Charlie's Media Studies AS!: Short films

Over the past few lessons, we have been watching and analysing short films. These include 'Where have I been all your life', 'My Beast friend', 'Get off my land' and 'The Big Shave' (videos below). We have been looking at these to show that even with very little time, a film can still be brilliant depending on the way it is written, who is acting in it, and how well the shots are chosen and edited. Out of all of the short films that we watched, my favourite is Martin Scorsese's 'The Big Shave' (1967). In the film, a man is shaving and over does the job and ends up cutting himself all over his face and neck.Knowing that this is a 'war film', I believe that it represents going to war. First of all, there is no need. I say this because in the film the man does not really need a shave, however he decides to in the same way that wars are not needed but they occur anyway. Secondly, after he shaves the first time his facial hair is very minimum and does not need shaving again, yet he decides to keep shaving and ends up injured. This is like in a war, there are some people that will go in, get the job done and then leave. Unfortunately, there will be others who will do too much and go in all guns blazing and end up killing themselves or sustaining a serious injury. The film is my faourite for that reason and a few more. Firstly, I like the way that it is filmed because there is only one scene in the entire film. This could infer that the man is trapped in his feelings as he only is one place, and this suggests that he could be suffering from some sort of post traumatic stress disorder from a war. I think, also, that the young man (played by Peter Bernuth) did a fantastic job at showing no emotion at all. This sort of control during a short film must require lots of concentration so I applaud him for his acting. I have learnt many new things from these short films such as camera angles, shots, choices of cast, and many more. And again, I reccomend them.