The Breaks: short film analysis

The Breaks

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ4wT3a3jFo

The Breaks is a short comedy about a range of charters who are all linked together because of one object, a bottle cap, that is worth $1,000,00. Throughout the film this bottle cap goes on a journey throughout America and the audience, during the 10 minute short film, sees just how people people are willing to go for this bottle cap.

This short film is very interesting because as said above it is about a range of charters from the teenager we found the bottle cap to the flight assistant who find out about it who all represent and attract different people giving the film a wide target audience. Also, what I like is how they have presented each character through; music, camera shots and how they are dressed.

The film starts off with a long shot of a teenager on a bmx who looks very chavy this is also backed up with the non-diegetic music in the background. You then see the teenager going inside a store demanding his money which at first seems a little weird and also gives the impression he is trying to rob this place which links to Stanley Hall's theory that all youths are trouble and prone to criminal behaviour (Hall, 1904). You also get this impression from the dialogue as the teenager comes across as trouble from the way he speaks. What I like about this opening is how quickly you can build up an impression/opinion of this character and this carries on throughout the film because each time a new character is introduced you can quickly form an opinion of their personality.

What I really like about this short film is the editing, because it is the editing choices that really keep bringing you back to the bottle cap that is at the centre of the story and the teenager who had it first. The way this works out also makes you start to like and pity this character even though at the beginning you may not have liked him much as the different clips shown in parallel editing make you pity him as you see what happens.

Also, another thing I like about the short film is the way they have used high and low angle shots to show who the dominate characters are at different points in the film. For example when the male flight attendant trys to rob the car and the kid shots him a low angle shot is used to show his dominance over the kid.

Even though the film is a comedy it is a dark one because it shows how far people will go for money and it is the dialogue that really shows this as most of the language is aggressive and a lot of swearing is used to show how money changes the characters. 

For a short film, this seemed a bit long at just over 10 minutes which makes me think it would be better to make a five minute film where less happens but the quality is better. However, I did learn some useful things from this film like how you can introduce characters through shot types, sound and costume to make the audience have opinion about them. Also, the edit was interesting because it kept jumping back to one central character. Even though I liked that this film had a lot of characters I am not sure this is something I would personally like to try in a short film as you don't have much time to introduce all the characters properly. I think the main thing I learned from this film is about the importance of getting the dialogue right because it is this that tells the story and makes the audience understand the characters.