Otherwise Engaged (Dir. Alicia Macdonald) 2015

Sebastian Black                                             Film Studies A Level                      Monday 12th October 2015

Otherwise Engaged (Dir. Alicia Macdonald) 2015

Otherwise Engaged is a romantic comedy short film. It covers the themes love & the 21^st century. 21^st century means the technology we have nowadays & what people are like with it.

Mise-en-scene:

Props:

Megan uses a phone to record her boyfriend proposing to her & she also uses it to take pictures (selfies) of both of them, showing off the ring. This emphasises on the stereotype of nowadays. She’s recording on a smart phone (iPhone) not an ordinary phone so this tells us that she is very sociable.

Location:

This short film is set in a park in the UK. This is established in the beginning with a long shot.

Costume:

David is wearing a blue hoodie, white shirt, black shorts & white trainers. This is used to show that he is wearing suitable attire for jogging.

Megan is wearing a peach vest top with a blue t-shirt underneath it, pink leggings & white trainers with blue laces. This again is used to show that she is wearing the suitable attire for jogging.

The costumes the two people are wearing tell us that it’s cold, it may not look cold because of the sunshine however they are feeling cold. The costumes also represent gender stereotypes; you have the female wearing pink & the male wearing blue & black.

Performance:

The behaviour between the two shows that they are a couple. The way they talk to each other in a baby voice emphasises that they are a couple.

Cinematography:

The opening scene is a long shot of the man & the woman jogging. This shot establishes the location which is a park. It tells us that it’s a reasonably sunny day. The long shot during the beginning is not still it is handheld & this makes the audience feel like they are actually watching the two people jogging.

Next we have a medium shot of the Megan; she’s jogging on the spot trying to encourage the male to carry on jogging. The shot then changes to David & we as the audience are looking down on him, this emphasises how Megan is currently looking at him & it also shows that he’s vulnerable & tired.

We then have another long shot of David getting something out of the pocket. The long shot is used to show this. It also shows the body language between the two. David is trying to hide something from the Megan however she’s too busy doing star jumps to notice what he is doing.

The low angle shot on David proposing to the Megan shows us the vulnerability he has. He is vulnerable because he is proposing & there’s a chance she could say no to him.

There’s another long shot showing that he’s holding the box which has the ring inside.

There’s an over the shoulder shot of Megan recording her boyfriend proposing to her. Her character is the representation of people nowadays with their smartphones.  

Edit:

This short film uses a slow pace to represent the realistic aspects of life.

Sound:

During the beginning we hear the two panting, this tells us that they have both been jogging for a while & that they’re tired.

You have the diegetic sound between the two characters. The sound is their dialogue. By listening to their accents, you can tell that they are from somewhere in the UK & they’re articulate which tells us that they are educated & they may be working class or higher. Whilst David is proposing, he’s still out of breath because of the jogging, this implies to us that he's less healthier than Megan.

The keyboard sound from Megan’s phone has been enhanced for the audience to hear it.

The non-diegetic sound is Megan’s music from her earphones. This emphasises that she can’t hear her boyfriend when he is trying to get her attention.