The Overload
2023
Two minute short film
Writer, director, camera operator, editor
The Overload is a short film inspired by Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein’s development of montage to convey meaning. Using the concept of dialectics by having two very different scenes edited between each other, The Overload presents a conflict of images, which– however strange– serves to reinforce the character’s state of mind: confused, disoriented, lost. The tensions of the film are emphasised by its weird framing (sometimes only getting part of the character’s face) and its close ups. This furthers the uncomfortable and odd atmosphere created, with a purpose to place the viewer in the character’s mind.
VISUAL METAPHORS
The glass serves to represent the fragility of mental stability, broken down as a depiction of vulnerability. The water trickles down out of it, and spills all over the floor, spreading everywhere with no boundaries to stop it, acting as a visual representation of all-encompassing emotions. The close ups on the broken glass and its sharp edges illustrate the nature of these intense emotions represented in this sequence. They serve to materialise these emotions– being something so abstract and difficult to visualise without a human figure to express them.
COLOURGRADING
AND EDITING
Edited based on the emotional meaning of the piece, this film is a tonal montage. I used Adobe Premiere Pro to colourgrade it, looking to add a blueish tint to the image as a way to reflect the melancholic, almost unsettling, atmosphere.
MUSIC
Composed by P. Apfel
The soft piano and synths were able to add atmosphere in ways that dialogue and diegetic sounds could not. The instrumental dramatizes my film, and is able to increase the emotion felt by the viewer when watching it, as well as emphasising the meaning of my work. Though the piano is calm and creates a sense of peace, the use of synths work in opposition to that, disturbing the calmness to create an odd sort of discomfort and weirdness, and plague the sense of security established by the piano, serving to slightly perturb the audience. Even within the music, the idea of dialectics is reflected.
