Textual analysis 2

Textual analysis  – Post it

The second short film that I am analysing is called Post it. This film is directed by Michael Evans. This film is not typical of a genre that I might commonly associate with a feature length film. This film can only be done in short and is a light hearted film where two people are sticking nice messages on post it notes on random people in the street. I found this short film on YouTube where it has twenty four thousand views. This film was made to cheer people up and shows how people react to nice messages.

It isn’t typical of a genre that you may commonly associate with a feature length film as there is no proper point in the film just for the people to convey their message of simple happiness. A simple film of two main characters that have just met and decide to stick post it notes on people who they see on the high street.  This sort of film couldn’t be made into a feature film as there’s not enough to it and there is no proper genre name for it.

This film is about a man who is waiting at a bus stop with box. A Woman on a bench near the bus stop asks him to sit down and then asks what is in the box which the man is carrying. To which the man replies that it belonged to his recently deceased mother and contains some of her office items which includes post it notes. She decides to stick a nice message on a random guy on the bench next to her to see his reaction after getting a nice reply from him. She then decides to ask the man to join her and they then decide to walk around town happily planting these heart-warming messages to people they see on the street. This short film has a linear narrative with a beginning middle and end which just adds to the simplicity of this video. There was an initial equilibrium for the first two minutes in this short film. This is a period where there isn’t much action and is more dialogue.

This film includes a lot of basic shots. It begins with the use of a long shot to show the two main characters in the shot. It then changes to a medium shot where you see the two main characters a lot closer on the screen. To do this the cameraman zooms in slowly. They also use close ups to show the faces of the main characters and then moves to extreme close ups when showing the audience what has been written on the post it note. When the two characters are talking on the bench a lot of shot reverse shots are used to show the audience the facial expressions each character is showing. It can also show the audience which of the characters is talking at that time. The cameramen use a pan when the two main characters are walking down the high street. This allows the audience to continuously see where the two characters are heading. In this short film there are many slow cuts at the beginning but after the equilibrium there are quicker cuts to make it easier to change between the different people that they meet.  This short film obviously doesn’t have that high of a budget you can tell this by the simple mise en scene that the director uses. They use very simple and casual clothing and very simple locations with them only using a bus stop and a high street. This allowed them to not spend any extra cash on making the location.

This film has a clear encoded message which is always be cheerful or try and cheer other people up. It proves that just a simple message or action can cheer people up. The audience can see that when post its are seen by the public they usually smile or laugh. This film is largely apolitical. However it just shows people how easy it is to make people happy and how we should all try and act.

This short film is different in the way that it is simple but effective at getting its point across. It uses very few shots but this film has clearly been done on a low budget with very simple props and locations and having fewer shots only adds to the simplicity of the film.