Blog Post #5- "All Too Well: The Short Film"

My all-time favorite short film is Taylor Swifts "All Too Well: The Short Film". This is a musical romantic drama. By watching this short film so many times played a part in deciding that I wanted to do a short film. This short film is about an age gap couple (personal Taylor Swift experience) and their love story. How it started out good but he changed and the relationship fell apart. It took us through the relationship, the breakup, the healing and even the moving on. I admire this film so much because it was written and directed by a female, the mise en scene was close to perfect and the intended meaning of the film was put across. 

This was a picture taken during filming of Taylor Swift directing the two characters (Sadie Sink and Dylan O Brien). Sadie is the female protagonist. She is meant to represent a younger Taylor Swift and Dylan is the love interest who is meant to represent the one who hurts Sadie. Dylan is portrayed much older in the film by asserting dominance. He comes off as very demanding and likes to be in charge. He has a full face of hair, shown in the film picking up and carrying Sadie around and he dresses as a dad. Sadie however, is represented in a more vulnerable state. She is very easy going, she is shorter and her face is naturally younger. 

In the positive romantic scenes, the characters are in some type of outside with bright lights to help set the mood as positive. These are the kind of scenes where the characters are happy with one another so the lyrics are happier and focus more on the positives of their relationship. The bright lighted scenes consisted of the majority beginning film. 

 

However, towards the end there was a shift in the relationship which was represented through the change in lighting and attitudes of the characters. During the big breakup scene, the lighting was dim and the costuming of our characters seemed as if they have not left the house in a couple days. When you associate lighting to feelings, happy is normally bright and sunny but sad is more gloomy and rainy. Different lighting techniques like this is some of the things I would like to bring over into my film. 

To make Sadie stand out, in important scenes she wears red lipstick. The red lipstick grabs viewers attention because no one else has that on. With her red hair and the red lipstick it allows her to stand out and gives the viewers the understanding where that is what the director wants their attention.

Comparing this to my film plan: 

For my short film, I am going to use some of the same genres as the one for this short film. While my short film will not be a musical I plan to incorporate some romance along with drama. In Taylor's short film I enjoyed the way she made her characters stand out. For example, the red lipstick with Sadie. To carry this over in my film I can give one of my actors very vibrant clothing or a crazy hairstyle that is not typically normal. I like the way mood was established through lighting. When it comes to my film, when I do a happy flashback it will be a scene with brighter lighting and more upbeat music but when it is a more upsetting scene it will be dark lighting. For example, the beginning opening scene I can make it to where it is raining outside or getting ready to rain. This way the viewers will be under the impression something bad will happen and will not associate a bad thing with bright lighting.