'Attack' by Timothy Smith- Candice Tyson

link to short film - http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p004vtbb

Synopsis: Things are not always as black and white as they appear
Genre: Drama

Summary
Steve, the leader of a local gang apprehends a neo-Nazi skinhead in a park, because he has attacked two of his black teenage friends in a nearby alley. The police arrive and take statements from Steve and the two teenage boys. Malcolm, the skinhead, lies unconscious. As we are taken backwards through the story we realise that perhaps the boys aren't necessarily telling the whole truth and things may not be as black and white as they first appear.

Representation

• Race is the main representation in this short film. The media creates rigid stereotypes of race that constitute gender portrayal. Straight away at the beginning of the short film we see a black man telling the police officer what has happened, the language and the way the black man talks of the might man is disrespectful. Not only that but the swearing straight away puts the man into a lower class and this gives the same stereotype to the rest of the people he is with.
• Racism has always been a big thing in the media and its often the black race with the negative stereotype. This short film tests this stereotype as the black man explains that it was the white man that attacked them first and not the other way round like some people may expect.
• As the white man lays lifeless on the ground us as an audience see him as innocent and helpless giving him a more positive stereotype than the black man besides the accusations that he has made.
• The black African race is often given a negative stereotype in the news particularly as they often highlight stabbings in London that are done by this race but other crimes committed by the white British race are not as often seen on the news. This gives the idea to everyone that all black people are like this when that is not the case at all.

In this shot we see a gang of black men/youths in hoodies ready to attack the white man running away. This scene reinforces the stereotype that some people may have of the black race. I feel the director particularly put the men/youths in this costume as he wants to highlight and reinforce the stereotype.



 In this shot we see the black men rob the man of his money. Once again reinforcing the negative stereotype.







This medium shot is quite interesting as it shows the black man as the victim and the white man as the attacker breaking stereotypes rather than reinforcing them like the previous shots. The body language of the white man is aggressive and shows us as an audience that he is going to hurt the black man.


In this shot one of the black males says 'oi white boy', this is a racist remark suggesting because he is white he is different to them as they are black. This idea used to be heavily reinforced years ago when the black race were treated very badly as the white race were looked at as being better and higher than the black.



Homosexuality is also brought into the short film towards the end. This makes the story add up that the gang of black men were out to do. They attacked the white man because he was gay and they called him a Nazi because he had a shaved head- discriminating against him.

• At the end of the short film when the real story is revealed we see that the black group of people are in fact the antagonists that started the whole situation with the white man. The gang of black men are given a negative label to the public.
• The director has chosen to bring up many issues that were once big problems for example the apartheid and other issues that are often brought up about homosexuality and if gay marriage should be legalised. 

Narrative

• Levi Strass' idea of binary oppositions work in this short film between the two races-black and white. Strauss examined how stories unconsciously reflect the values and beliefs and myths of culture. His research has been adapted by other media theorists to reveal underlying themes and symbolic oppositions in media texts.

• The short film also uses Bathes' cultural code- a narrative device which the audience can recognise as being part of a culture. For example the colour of the characters skin in the short film is identified by the audience as being from two different cultures.

• The plot and what we see in the film reveals the story at the end of this short film that the gang of black men have a problem with the white man either because of his race or because he's gay. We as the audience can guess the story through what we see, although we don't see all the detail it is revealed to us through the plot and our mind piecing bits together.
• 'Attack' uses an out of chronological order structure as well as it being non-linear. The short film works backwards you see the last event first then in flashbacks you see different parts of the event which make sense of the whole story at the end.

Genre

• The genre for this short film is said to be a drama. However, there is no such genre in the academic study of this topic. In my opinion I wouldn't say this film really fits into a genre as it doesn't contain any conventions that suggest its of a certain genre. Its often quite easy to identify a genre of film through non-diegetic music or camera work. However, this short film doesn't have any interesting camera work apart from the flash backs and the only non-diegetic sound is right at the beginning which doesn't give us many clues about what genre the film is. The only genre I feel could work is maybe action as the film contains a lot of fighting and chase scenes.

Audience

• In my opinion this short film would generally target males as the short film contains gangs and violence- something that would interest  males more than the female market. Boys are socialised from a young age to be interested in things like violence as the games sold for boys often involve guns and gore. This causes them to grow up to have an interest in these sorts of things.
• Another reason I feel this short film targets males is because of the use of male characters and the lack of female characters, this would suggest that the film is aimed more at males as they will be able to relate more than they would if the characters were female.

Media Language

At the beginning of 'Attack' the title is presented in a bold font in capital letters. The writing is white on a black background showing a bold contrast as well as it relating nicely with the synopsis 'things are not always as black and white as they appear'. As this title appears on the screen non-diegetic music plays- its a faint sound of a heart beat.

As the filming switches between the crime scene and the titles we hear the distorted sound of voices in the background over the top of the non-diegetic sound of the heartbeat. This could represent the unconscious man on the floor and his heartbeat as he lays there. The distorted sound of voices could be how he is hearing the people talk around him as he drifts in and out of consciousness.

This is a medium close up shot of the man laying on the ground unconscious. The camera stops tracking across the top of his body just before the camera gets to his face. This leaves us questioning who this man is and what has happened to him?





In this medium close up for the black man and the police officer we hear the non-diegetic sound of the heartbeat stop and the camera focuses, this suggests that we are no longer hearing things through the ears of the unconscious man but instead the police officer and the others around.



I felt this was a really clever shot as it uses a panning medium close up that moves across the one male to another revealing the facial expressions of each and then the camera goes into darkness to show us as an audience that there is a flashback coming.

As the camera goes black non-diegetic music begins to play to build tension then there is a sudden burst of white that hits the screen almost like the memory has been remembered and the bright white is like a light bulb switching on as the memory is remembered. Whenever there is a flashback the non-diegetic sound of a heartbeat returns.


I felt this shot was quite interesting as it shows the white man being punched he then disappears from the frame as he is knocked out and then focuses on the two black men in the background and their reaction. They both appear quite shocked at what they've seen as they stand their silently for a couple of seconds.



This is an extreme close up for the white mans wallet to show us as an audience what the black man has robbed him of. It reinforces the negative stereotype of the black race that some people have.

After the white man hits the antagonist with a glass bottle a medium close up then reveals the facial expression of the white man showing a moment of shock and regret after what he's done.

What I liked about this short film

• What I particularly liked about this film was the narrative and how they chose to make the short film out of chronological order and reveal the true story through a number of flashbacks- each flashback revealing a new part of the story. I thought it was really creative in the way the camera pans into black and then out again to show a new flashback. I know in my short film I am planning on using flashbacks so I will take this technique into consideration when filming.