'Prima Perfection': Evaluation on Our Short Film

 'Prima Perfection': Evaluation on Our Short Film. 

This film myself and Jess created follows the struggle of a ballerina who is trying to perfect her routine ready for the final performance. It illustrates the struggles ballet dancers face to master their craft and be perfect in their own eyes. 

The opening shot is a close-up on her ballet slippers as she is about to perform her routine in training. At this point we know very little about this person. This shot paints her as a beautiful and elegant ballerina who appears to be enjoying herself as she dances around the studio. Her movements are happy and free. The camera is positioned further away so the shots don’t feel claustrophobic. It sort of is reflecting the saying, ‘dance like no one’s watching’. I really love how this shot came out. I really like how the camera tracks her movements making the spectator feel they are experiencing the dance with her and making the scene appear more intimate.  The shoes are framed at the centre of the frame to show that she is balanced physically and mentally as she is enjoying her ballet.

We then cut to another close-up on her shoes, but they are now her pointe shoes. I really like the change in sound here to diegetic sound with no backing music. I feel this creates an eerie atmosphere also illustrating that she is alone. Ballet is her number one focus and that everything comes second after that. All the colours appear to be light reflecting that she feels light emotionally but eventually they darken to show that her mental state is also becoming darker as she begins to think more negatively about how she performs. The shoes are also framed to the right of the frame rather than the centre creating this feeling of unbalance which foreshadows
later when she gets frustrated with her inability to perfect her balance.  

My favourite shot in the film is when Jess is spinning, and I am filming her but running the opposite way which gives the illusion of a very fast spin. This shot changes from a medium shot to a close up making it feel as we are witnessing something that is a rather intimate moment, we are allowed to be closer to this character building a deeper connection. 

I tried to use a range of shots and camera movements. The main one used throughout is a handheld camera. I felt this worked perfectly with the film to at first feel the movements of the ballerina but then later it represents her unbalance that she is struggling to perfect her technique even though it is already perfect to the audience. I wanted the ballerina to seem as she is in control as she is having the camera follow her and track her, and later as the camera becomes more distance and unbalanced with shaky movements it illustrates her lack of control.

There is a close-up on her pointe shoes as she makes a mistake and falls. The choice to make this a close-up was to make sure that the spectator’s point of attention was focused there, and they did not miss this as it is a key moment of showing the decline of her happiness within ballet. 

 Another one of my favourite shots is a close-up when the ballerina drums her shoes out of frustration. This is placed at the centre of the frame to illustrate that frustration is becoming her dominant emotion when performing ballet. Also, the synchronous sound of the shoes further emphasises her anger with herself which she is taking out on her pointe shoes. The drumming of the shoes is also like the drumming of the expectation she has on herself. The constant, repeating feeling that she is not good enough to perform this dance.

The music is diegetic as both the spectator and the ballerina can hear it although I added sound later in the editing process.  I enjoyed the editing process at the end, I love that you can change the way the film is perceived just by how it is edited. I played around with editing especially at the end. I chose to cut from normal speed to slow motion at the end to create this distorted feel. This paired with the dutch angles further creates this dizzy and distorted feeling in the spectator. As well as this it perfectly captured the emotions of the ballerina before heading onto stage to perform her big show. It illustrates her anxiety and fear. This is further done with the extreme close-up on her face. I also added a heartbeat and a clock ticking, these are non-diegetic and foley sounds which further emphasized the pressure she feels to perform her part perfectly but also evoking a feeling of discomfort in the spectator. I also distorted the music just before she appears on stage to show that time stood still and that moment was lasting forever as she entered a state of panic to perform a perfect performance, but it then transitions into the normal pace of the music as she steps onto stage. The music we have heard all throughout the film. We then have a perspective from the audience as we can finally see her through our own eyes and not how she looks at herself. 

She was having a beautiful time while dancing and this beautiful music is playing but when it wasn’t perfect it was no longer beautiful, so the music stopped while she was getting agitated at herself. It was then silent as she could no longer hear beauty in her performance.

 

 

I am personally really happy with how this short film turned out. Once pieced all together it created a beautiful story. It was hard trying to tell the narrative, but I feel Jess and I worked around that and when I edited it together, I felt this further helped make the narrative clear. If I could change on thing it would be the lighting in the very last shot as I felt it was too harsh, but we were unsuccessful in finding out how to dim the lights which I feel made these shots not fit in with the other aesthetics of the film. Apart from that I really love the outcome and is one of my favourite short films I have made.