Echo
Short Film Research – Echo (2011)
Echo
tells the story of a 17 year-old girl, Caroline, as she answers a phone call in
public that reveals that her father has been killed in a motorbike crash. In
this opening phone call sequence, the sound begins diegetic, swelling in
proximity to the camera as the audience are positioned as an onlooker in a
swarm of people. Caroline is accentuated from the crowd due to her turquoise
hoodie that contrasts with the warm, muted reds and browns of the rest of the
MeS. Throughout the call itself, we enter various mid shots and close ups of
Caroline as she descends into a desperate, teary-eyed mess (the actor gives a
very solid and convincing performance here). This sequence culminates with her being
given money to get to the hospital, only for her to drop the act and pocket the
cash for herself.
The
main thing to note in this film is the repetition of that sequence at the end
of the film, though this time with some additional changes that makes the
ending bizarrely open. While the first call was shot much more steadily, the
second call is handheld and jumpy. The dialogue is also altered slightly to
suggest a more profound realness to the call, which is the largest indicator
that this one may be real, a potential boy who cried wolf situation. Or,
alternatively, it could just be her upping her game since her brother, Oliver
(and yes he’s my favourite character… no reason why of course) caught her in
the lie during Act 2.
The
main things I want to carry over from this film into my own are as follows:
- - Morally dubious lead character(s), people who aren’t necessarily on the right side of the law and whose actions lead to ethical doubt
- Open/twist endings, though given my love for Inception and Prisoners, this was always going to be a given
- The use of MeS to distinguish a character from their surroundings
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