Short Film: Lovefield

Application of Narrative theory in the short film 'Lovefield'.

This short film by Mathieu Ratthe has a cleverly structured narrative to sway the audience from understanding the plot and what is going to happen. Several props such as a bloody tissue, a phone still on a call and cash money are laid out in the opening scene before seeing the foot of the assumed 'victim'. These props are all conventionally seen in horror movies and suggest that someone has been killed. In Lovefield they used to make build the suspense of the scene without showing what is really happening to the 'victim'. The director has applied the use of restricted narration to the film by not showing the viewer all the information, such as, how the 'victim' got to the field, why the man is there and what is happening to the victim. This information is all needed to understand the story clearly and by also applying several common horror conventions it builds the suspense to the film. The non-diegetic soundtrack applied at the beginning of the film up until the point we see the woman and child is in the style common in thriller and horrors and adds to the building tension. The black raven is used as a sign that there is impending danger and is

Blocked shot of 'Villain'

seen constantly throughout the film; It is used to make the film seem like a horror or thriller. The man seen in the short film is stereotypically dressed as a working class labourer and this combined with the horror conventions makes him seem suspect as working males are a common audience to use as a villain in horror films. A blocked shot of the man is applied in the shot in which he is getting something out of the trunk of the car, this is used to create a sense of mystery behind the man and when he returns to the woman a low angled medium shot is used to make it seem as if he is looking down on a corpse. As the woman is shown in the final scene, the colour correction is changed from a dark un-saturated effect to an over-saturated happy effect and this alongside the happy sounding change in the soundtrack changes the whole feel of the film.