This short film is about a man whose greed gets the better of him and the editing, sound, camera work and mise-en-scene are very important in displaying this. Since there is no speech in the whole short, the film relies heavily on these aspects to portray its ideas, and I feel that it does this successfully.
Sound is played with a lot in this film, it is enhanced and distorted to reflect the obscurity of the film and the 'sci-fi' nature to it. For example from the outset we are meant to instantly see that this character is a very tired, bored office worker and to show this the first sounds we hear over the titles are the monotonous sound of the photocopying machine and then the worker's loud sigh as the camera focuses on him. To also reflect his boredom and how tired he is, from when we first see him in shot he is not in focus, however once the camera has stopped tracking and settles on a mid shot of him, he comes into focus, just as if he were waking up from a daydream. Finally the very blue/grey, drab and dull colour palette that is used shows the typical office scene and also reflects the worker's mood at the beginning.
However once the black hole is introduced the camera work becomes much more interesting compared to the slow tracking and eye-line mid shots which reflect the worker's boredom. For example a point of view shot is used from the point of view of the black hole, this shot provides variety to the shots and catches the audiences attention because it is so different from the very boring camera work previously. The audience is also caught out by this shot because of the sound effect that cuts in and out with it, the effect is a very distorted, sci-fi like sound which shows the audience that something is different. The low angle we see from the black hole's point of view is also a different angle than we have seen before (previously we only see straight, eye-line shots).
The variety of camera work and unnatural sound effects increase in number from this point, reflecting the character's emotions as he becomes more awake and interested in the black hole. We also see a change to high speed editing and a larger variety of camera angles, positions, and movement to make the film more frantic, for example the close up at 1:31 which creates intensity and highlights the character's expression.
Throughout the entire film the sound of the photocopier continues, this helps the continuity and flow of the film, yet is also slightly creepy as it is a tedious beeping and whirring sound.
The ending of the film consists of very quick cuts and high speed editing to reflect how frantic the character is being while he is collecting the money. The sound is also enhanced to increase the intensity for the audience. At 1:51 we first see a shot through a door frame into the room that he is in, this camera composition frames the character to emphasise that his greed is taking over his morals. The final shots are 3 shots which are the exact same apart from they cut to a further zoom each time, with a jump in the sound on each cut. These shots fragment the film and highlight the disaster that his greed has led him to.
The film presents the values and ideologies that greed can get the better of anyone, even your average joe office worker, and that if you let your greed take over then it will lead to a bad ending. I feel that this film presents these ideas well since it does in such an abstract and interesting way that engages the audience and in so different from anything else, yet develops from a very normal situation.
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