'Down This Road' Film Analysis

The narrative in this short movie enhances the livelihood of a kid who is in search of for his estranged dad, at the opening of the movie it shows the kid looking through a few family photos of him and his parents. From the scene of the photos, there are various scenes of him travelling on his own, and scenes of him and his dad together, in his house where he experiences domestic violence and in a cafe where he spends time with his dad. The ending scene consists of the kid giving his dad a photo and then leaving him in the tube station; Separating for the last time.

There are two specific camera shots I analysed. The first opening shot where it’s a close-up low angle shot on the kids hands holding family photos, I chose this shot as it emphasises his childhood emptiness of not having a male role model, focusing all emotions on the photos. The second shot I chose is a long wide angle shot of the kid and his dad in the train station, the shot enhances the inner city surroundings, allowing the anxiety between the 2 protagonists and the city to be merged into one.

The music is a really gentle piano composed soundtrack which completely contrasts with the violence and the swearing and highlights the sadness of the characters lives.

The font used for the titles was ‘Courier’ it’s used with a white font with a black background, to differentiate the good and bad aspects of life. This font is commonly used in most urban films that has been released in the past 3 years.

The characters are, A young kid, His dad and his mum but the movie mostly consists of the 2 male protagonists, it seems as the older man is acting as a man with domestic troubles with his wife, and the kid is wined up between all the pain there going through.

There are various aspects of mise-en-scene in the clip. The costumes worn by the protagonists consists of a normal T-shirt , Jeans, shoes and glasses worn by the kids dad, while the kid himself wears his school uniform. The props used in the clip were mainly the family photos that the kid protagonist carries around with him. The location was based in a westernised American suburb. Different scenes on the film were filmed in various areas, such as a cafe and the protagonist’s house and the train station for the final scene.

The conventions for this short movie, was a upsetting narrative storyline filled with different aspects of pain and struggle, such as living in a old council flat, domestic violence, and living without a male role model. Makes a overall convention of a deep compassionate urban realest film.

I learnt to use different ranges of camera shots, but mostly close and long shots, that way we can add emotion in different lengths of the film. This also helps us to add similar conventions to our video.