Short film research (He took his skin off for me)

This short film lasts 11 minutes 

This is a film about a manipulating, controlling girlfriend who wanted her boyfriend to take his skin off. She then gradually feels the effects of maintaining him and maintaining his moral and mental state of mind.

The name of the production company makes this film start as authentic to the audience as the production company is usually shown to the audience first to make them seem like the film enhances the company's reputation therefore giving the impression that the film is excellent as the production company wants the audience to know that they made it. The simple white font on the black background makes the company look classy.

Opening scene is a close up of a worried man who portrays very well on his face that he is reluctant to take his skin off but will do it for the love of his girlfriend. This highlights the importance of a good actor in a short film as facial expressions tell alot of the story. The audience know already due to the title of the film that he is going to take his skin off, this apprehension connected with his facial expression causes the audience to wince at the expected blood and gore. The background is plain, together with the skin makes an innocent, pure atmosphere, stripping everything back, just an act of love.

This following scene confirms the audiences suspicions as the there is an extreme close up of the vastly stretched skin almost to the point of breakage/rip then the screen blacks out, taunting the audience on an emotional roller-coaster.

This blackout has the capacity to build up tension as it is hiding what the audience fear seeing. A man without skin. The tension is further built via the use of shadowing as he is walking down the stairs and the use of camera blurring out the background of the kitchen and focusing on the girlfriends face. However the outline of what the boyfriend looks like is introduced with a silhouette of red, which prepares the audience a tad for the full extent of the grisly image.

A couple of motifs are used to reiterate the red theme and the texture of the boyfriends body, including an extreme close up of raw red meat and the extreme close up of red wine being poured, representing the blood. It could also infer that the girlfriend has a very unusual fetish for all things raw and red, giving the storyline a meaning. This theory of the girlfriend having this fetish is further reiterated by her facial reactions when she sees him for the first time and her looks of love throughout the film, together with her actually asking him to take his skin off certifies my interpretation.

The cameras main shot is the close up of the girlfriend or the boyfriends face in order to capture the emotions and the expressions as these tell the story.
In this scene no background is captured in order to isolate the man and draw/emphasis all the focus onto him.

An over voice now comes into play as the girlfriend sinisterly tells of the maintenance of her boyfriend eg, the washing of the bed sheets, the temperature of the house has to be boiling and this dialogue is perfectly reflected in the scenes as the scenes show by the use of heavy mise en scene eg blood everywhere, how the woman is coping.

The boy friend is evidently cold as the props would suggest (blankets, woman in t-shirt)

The camera angles from now start to vary to show the strain that is growing on the girlfriend in the maintenance of the skinless boyfriend and shows the strain on their loving relationship vis the use of blood as it represents smears and stains on the relationship.

Canted angle to show a change in mood

High/ birdseye angle to show the girlfriend in an inferior position for once as the maintenance is getting on top of her.

As their relationship deteriorates, the amount of blood increases.

Close ups of the face are still used as this captures the strain on the girlfriend and boyfriends face, the mise en scene contains frosted glass which signifies the distorted life they are both leading.

The extreme close up of the girlfriends belly in the shower is a significant shot in reference to the effect that her fetish has had on the relationship. The blood stains her in a bruise-like way which represents the damaged relationship that they share due to him being skinless. Her washing away the blood deduces her washing away her guilt of making the husband unhappy. Previously when the boyfriend was in the early stages of the skinless life, there was hardly any blood as they were both happy in love as we saw via the two shots and facial expressions, however as it started to effect his job, the amount of blood around the house increased, making more work for the girlfriend.
The one shot that defined that the relationship is being seriously harmed is the framed picture of the couple with skin, covered in blood, this tells the audience that the love they once shared has been well and truly smeared by this stage of their lives.

The structure of this film

This film shows the deterioration of a loving relationship.

At the start camera angles are generic, simple facial shots the capture reactions however the main tension came at the start of the film which used camera effects the establish such as blurring.

The disequilibrium is portrayed with a voice over and the effects being shown via different camera angles. The deterioration is also shown by camera angles. 

The equilibrium comes at the end of the film where the boyfriend rips the girlfriends skin off as the deterioration comes to a solution.  

What can I learn from this film?

The effect of motifs really gets the audience connected with the film and makes them think, the use of close ups on the face is essential in a short film as it is the actors that make the story. Also irony is a good technique to use as a film base.