Short Film Impact

 Story- Just a bad dream

The story begins a pair of twins Jack and Harry. They are walking through the woods as they find their mother (Kate) standing in the distance with an abhorrent look on her face.  They panic and are quick to alert the authorities about it as she does not look good. As authorities begin investigating they find camera footage of Kate in the street during night looking terrified, behind her there seems to be a dark figure in the distance. Suddenly Jack wakes up... "Oh it was just bad dream." Jack looks around and can't see Harry anywhere, he thinks to himself that Harry is probably at school already, he meets Harry there and carries on about his day. 

As Jack progresses in his average school day he feels like something is off, he feels like the ambience is uneasy and sinister making him feel uncomfortable, almost as if he's being watched. He talks to Harry about it and Harry says "Oh you're probably just faking it to go home and miss out on school!" and chuckles his way out the conversation. 

Jack has an odd feeling in his mind and can't seem to forget about that dream he had, he decides to go to the woods and finds something... Not his mum standing in the distance in the woods, but his mother lying on the ground dead. And as he gets closer he sees a dark figure moving towards him. It was Harry, with a vengeful evil look on his face like he'd gone crazy.

How the short films we have watched can impact on your short film/story

The short film "La Jetee" impacts "Just a bad dream" as in both films we have a scene that foreshadows the death of a character, in "Just a bad dream" the scene was of the dream that Jack had of seeing his mum with a bad look on her face to later find out his mum was dead in the woods, whereas in "La Jetee" the scene was of the man witnessing someone die in front of him as a child to later on find out that the man dying in front of him as a child was himself. 

(Target) The scene where they show the "bad look" on the mum's face could be a zoom in camera shot where they zoom into the mum's face and can see the detail of how her face looks like it's deteriorating and they can do like a wide shot to show the dark figure.

The short film "La Jetee" further impacts "Just a bad dream" as in both short films there seems to be this sort of uneasy feeling/vibe from the entire short film, for example in "La Jetee" since it's a film made of just pictures it kind of feels odd. As the film progresses it gets easier to predict what's going to happen at the end, that's why "Just a bad dream" is heavily impacted by "La Jetee". 

(Target) To achieve this uneasy feeling and vibe you can make the lighting be very aloof and dreary, and have grim deep background noise to form an eery feeling. The camera shots can be free handed to sort of add an organic feeling and also make it feel like it's real and dark.

Another short film that impacts "Just a bad dream" is "Pitch Black Heist" as in both films towards the end there seems to be some sort of vengeance-seeking as in "Pitch Black Heist" Michael sets off the alarm during the heist on purpose so he can escape and trap his father Liam in and make him get caught for revenge as Michael wanted revenge on him. The same thing sort of happens in "Just a bad dream" towards the end we see Harry who we'd assume killed his own mother Kate in the woods, with a vengeful look on his face, but not the type of white justice vengeful look, the evil vengeful type. So in a sense "Pitch Black Heist" lightly impacts "Just a bad dream" but not as heavily as "La Jetee".

Lastly "Portals" lightly impacts "Just a bad dream" as in both short films the film slowly progresses to a bad outcome, for example in "Portals" we believed that at the end the woman had managed to escape however we are shown that it's not the case and she'd actually gotten to a dead end with no escape, the same sort of thing happens in "Just a bad dream" where we think nothing bad's going to happen and that Jack's off feeling is just a bad dream however we are quick to realise that it was the foreshadow of his mum's death and his brother's evil revenge. 

(Target)

In terms of mise-en-scene "Portals" is very heavily portrayed in "Just a bad dream" because in "Portals" it starts off with very dark grim lighting, alongside with gloomy-like sound effects to show that something's off, and towards the end the lighting is bright but the sounds haven't changed implying that there's no good ending. The same sort of thing happens in "Just a bad dream" however it is the other way round, it starts off with bright cheerful lighting alongside grim sounds to show something's off, and then ends with very dark lighting and a wide shot to show how Jack is in a nocturnal abhorrent forest.