NightWalking is a short film being showcased on The BBC Film Network. It is a black comedy
detailing a person’s thought process when walking home alone at night.
The “ACTAEON
FILMS” company introduction has a dark, strong piece of music (strings) that suggests
a drama/thriller/horror. The very first shot we are shown is a long shot of a
woman’s legs as she walks along a dark road, strong light is beaming from the
right side of the frame, possibly imitating a lamppost. This lighting is used
effectively as it casts a large shadow onto the wall and floor to the left of
the frame. The shadow suggests a dark story or event upcoming. The title
“NightWalking” appears at the bottom of the wall, running along it. This is used
well and is a more subtle way of introducing the title, without distracting
from what is happening on-screen. The first line we hear is “I hate walking on
my own at night”, this is an inner monologue inside the woman’s head; suggested
by her mouth not moving, and said as if she is thinking to herself. This line
immediately tells us that the film is focusing on the fear of being alone at
night, we begin to wonder what will follow.
We then cut
to a similar shot, but now it’s a medium-long shot, and we are seeing the top
half of her body. We can see that she has a scared expression on her face, and
due to the angle allowing a lot of space in front and behind the woman, we can
see the large shadow of another person appear behind her. Then we hear “I
always think there’s someone following me”, more signs pointing toward a
possible thriller genre. The scene goes into grayscale when we see the other
man’s shadow, along with some sort of distortion. This creates a mysterious
effect, and we still don’t know who the person behind her is. We are then shown
a medium close-up from behind her, possibly the view from the supposed
“Stalker”. We finally see the man’s face, which is again shown in grayscale,
possibly to keep us from associating with him. The woman goes through options
in her head, such as “I could tie my shoe lace, then he could walk past” or “I
should run!”, this is shown in the efforts to create a somewhat relatable film.
As worrying about the person behind you is a common occurrence. She decides to
turn around, and the man is no longer behind her. A mysterious feel lingers as
I (the viewer) wonder where the man has gone. At this point there is no hint to
a comedy genre.
She walks
back to the corner she has just turned, to see if he is there, but she still
can’t see him. However we can hear a phone ringing, the woman looks down and
sees a mobile phone on the floor. The scene then fades out, and we cut back to
the very first shot, however this time we are following the man that was
walking behind her. He first says “Oh, I hate this; walking behind a woman on
her own at night. It’s embarrassing, she’ll start to walk faster when she hears
my footsteps”. Here is where the comedic effect begins, we discover that rather
than a mysterious man stalking a woman, he is just walking in his direction,
and is in fact worried about what she thinks of him.
The shots of
the man are no longer in grayscale, and are without distortion. We are now
meant to sympathise with the character. The man continues thinking, wondering
if he should walk another way round, but sees no need to as he’s not a maniac.
He then thinks he could just stand for a bit, and wait until she’s walked off, eliminating
the problem, he then wonders if he could overtake, but as we saw in the last
version of this scene, she speeds up to get away. He makes jokes in his head to
calm himself, such as “This would be much easier if I was a rapist”. He decides to make a “loud, but not threatening”
phone call, possibly to his mum. This time round, the man is well lit, we can
see his face and he is displayed as less-mysterious. This has created an
incredible shift in opinions, as we are lead to feel one way about a character,
before listening to their side of the story. This type of subtle humour is
something that could be very beneficial to our own short film. The man then
accidentally trips over into a hole dug in the ground, so he can’t be seen and
drops his phone, before the woman turns around to find the phone.
The way that
this short film manipulates your thoughts on a story and a character, then
completely changes your feelings by showing you another side of the story is
something that I would like to attempt in our own film. I also like the way
that the film uses a few one-liner jokes to add to the humour, to really slot
it in the comedy genre.
In our film,
throughout the majority we are lead to believe that Poppy is not interested in
Callum, however we later find out that she’s a little weirder than first
believed. This has been incorporated as an inspiration from this short film.
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