Genre specific- Submarine short film

Submarine is a 3 minute short film, produced and directed by Cameron Whiteford and a company called Acid Flicks. Its reason for being made was that it was to take part in the 2015 Røde film competition, this short film is essentially a coming of age story centred around a young girl who loves to swim, I thought this may be relevant to my chosen storyline as it is centred around a child along with being narrated by the character.


The camera shots used within this short film have proved to be successful in help to aid the storyline and narration, a wide variety of shots have been included such as; mid shots, long shots, close ups and also a few dirty shots. Within this variety of shots, I feel the strongest are the long shots and close ups, due to the fact that the long shots give such a sense of location along with enabling the audience to connect to what the characters are seeing, giving a sense of being. The very first shots shown is a passing shot, in which a close up of the girl looking out the car window moves into the shot as if the car was being driven. This then introduces the main character in a subtle way, it almost suggests that because she has moved into the shot, she will be the main attraction, as well as being the very first character shown. There are a variety of locations including a car, a poolside and within the pool itself, therefore by using long shots it enables us to visualise far more clearly where the scene is taking place instead of having to imagine it. Whereas on the other hand, the close up shots convey a sense of character emotion, in particular one of the very last shots there is a close up of the main girls face in which she looks contented, this close up accompanied by the narration makes this suggestion very clear, yet without the close up it would be harder to see her face and make this assumption.

Furthermore with regards to sound, this has been so cleverly executed throughout the entirety of the film. For example, the main character (young girl) speaks a continuous narration throughout the running time of the film, this then ensures we as an audience are clear exactly on the storyline. At the start of the film she states 'Friday night, that was the night mum took me swimming' therefore we instantly know this is the location that the story will be taking place in, due two having this snippet of insight from the main character herself. This narration continues to reveal insights and information such as the example above to let light to the characters thoughts and feelings, without having any dialogue between another character and herself. Even though the majority is narrated, the main character does share a few lines of dialogue just to break up the narration and make the storyline more realistic. As soon as the girl hits the water a piano and guitar medley begin to play, in an upbeat fashion, giving the sense that within the water is her happy place, this music is reflective of the characters emotions, if the music were to be that of a sad nature we would know that she dislikes the water but it is in fact the opposite. Also after the girl gets out of the pool, from this point onwards, whenever her mother tries to speak to speak to her the audio is muffled, presenting the idea that the character has water in her ears preventing her from hearing properly. Because we as an audience are connected to the character through the narration, we then lose the ability to hear along with her.

The editing and transitions throughout this short film are relatively simple, however the colour gradient is mixed with mostly that of blue undertones, linking to the theme of water and connecting with the title of 'Submarine'. However even though the colour blue has connotations of negativity, we know this not to be true in this incidence.

The mis en scene has been carefully worked around the characters age, gender and hobbies. For example, because this short film is about a Friday night swimming trip that is evidently performed every week, this young girl has all the necessary items for going swimming; goggles, towel etc. However the fact that she has been put in a red swimsuit instead of a bikini, this then highlights the age that she is, as stereotypically a young child would wear a swimsuit. The fact that this swimsuit is red, could also further represent the characters love for the water, as red has connotations of love, paired with the red goggles would heighten this. When the character is in the water, the bubbles surrounding her represents the connection she feels to the water, there is a continuous flow of these bubbles throughout her time in the water.