Short Film Deconstruction: Prospect (Directed by Shep Films)Upon deciding to do my project on a dramatic, more serious short-film I decided that the best short films to look at would be the drama-based ones.

In this short film ‘Prospect’ a father and daughter are exploring a toxic world to try and discover if it can be made habitable. Due to the atmosphere being toxic, the use of affects made the appearance of the film very eerie and grim, but also quite beautiful. During the entire film there is a wispy grained affect that most likely are there to represent spores in the toxic environment.

If you look closely the spore affect is evident. The fact that it’s subtle is a plus as it means the affect is not overwhelming. I could use this atmospheric edit to give my own product a far less plain feeling. In other shots the use of saturation is very obvious and I think this is once more a very nice affect. The way ‘Prospect’ presents itself helps to cannote a jungle alien planet rather than the local woods, this helps prevent the limitation of locations as it’s obvious when watching the entire film that the production of this short-film was in a confined location, reusing the same place, though thanks to the wild and overgrown appearance, the changing and alteration of some camera angles make it look entirely different when watching it for the first time.

If you look at this picture, and then look at the one below, it’s clear that the tree to the far left of the picture above is the same one used in the shot beneath, though due to the change of angles; the hectic environment makes it hard to

distinguish this. I could try and implement this technique with my production as the lack of transport provided to me limits the available options I have for locations.

The camera shots presented in this short film are typically made up of long shots to present the atmosphere more clearly. Though a large amount of the shots are also tracking/panning shots. Generally ones that involve movement, except for when the situation is calm and the representation of panic is not required. There’s also a large usage of match-on-action when the father and daughter are setting up their camp. This helps exaggerate micro elements such as the guns and futuristic equipment.

The shot presented here displays a primitive weapon for an alien planet, though this idea of wooden built/home-owned improvised weapons could be applied to our dystopian idea.The ambient music adds towards the atmosphere, making it feel really distant as the music is light, constant and high-pitched.