Sebastian Black Film Studies A Level Sunday 27th September 2015
Wasp (Dir. Andrea
Arnold) 2003 vs. Soft (Dir. Simon Ellis) 2007
VS
Wasp is a short film directed by Andrea Arnold & it is
about a lower class family (Zoe & her five children) & their struggles.
Zoe does not have enough money to feed her 5 children & she has put her 5
children before her own personal life. This films genre is social realism &
the themes are poverty, family & love. The film starts with Zoe & her
children going to a neighbour’s house to fight because the neighbour hit one of
Zoe’s children & Zoe was not going to take it lightly. The film ends with
Zoe in Dave’s car with her children & Dave has paid for the children’s food
as they were hungry.
Soft is a short film directed by Simon Ellis & it is
about a working class family (Scott & his dad) & their difficulties
with the local youths. The film genre is drama & the themes it covers are
antisocial behaviour & violence. This film starts with school children
running towards a fight & Scott is the victim of this fight. The youths are
picking on Scott & the others watching are recording the fight on his
phone.
There are a few similarities between these two films. Both
films start with the characters running to a fight. In Soft, youths are running
to watch a fight where as in Wasp; the main characters are running to start a
fight. Another similarity is that the slight difference in class, Zoe started a
fight with a lady who was slighter richer than her (judging by the house) &
the same goes for Soft, the youths started a fight with Scott & Scott belonged
to a higher class compared to the local youths. The dialects used between the
two films are fairly similar (aside from Scott & his dad). Zoe, her
children & the local youths from Soft, they all use the same forms of slang
because that was the way they were taught.
The way I interpret both of these films, I believe that the
way that Zoe treated her children in Wasp, although she did love them, their
upbringing effects how the children will behave when they are older & I
believe that it foreshadows the behaviour of the local youths in the film Soft.
The local youths from Soft may have had the same upbringing as the kids from
Wasp, hence why they are behaving that way towards other people. Scott’s dad
told Scott to not get into fights whereas Zoe has a fight in front of her
children & this could make them think its okay to fight with people hence
why I believe that the youths from Soft could represent the future of the
children from Wasp.
The difference
between the children & their parent in both films is that Zoe’s children
loved her & they were thankful to their mum (Zoe) as she fought back for
them however Scott’s dad did not fight back on behalf of Scott, instead Scott’s
dad called Scott a “wet end” & this caused a slight tension between them
but at the end, Scott fought back instead of his dad & he dropped the
cricket bat on the floor instead of handing it to his dad despite the fact that
Scott’s dad had his hand out for it. Another difference is the main characters
class, Scott & his family were of working class & Zoe’s family were of
lower class, this is a huge contrast between them.
Soft had a budget of £50,000 & the two production
companies that were involved in this film were Bub & Perfume Films. Soft
also had 3 distributors (Channel Four, Film4 & UK Film Council). Wasp on
the other hand had 3 production companies involved, these companies were
FilmFour, UK Film Council & Cowboy Films. Wasp only had one distributor
which was Criterion Collection the [US] & this distributor distributed the
film Wasp to the US & for a short British film to have that is a great
deal, it means that there will be more people watching Wasp & understand
Andrea Arnold’s message. Wasp also had other companies involved, these
companies were:
·
Bureau (short film consultants)
· Candid Casting (casting)
·
Commercial Eyes (negative cutting)
·
Framestore CFC (thanks)
·
Kodak (film stock)
·
Swiss Effects (thanks)
Source:
No comments:
Post a Comment