friend. He makes the honourable decision and came to help Tommy and took him in.. His friend completely unaware that he likes to do this is taken aback and confused at the situation and Connor confides in him that it "makes him feel alright". He shows...

  Over- Directed by Jorn Threlfall- 2015 This short film is set in a suburb in London in a quiet neighbourhood set around a small green. The story is shown in reverse from a police investigation regarding a body found on the streets, it then progresses to show the lead up to those events from the road being cleaned of the crime scene, a car being removed, police evidence bags of the deceased young man in question to  the body being on the street, but going unnoticed from passers by to eventually the body being discovered, then the body inevitably falling from the sky. The film makes the audience try to figure out what has happened throughout the entirety of this 14 minute film In my opinion, the film is quite confusing to the audience and I think it could have been edited better to try and make it more clear what was going on. I also think it was quite long and dragged out over long takes with nothing really happening, so I think maybe they should have ...

Tight Jeans directed by Destiny Ekaragha. Tight jean is a short film in which three teenagers are sitting on a wall waiting for a lift from a friend and we are shown a documentation of their conversation which is sparked from the trio seeing a man wearing tight jeans. They don't shy from sharing what they really think, from hilariously discussing why black men can't wear tight jeans, then relating this to 'white girls', then they somehow connect this to slavery and different races. My thoughts on Tight Jeans: I thought Tight jeans was a funny well performed short film and I liked how open it was as the boys discuss topics that aren't quite unspoken and this side and representation of male friendships and their 'throw away' as such conversations usually shown in movies at all, so I thought this was a new approach and I really enjoyed it, however I do think that it should have progressed a little bit more from just sitting on the wall because I...

  Echo: directed by Lewis Arnold Echo follows the  somewhat true story of schoolgirl Caroline who we see at the beginning receiving a phone call delivering the tragic news that her dad has been in a motorcycle accident and is in hospital. Caroline is frantic and creates a scene in the middle of a busy street, attracting attention from strangers who subsequently attempt to help her. She explains the situation to them and appears upset and in need of help to get to he hospital, the man helping her puts her in a taxi and gives her money for it. We then see the taxi driving away and stopping slightly further on, to which we see Caroline leaving the taxi and pocketing the money. She makes her way home on the bus and she appears lonely and troubled, lighting up a cigarette in front of the family home. The mise-en-scene is quite raw throughout with blue tones and it appears quite bleak, with her looking in on her family from the outside. Caroline appears to have a troubl...