Control (Textual Analysis 2)

I will now be analysing another short film called Control which is duration of 1 minute 1 second. The film starts of with a black screen which suddenly goes into the film with a point of view shot of a child looking at her mother who is stopping her from going outside as it is cold. Whilst watching this you can see a date at the top of the screen and two screens playing the same footage beside each other. At the beginning it is very confusing to see two screens playing the same footage at the same time as you do not see this effect in many films but as the film goes on later it becomes clear what the director has done and what the message is. You then cut to a over the shoulder shot with the camera placed behind the mums shoulder, from this view you are also able to the child’s reaction.

Once the camera cuts to a medium shot this is when you will start realising the purpose of the two screens, the left screen shows the little girl listening to her mum where as the right screen shows a little girl who ignored her parent and does what she wants to, throughout the short film there is a diegetic sound playing which is a basic beat at a slow pace, as the film goes you beginf to understand what the film is about as you see more dates appear and see her as she is older and see the two colour contrasts. The left hand is a clear, bright and warm colours showing her reading a book from a medium shot, you can also see the lighting in this scene is also quite bright which again represents the warmth and makes the scene stand out, whereas at the same time on the right hand side you have the same camera angle and set up yet the scene is dark, grey, upsetting there is no lighting the character herself looks rough where as on the opposite screen she looks well presented. The camera then cuts to a long shot revealing more where the scene is shot and another character is walking past where again the right scene shows the character talking to main female character where as on the left she completely walks past her as if no one is sitting there. This is where the viewer starts to question themselves and trying to figure out what the story is about, what have these two have in common what is the relation between these two.

After seeing one the characters walking off one going towards the exit and the other clearly going to smoke due to dialogue, keeping in mind the digetic sound is still playing we cut to a tracking shot of a women from behind in two different locations the left scene is again in colour in a luxury building where as the other one is in some street near flats again cut to a close up of the face, being able to see the two faces and costumes you begin to realise that one has descent clothes on and is on the phone and in good health where as the other scene you see her wearing cheap black coat with a hat in the freezing cold in the evening , then a long shot reveals clearly that one of them has job as she is being recorded with a microphone in her hand where as the other she is on the streets cold resting her body against a metal fence which clearly indentifies the right hand one is financially stabled the other is clearly. At this point the diegetic sound also begins to speed up and becomes more louder and more intense as it begins to reveal the two different lifestyles which these women have. But if you think it through you begin to realise what you have just seen is basically the difference between the same girl depending on what actions she took about her life and how she lived her life and whether she listened to her parent.

This video clearly indicates that listening to your parents will only benefit you at the end of the day and being control of your own actions and education will result in a either a positive way or a negative as it is all up to you how you live your life and what routes you take. The film ends of with a bang sound effect and eventually starts to fade out.