Analysis of a similar short film

The short film I have chosen is called doodlebug. This film is a noir styled surreal film.

The film starts with the title, it says "doodlebug" in an old style type writer font and instead of using letter o's there is a pair of eyes. This starts the film with a weird and confusing effect. The text is on a black background which then circles out from the eyes to show the main character and it becomes clear the eyes in the title were the main characters eyes.

It shows a middle age man in suit trousers and a vest holding his shoe crouched towards the ground looking stressed. The character looks very normal of the time it is set so confuses the audience because there is no way to understand why the character is so on edge. The shot then zooms out from a medium shot to a long shot. The character then runs towards the camera and then it cuts to an over the shoulder shot of him jumping and hitting the ground with his shoe.

There is tense confusing build up music in the back ground. This gets the audience thinking about what might be happening further in the film.The character looks round and then there is an eye line match to a POV shot of a clock on the side, this gives you the impression he has been doing this for a long time or that he needs to catch what ever he's trying to catch by a certain time.

It then cuts back to a medium shot of the main character and then there is diagetic sound of a phone ringing. This further supports the idea that maybe he has a certain time to catch something or that there is some kind of external pressures on what he is doing.

 The character then rushes to answer the phone and puts it straight down on the side. As he does this there is match on action as it cuts to a medium close up of the character. There is then a POV shot of the phone he has just put on the side but this shot only lasts for a second. This gives the audience the impression that the character is scared but also certain he doesn't want to answer it. In the back ground you can hear diagetic sounds of speech coming from the phone but it is unclear what they are saying.

The charter then grabs the phone and puts it into a jug of water. Their is diagetic sound of bubbles that are visible coming from the phones ear piece. This is confusing because instead of just simply putting the phone down he decides to hang up a different way, this also further implies that he has anxiety problems. There is then another eye line match as the character looks towards a clock on the wall. The shot matches to a close up of the clock, and then cuts to an extreme close up of the phone in the jug with more bubbles coming from it. This relates the effect of time on the phone call, maybe who ever has called them has given them a set time to do something.

 Next there is a medium shot of the character jumping over the chair to try and catch whatever he is after. The shot is hand held and follows the character. It then uses a high angle medium shot looking down to the character cuddling his shoe and looking sad, this makes the character look small and weak, giving the impression he will not catch the thing he is chasing.

 He then gets up and runs to hit the ground at the other side of the room with his shoe. The camera pans across the floor following an item of clothing that is moving across the floor. There is then an over the shoulder shot of the character crawling along the floor after the item of clothing. He then picks up the clothing to see a smaller version of himself crawling along the floor, this is very confusing and surreal.

He then misses the smaller version of himself with the shoe. It then uses a low angle shot looking up to the main character of him jumping from side to side this makes him look bigger and dominant over the smaller version of himself which contrasts with what we have been shown previously because he has looked less dominant and unable to do what he wanted. This is then repeated with a high angle shot looking down on the smaller version of himself that is also jumping from side to side, this makes the smaller version look smaller and weaker.

 The smaller version of himself then jumps to the ground and hits the ground with its shoe. There is then a close up of the main character raising his hand and hitting the smaller version of himself with his shoe. Then from the background a much larger version of himself appears and a shoe crushes him. The clip then fades to black and the credit scene appears. Overall I thought this was a good short film even though it had a simple storyline.