Short Film Analysis- Alienated

Alienated is an 2.50 minute animated short film created by Hertfordshire University students, they entered the short film into the short film festival in London http://www.shortfilms.org.uk/. This personally is my favourite short film along with 'About a girl'.




The first shot we see is a wide shot of the main character AL who is an animated alien, the short film is a video diary for him and the camera acts as a documentary on him. In the first shot the character is blue and is sitting on a sofa in a front room, the colours are neutral and fresh, light purples and creams. Next there is a close up of Al talking and on the bottom left hand corner of the screen text says "Day 1, Al's house", the camera shots switch from close ups to medium shots of Al throughout the conversation giving the audience an idea of the characters feelings. The shot then cuts too 2 portrait pictures and then a still of Al and his family pushing him away, this is playing on what Al is saying as he says he has a lot of friends.

The screen then goes black and the setting changes to a medium shot of outside Al's house, the lighting looks like natural sunlight. Next Al is at a bus stop and we get a wide shot with a car driving past and the bus stop on the other side of the road. The setting has been filmed realistically but the animated character has been placed in the real life scene. Next there is a close up of Al's face wearing a joke mask. The colours of the setting are greens, whites and blues they very peaceful and set a relaxing mood.

After the bus stop shot the setting moves to a still long shot of outside a job centre, we see Al walk in. Then we see a shot of out side Al's house but it is in a sepia tone of colour ad then inside his front room also changes to a darker tone of lighting but we see the same wide shot of Al sitting on the sofa. He then picks up a remote control and turns on the TV this changes the lighting to a purple glow. The shot then fades into Al lying on the sofa, showing that time is passing.

Then Al gets up when you hear an advert from the TV talking about an exciting theme park, a close up of Al is shown. The screen fades to black then there is a scene of Al again outside a theme park, the sky is bright blue with white clouds with a colourful building behind with red and yellow painting. You can see real people moving around in the background with non-diagetic sounds of there talking along with a louder audio of Al's conversation. Next there is a long shot of the outside of Thorpe Park with Al walking across the shot and into the park, then we have him taking a picture with 2 young boys with his arms around both of them.

The short film ends with a non diagetic photo flash sound and then a shot of a Polaroid picture of Al and the two boys, with text saying "alienated, the end". Sound in the film is non-diagetic, starting with a jazz like music introduction and then Al's dialogue and an interviewers dialogue, in the outside scenes we here cars moving and a car beeping sound effects along with screams when Al walks into the job centre. When Al is watching TV there is non-diagetic sound of known TV programmes that change when he changes the channel. The film then ends with the same jazz soundtrack.