This short film called “Glass People” is a drama about social anxiety. It starts at a house party in what I assume is America where the girlfriend complains that the couple never do anything. The pair then get in an argument which contributes to his anxiety. This setting won’t be one that we use in our short film as social situations like this would be extremely hard to set up as you would have to hire countless extras. Also we want to highlight the isolation that people with anxiety can suffer at times, by having a focus on just our main character I believe we can achieve this.

After waking up from the previous night, the main character looks at himself in the mirror and has bloodshot eyes and a zombie like appearance. These mirror shots are done very well, coming in and out of focus to give us a dazed perspective and to show us how the character is seeing things. The main character then walks around his campus feeling different. His vision is blurred as he sees people as having “zombie” like features. Colour correction is also used to show a greying effect and there is a lack of colour in these scenes. I feel that this is an important concept for a short film about anxiety. Showing how the character sees things is crucial to telling a compelling story and making sure that people understand what it is like to have anxiety. This is something me and Greg will strive to do, meaning we will have to first research into the topic and then try to accurately portray what it is like to have anxiety in the film.

Our main character then attends a lecture where he continues to be distracted by the things causing him anxiety. This includes his appearance in the mirror, his girlfriend might call him, the party last night and how he saw the other people on campus. They portray this by using the narrative technique of a cross cut, this is done extremely fast and creates a flicker technique. I think it’s very effective because it shows what is causing him anxiety without him having to tell us this through dialogue, the pace of the cuts is meant to replicate how everything feels fast to him. This is a technique that I could easily replicate on Sony Vegas, this is a simple cut where each cross cut would be on screen for a few frames before changing to a different stress causer. I think this is a technique that me and Greg may take into consideration for our short film, we just have so many ideas to try and cram into a 5 minute film.

We then cut to him getting help from a councillor which in Freitagg’s triangle would be the falling action following the climax of the anxiety attack. This conversation is done through shot-reverse-shot and focuses on the main character receiving professional help and that it is not a bad thing to admit your problems and talk to someone about it. This will constitute for the main message and falling action/resolution of our own short film.

Later on we see the main character look at a reflection of himself and he no longer has the zombie appearance, this is used as symbolism to show he is now fixed following his counselling and treatment. This is an important message that I want to convey in our short film.

These two images show confidence as he doesn’t feel the need to hide his feelings anymore from his girlfriend or anyone else. He feels much better for talking about his issues and is now portrayed as a confident extrovert. This will be a different resolution to our short film as I think that ours will end with him getting help as I feel this is more appropriate. Glass People is a 10 minute short film while our short film can only be 5 minutes. We are far more constricted by time than this film so I think that the resolution will be simple as him getting professional help.