Research: Technical Analysis ('Remember My Story- ReMoved Part 2' )

Context
'ReMoved Part 2' is the sequel to a very successful dramatic short film. The young girl, Zoe, is the centre of a common and heartbreaking storyline. This storyline involves the re-homing of two young children after their lives are put in danger by a verbally & physically abusive father. In Part 2, both kids are separated into different families whilst the mother fights for custody of her children, a fight she looses. Multiple sensitive topics are shown in these films such as abuse, alcoholism, self-harm and the struggles of the fostering/adoption process. The goals of these short films are to raise awareness of these sensitive subjects, whilst encouraging those who struggle with these issues to push on with life and not let such events affect your future aspirations and happiness.

Camera
Wanting awareness to be raised about the subject means that the story you portray must be authentic and believeable. The clever way in which this short film was made to look more authentic is that most shots with Zoe (the young girl) are taken from her height. This means that during shot-reverse-shots there are multiple low angle shots from Zoe up to the other character. This gives the audience the feeling that they along with Zoe feel inferior to the dominating character, helping us understand the fear that can live within a young victim. 
Further developing from this, the shots of Zoe and Benaiah after commonly close-ups or mid-shots, with a long shot being rare. These are also used to express the feelings experience in abuse, such as the feeling of being trapped. Zoe mentions throughout that she feels like she is stuck in a tornado, and this idea isbacked up by the claustrophobic feeling that is expressed in the close-ups oof Zoe and Benaiah.

Sound
The tone of the entire short film is set through a range of slow soundtracks, all giving different moods to each scene. Commonly in this piece, soundtracks are used instead of dialogue as apposed to having both. In editing, the soundtrack and dialogue are faded in and out at the same time in multiple periods of the short film. This introduction of the soundtrack takes audiences away from upsetting dialogue and leaves audineces to focus on the raw emotion being portrayed by the characters actions and expressions. I personally find this an intreging and inspiring way to reflect emotion onto an audience without delving into detail on a controversial topic.

Sound motifs are also a common feature in this short film and range across multiple emotions. In the beach scene, dialogue is not used, instead the ambient sounds of the wind and the waves are used to emphasise the mood of the scene. The calming nature of these ambient sounds suggest a feeling of serenity in the location, which reflects then on the life of the children who, in this point in the story, have discovered a serenity within a new family. Finally, instead of stating her pain in the voice over when she is separated from her brother, a piece of broken glass is used. When drawing on a rock and on her skin, scrapes the glass across both. The piercing sound made gives audiences an uncomfortable feeling and insinuates self harm. The sound is used to highlight the pain and struggles she goes through and the glass represents how she deals with this.

Editing
The pace of editing is highly used in this short to set the tone of the scene. To begin with, the film has a slow pace of editing, as we pick up on Zoe's life which was left in tranquility in the original short film. This peace is aired throughout the film in slow pace of editing or, as in the carousel scene, slow motion shots. However, there is a change in the pace of editing when the mood shifts. The ideal example is in the arguments between Zoe and Kyra (adoption mother). In this, the cuts between ach character are quick and frequent before they begin to slow as the argument calms. This highlights the constanting changing emotion and situations in Zoe's life, and helps audiences sympathise with her frantic life.

Lighting
An interesting technique used throughout the short film is pathetic fallacy. The weather and the time of day is used frequently to reflect the mood of the storyline, or to predict it. Calm and peace in her life is represented with strong sunlight from either sunrise or sunset. The sunset of the beach scene is used to predict the future events, as the sun represents the happiness of Zoe, and it fades to black when night comes. In the night, the realisation of Benaiah's movement hits Zoe. The pathetic fallacy is used further when Benaiah and Zoe are reunited, as strong sunlight is featured in the shots.
When Zoe is in her room after Benaiah has left, the entire room is dark but her face is lit by the lamp on her desk. Considering her emotion at this moment, the light is used as a focus point for the audience, so there is no distraction from Zoe's emotion in this scene.

Narrative Structure
The traditional storyline for any short or feature film is equilibrium, dilemma, resolution. In short films, this narrative structure is less common due to the time frame, however this short attempts this structure. Equilibrium is shown with the happiness of the beach scene, however, we know from the voice over that the dilemma has been introduced. This then is an intriguing twist on the traditional narrative structure. The resolution of the story is a very important part of this short as its vital to prove to abuse victims that happiness can been achieved. The dilemma also has to be very powerful to reflect reality and so is the dominant narrative section of the short film.

Star System
A lack of any well known actors is very common in short films dueto the lack of capital to spend. In this short, this system is used to its advantage. The lack of any star actors makes the characters seem more relatable or believable by the audience, as we could assume that these stories are real. This is needed for this storyline as the production team need to express their morals.