Short film analysis: Soft

The short film begins with a diegetic sound of shouting, this is accompanied by a title set against a black background. The image we first see is of a pixelated video, presumably footage from a mobile phone of teenagers running and shouting.

 The image is of a low quality and the camera movement is disorientating, indicating that it is handheld and again is shot on mobile phone. The aim of this is to create a sense of chaos and confusion for the audience and links with the footage of the teenagers as teenagers are more than likely to be using mobile phones.








 The image becomes steadier as it follows the teenagers down an alley to a group bullying a school boy. Those bullying the boy are dressed in the stereotypical youth style, with the majority of them wearing black hooded jumpers, often having connotations of trouble making and another teenager, a male, wearing a white tracksuit which signals him out from the rest of the teenagers.

 It suggest that he is the leader of the group/gang and evokes this via the contrast of his white tracksuit and the groups black hooded sweatshirts. The teenager in the white tracksuit repeatedly hits the boy in the uniform, it then transitions to a celluloid shot that contrasts the opening footage of the mobile phone video. The contrast is further presented to the audience via a high angle shot of a quiet street of houses, the lack of commotion and stillness within this scene contrasts the footage before with the youth shouting and screaming. The diegetic sound of the birds tweeting provides a calm and serene quality to the scene that further juxtaposes the shouting of the teenagers in the opening scene.

A teenager is presented to walk downstairs, we can identify that is a teenager due to the upbeat music. The teenager quickly reverts from going downstairs as someone comes through the door.














The man who walks into the house, seemingly the teenagers Dad shouts up to the teenager. The man then proceeds to make a cup of tea, only to find that there is no milk. The medium close up shot here presents the concentration on his face, yet does not reveal the character straight forward, the camera shot does not reveal much about the character.














The man asks his son Tom to go and get milk, the response is the same teenage upbeat music. The facial expression of the Toms Dad is presented as disbelief and turns around to leave the house.





A tracking shot follows the man down the street, we can not see his facial expressions, however, we can infer he is displeased with his son.

It then transitions to the mobile phone footage, this time it is of the same teenagers, however they are beat-boxing through a traffic cone.




















It then transitions back to the man, in contrast to the youth, his clothing demonstrates his class and somewhat authority. The long shot of the man walking down the street indicates the length of time he has left till he reaches the shop, the shop in which the teenagers are stood.




The teenagers behaviour is again demonstrated via the mobile footage of the assumed leader scaring a pedestrian. The representation  within this film of youth conforms to the stereotype of them due to their hooliganism behaviour.

The teenagers are then presented to be playing with a red balloon, shots of the man is parallel to the teenagers, indicating that he will shortly approach them.

The man walks into the vicinity of the teenagers who then scare him by popping the balloon as he walks into the shop.


















The youth laugh at the man, in turn the man mocks them by sarcastically laughing, the youth respond by stating they will knock him out.







An over the shoulder shot presents the leader blocking the mans path out of the shop.

It transitions to the mobile phone footage again, indicating that it is the teenagers territory and will do something to the man. They shout at him and make him stop to listen.









The leader in white kicks the man to the floor, he gets up and walks away.









A tracking shot presents the youth following the man home, it equally presents the mans facial expressions, seemingly anger.

The tracking shot from behind presents the spit on the back of the man and also indicates that he is being followed.







The man enters the house and checks his face for blood, it then cuts to his son who is revealed to be the boy from the opening who was getting hit by the same youth as his Dad. The medium close up of the boy indicates his apprehension of seeing his Dad. We can only see one part of his face, we can assume he has a bruise or cut the other side.

A shallow depth of focus presents the son to walk in behind his Dad, blurring out his face where the assumed cut is, yet it focuses on the mans face, we can infer he is angry yet fearful.

Scott tries to pursue a conversation with his Dad, so he can notice his face, however, his Dad does not turn around, a medium close up reveals Scott's bruised face.

A medium shot reveals his Dad's expression as he notices his face, Scott explains he got into a fight today.






A two shot shows the fear as the youth who attacked them both are outside the window. Scotts' Dad tells him he should have retaliated despite him always telling Scott to never fight.







The teenagers begin to taunt Scott and his Dad by sitting on his car, a medium shot reveals it is the leader who is doing this.









The youth taunt the father and son more by placing his penis through the letter box, after the father and son fight about being scare, Scott opens the door and steps outside.





An extreme close up presents the fear of Scott's Dad as his son steps outside to face the youth.
























A tracking shot presents Scott's Dad leaving the house and turning to push Scott back into the house.






It then transitions to the mobile phone footage once again to reinforce the idea that the youth have control over the situation.

The leader hits the man and proceeds to do a dance move as a sign of victory, however, Scott comes out of the house with a cricket back and aims for the leader.



















As Scott makes contact with the leaders head, the footage reverts back to celluloid to indicate that Scott has triumphed over the gang and reclaimed control.







A medium close up indicates the disbelief on the youths face.








A wide shot establishes where they are as Scott aims to hit the other gang members.












A point of view shot of Scotts foot stamping down onto the youths head is well executed and cut to present the stomping.

The Dad then stops the car alarm ringing which added to the commotion of the scenes in which Scott fought back. The car alarm ending signifies the end of the gang hurting either of them again and restores peace to and equilibrium.


The credits play over a high angled shot of the calm street presented in the opening scene.