The short movie I chose to discuss is Elevator. The movie begins with the protagonist entering an elevator by himself and sending it to the top floor. As he arrives at each floor, a few people start to get in. The middle of the film is when he’s aware that more heavier set people are entering the elevator along each floor, until there is almost no room and the max weight limit is approaching. The end of the short film is when he arrives at the second to last floor and sees a very large man approaching. Worried that the elevator would come crashing down, he gets out in a hurry and finds another elevator. When he gets in, everyone is of smaller stature and there are significantly lesser people in this elevator. As they approach the last floor, everyone in the elevator starts coughing profusely. As the protagonist exits, he notices a sign that says “swine flu clinic” and everyone who was in that elevator following the sign. The irony in this scene is good comedy.
There aren’t really any dramatic light changes in the film. The movie is about a minute long so the majority of the footage is shot in the elevator with minimal light change occurring only when the elevator doors open. The manipulating of light in this film does not really present itself.
With framing however, we see a lot of different kinds of shots of our protagonist traveling in the elevator. We see a few overhead shots of the people in the elevator, to give the audience a sense of how crammed it is in there for our protagonist and everyone else. We see lots of closeups and wide angle shots of the peoples faces to get a sense of the awkwardness of the silence and being pressed against total strangers. The camera does not move the entire time of the film. There is no dialogue in the film, so the camera really focuses on the facial expressions of the people and the amplified noises in the elevator to create a dramatic effect.
The overall visual style of this short film is crammed and uncomfortable. Everyone has ridden an elevator before and knows just how tight and stuffy it can be and this film really capitalizes on that feeling.
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