Eight - Alex Lloyd

The short film 'Eight' was made in 1998 and directed by Steven Daldry. This film is a great short film that is interesting with good acting, it is a social realist film and we know this due to micro evidence such as sound, lighting, characterisation and setting. The narrative is about a Liverpool fan at 8 years old who find himself having to come to terms with the loss of his father and living in a new area. This type of story is upsetting and something that occurs in day to day life for many people, hence why it is social realism.

There is not a strong music track used throughout this film as opposed to the previous short films I have seen, there is a dominant violin introduced at the beginning of the film along with a beach setting, this is peaceful but yet being played in a minor key can make it seem depressing. This stringed instrument fades out quite early on leaving most of the film with no non-diegetic sound. A voice over is used a lot telling us the beliefs and thoughts of our main character. Without the strings being played throughout it becomes more serious and upsetting as we slowly figure out how Jonathan's Father may have passed away, without non diegetic sound it also makes it seem more realistic and that we are there with him. The voice over engages the audience making it seem as if he is talking to us, 'breaking the fourth wall'.

The characters are all working class living in what looks to be an unwealthy area. This is evidence of it being social realism adding to the problems that this small family may have. The short film format is a little different to the previous in a way that there is no obvious resolution, throughout there is always a lot of restricted narration holding the characters back from telling us how his father really died. As the film goes on more and more clues lead to us believing football had an impact on how his dad died but the true way is never told. There are many issues with the naive 8 year old as he struggles to understand the relationship between this vicious and 'loutish' sport and the death of his father, as the film introduces the mother, we are also under the influence that the mother is struggling to keep her son away from this dangerous past time.

The advantages of this short narrative is that it does raise many questions and keeps its restricted narration all the way to the end, there is no obvious resolution in the way that everything ends out happily becoming quite a powerful piece of work, i am inspired by the way it does this and think using restricted narration a lot in my piece of work could lead to the same effect.

The small boy is represented as lonely and upset, a lot of low key lighting is used in many scenes including the one in which he is in the shed hiding his clothing, this connotes him being isolated from everybody else as he tries to follow his dads footsteps in being a big 'Liverpool' fan. We see things from a subjective way with the voice overs telling us his thoughts, using POV shots and restricting the non diegetic music can put us there with him on screen, this helps us to sympathise with the character. Due to it being social realism, the problems that this boy has and the struggle with coming to terms that he will never have his dad is something that many people experience in life hence why it is so powerful to some. I would like my short film to be social realism hoping to catch many peoples attentions by the problems that occur with my protaganist.