Stephen- Alone Analysis

Alone- Directed by Brock Torunski
This short film gives you an inside look on what the only man left alive does on a day-to-day basis, what he does to survive, kill time, and keep himself sane.

I chose to analyse this short film as it is an idea that I wish to use for our own short film; the last person left alive on the earth. It'll be good to see how an award-winning short film has used ideas and where we can incorporate them to our own film.

We begin with an ordinary-day setting; syntactic towards a social-realism genre. The setting and props (computers in a workplace environment) give a direct link to the audience; they will feel like they are the portrayed character. This is an everyday equilibrium; a day where nothing is going wrong and one the audience can easily relate to. As the character is working we are met with a representation of a middle-class man, his costume identifies that he's in a job where suits are required, his hair is neat and tidy and the work he is doing is likely important (the use of a prop keyboard, mouse and computer.) This representation is of an ordinary man, no richer or poorer than the average person- showing that the plot of the film could happen to anyone; making an active viewing for the audience. The protagonist's facial expression looks like one of boredom, but also concentration, which tells us how he finds work- we can tell he's a hard worker but that he also finds his job dull.

As another character comes into the setting we hear him say via dialogue "here's your report, sir" showing that the protagonist is in a seat of position; he has power. This diegetic sound comes from off the screen- we only see the hand of the worker passing the report over: this foreshadows the incoming disruption to the narrative by removing a character from the composition. The casual reply of "thanks" gives the representation of how bosses are meant to act; friendly to their coworkers.

The protagonist then picks up the ringing phone (semantic for horrors or thrillers to show a disruption) We hear the diegetic off-screen sound of a woman, presumably the protagonist's wife, sating that "everyone is dying"- this is the disruption in the narrative. The facial expression of the protagonist shows concern at first, then disbelieving. As we cut to an extreme close up it is now clear the panic the protagonist feels.

We cut to a scene where the protagonist wakes up quickly; something we already decided we'd do in our own film- looking at this scene, however, we want to emphasise the panic that the character feels- and it isn't shown in as much detail as we'd like in this short film. Looking at the medium close up we can see the facial expressions and body language of the protagonist; however with more cuts to and away from the character, (ECU to a LS) the panic would surely be better explained via cinematography instead of diegetic dialogue. Nevertheless, the medium close up detailing the protagonist's body language is a good shot and we clearly see his panic. The low-key lighting in this shot gives a semantic code for thrillers; how the darkness hides a danger. It's at this point that the conflict in the narrative is met; where the syntactic codes switch from social realism to thriller. We are still met with semantic codes associated with social realism- everyday items, though horded to tell  us the sparsity of these items. We are then met with a voice over from the protagonist; telling us of his plight as the last survivor of the human race- each with shots showing what would be an ordinary life (eating breakfast, brushing teeth, getting dressed etc.) This plot shows how one man continues to live his working life even after the world has fallen; how some things just come naturally to us and it'll be odd if we don't do them- brushing teeth for example.

A vignette effect tells us that the events shown are in the past; a like-minded idea of ours was to show a white filter over the camera to give a blurred effect. The vignette also allows the viewer to distinctly know that these events are memories; and as such can be changed to fit the protagonist's perspective.

As we enter the final events of the narrative, the 'ordeal' in Vogler's terms, we see a long shot of a house with the composition of the shot showing the protagonist in a medium close up to the left of the frame. The focus is purely on the house; where the lighting distinctly shows a light on- a sign of life. The film then ends; with the titles rolling. This ending is something that we'd like to use but with more information and a more emotional connection.