Analysing Short Films: 'BITCH' - Alex

'Bitch' (Dir. Dom Bridges, 2009)

'Bitch' is a short satire film that shows a conversation between an elderly woman and young male in a British supermarket near the checkouts. There are only 3 characters used (with the addition of additional actors in the background). The short is filmed in real time and uses a linear narrative to show the storyline.

This film uses additional credits; showing the film's distributor 'Future Short's' logo prior to the film. We are then shown 'Mustard Films Presents' before a fade to black, revealing the footage. This kind of minimal additional credits seems appropriate and efficient as it doesn't take up a long period of time, but still gives the appropriate credit. The title sequence also uses an mid-tempo, minimalistic soundtrack - similar to those used in the early 2000's, very common in Channel 4's shorts that used to be shown in between major programming (e.g. Big Brother & Ugly Betty).

The first scene shows a male walking down an aisle; the camera-work seems to be shaky (possibly hand-held) - which is questionable at first, but can later be questioned to be a POV shot of the female character. This scene is important, as it displays the most important prop of the film - a tin of tuna. Following this scene, their unique titles begin rolling. As the setting is in a supermarket, the titles are appropriate as the camera has been positioned on the end of a till-checkouts conveyor belt. Various food items have been customised to show 'A short film' and the title of the film 'BITCH' on what appears as a box of dishwasher tablets. These conventions involve the audience as they will be familiar with the settings/props - rather than being a pretentious upmarket styled film.

These titles last for 30 seconds, which is actually a rather long time considering the whole short is only 3:54 minutes long - our group's short film will not have titles that run this long as it will cut into filming time.

 Figure 3's camera shot is done deliberately as it introduces all of the characters involved: the male (who we are already aware of), an elderly woman and the cashier at the desk. It is important in short films to not use too many characters - we are trying to show a full story in a minimal amount of time. Involving too many characters may over-complicate the story. 

This is also where the mid-tempo music is cut, and we are now positioned with a typical atmos track that fits the setting - various beeping noises because of the scanners, muffled talking etc.

It's interesting to note that these first shots are very shaky, and look as though they were filmed on a hand-held - this is uncommon in the film world, but we will see if there is a purpose later in the short.

The characters don't interact until approximately 0:46, where the two customers are looking at each other unnervingly.

Figures 4 & 5 show the shot-revere-shot used that indicates they are looking at each other. In the first shot, we are given an OTS with a very noticeable pink jacket. The second; a female is positioned centrally with a fairly deep depth of field - this could be read as a reaction shot as she is the main subject in the frame.

During the S-R-S, we are shown each character twice, and the cuts last approximately 4/5 seconds each way - this shows both characters reactions perfectly. We capture the male's awkwardness as a woman stares at him, and the female's intent stare gives us the impression she is either angry or confused.

The female is of a different ethnic origin, and has a strong accent - the first piece of dialogue is:

"Ooooh lord, oh-oh lord"

We can assume she is from a Caribbean/West Indies's decent. We also make assumptions about the male; the film is a UK release, and based in a very stereotypical British supermarket. Accompanied by his pale complexity, we can assume he is of British decent. Stereotypically, these two ethnic groups don't cross paths that often in the modern world. The woman is also visibly older than the male, and of a different gender. These binary oppositions were introduced by Levi-Strausse and suggest a sense of balance in films - it just so happens that they have achieved three major oppositions.

The character development starts as the two begin to converse. The first piece of satire is the woman's line:

 "Oh, you look just like me' son."

Obviously the visual codes show that they are of different races, so the man is shown visibly confused. The audience may believe that this woman is mentally disconnected, or elderly and losing her touch. The male also doesn't really have any lines in his dialogue - this can suggest that the female has more power over this conversation and her turn of utterance is more common.

The second piece of satire is this visual code. The woman pulls up a picture of her son that she is claiming looks just like the male. The male on-screen clearly looks nothing like the male customer, but he is also an entirely different race than either of the characters involved (presumably of Asian decent). Character development shows that the male customer is finding this amusing now as he shows a sympathetic smile. His close up reaction shots shows a deeper depth of field, which suggests the characters are now invested in his conversation.  These close up camera shots indicate that they are physically closer together now.

Now that the characters are invested, the woman drops the bomb shell that her son:

"He die a few years ago"

The audience and the character now sympathise for her, and the satire turns into more of a heart-wrenching story (so we believe) - this is called restricted narration. We now know the same, or less than the character involved. This now, emotional investment opens the male character up enough to say his first line, simply

"I'm sorry."

The woman begins saying that she misses someone calling her "Mom", and now showing physical interaction. This level of interaction is a syntactic code for desperation - having a stranger physically touching you and asking them to do something so out of the ordinary would put anyone in an uncomfortable position. Naturally, the male follows through and does what he believes to be a good deed. The male is now set up to be a vulnerable character.

The female customer leaves, and breaks the conversation - leaving a considerable distance between the two. Her final line being the iconic:

"Bye, bye Son!"

 This line could be interpreted as an action code as it will result in an action happening. The woman happily leave the shop and the woman at the cash desk is left to believe that he is her son. The final piece of satire is that she had simply not paid for her large shopping bill - leaving it to her imaginary 'son'.

Due to the male's dialogue being very sparse, his final line makes the film all that much funnier and he mumbles:

"What a fucking bitch." 

I really liked the simplicity of this short, and something like this would be achievable for our little to no budget film. The film involved: multiple binary codes, had an open audience for people to enjoy, and still had the taboo language and zest to make the short inappropriate.

The short didn't really have a genre, but I would lean to calling it a comedy due to the timings and iconic one-liners. 

I also liked that the plot line wasn't majorly unrealistic - it dealt with a familiar storyline, but had an ending that no one could have guessed.