Night Walking 2008 – Daniel Cormack, BBC Film Network - Dom Hockaday

A woman is afraid she is being followed when she takes the shortcut home, when she turns around there is no one there but a mobile on the floor.  We then see the ‘attackers’ perspective and his completely innocent nature; he feels awkward because the women thinks he is a “rapist”. The man  is on the phone calling ‘mum’, not concentrating he falls down a hole in the pathway, leaving just his dialling phone.

Watch the short film here!!!

I chose this short because it is a situation that nearly everyone has experienced and the thoughts of the characters are similar to what my own would be, and found it funny.

Representation

I would consider men/women the main social groups associated with this short film. At first, the two groups (especially men) are represented in a very stereotypical way. To begin with, we instantly assume the woman will be a victim. The setting is a dark alleyway with high contrast/back lit lighting and unnerving non dietetic music is also heard. Almost immediately we associate this with a thriller/horror, where stereotypically, the woman is the victim and the male is the villain.

The situation in the short film is common and therefore we can relate to the feelings of the characters and react to their way of dealing with the situation.
The woman character is shown to be the victim. Wearing High heel  boots and a fur coat, it makes her seem more vulnerable:, compared to if she was wearing more practical/work clothes.

Plenty of mid close ups and close ups, accompanied with ‘dialogue’ (her thoughts) show us she is scared and anxious. Once again, it conforms to stereotypes as the woman being a victim and more emotional, not with a ‘stiff upper lip’ etc.

The male character is often in black and white picture to make him seem threatening and show (from the woman’s point of view) he is a malicious, slightly mad stalker. Jump cuts and non diegetic scratches portray him this way.
I think this could relate to maybe previous iconic and popular thrillers (i.e  Alfred Hitchcock – Physco 1960), in which the woman is also the victim, and it’s in black and white. However, the date should be taken into account as well as women’s and men’s role/place in society was very different then as opposed to nowadays and more modern times.

In a way, I would say it’s a negative representation, mainly because it is very stereotypical for a woman to be the victim, panicky and a ‘damsel in distress’. However, for the next part of the short to be effective and funnier, this stereotype is necessary. As the woman’s character shouldn’t really be scared at all of the male character as we see later.

The male character is harmless and innocent; completely the opposite of what the woman thinks. The actual camera work, lighting and sound (minus the dialogue) are very similar.
In my opinion, the man’s dialogue is the most important factor in showing the non-stereotypical male character. First off, his actual voice isn’t threatening or rough. He says things such as “Its embarrassing” and “Oh now she’s speeded up, Jesus” and “Ill call mum”. This clearly shows that he isn’t any danger and that he doesn’t want to come across as threatening. Which may be considered the opposite of what a male character would stereotypically want to appear.

I would say this is a positive representation because it shows that some men don’t want to scare people or come across like a thug etc but to be honest, I would say the use of representation is more for comedic purposes. I.e. the male character wouldn’t be as funny if the female didn’t stereotype him and we didn’t expect the female to be the victim of this “rough thug” in the first place.

Narrative

The plot of the film is fairly simple. A woman is being followed at night; she is scared as she stereotypes the man to be a thug/rapist. The man however is harmless, and whilst trying to call his mum, to appear unthreatening, he falls down a hole. I am not really sure at all what the story is as it seems these characters cross paths by chance. So I guess the story is their individual lives?

Plot of the story is a very common situation, so the audience can relate and find the 

humour in it.
The plot starts at the beginning, finishes, and the starts again from another perspective, so I think you could describe it as a multi strand circular narrative as it is shown from different perspectives, but starts and finishes at the same point in time.
Subjective and restricted narration because its being told through the characters view points. Creates dramatic irony (especially for female).
I’m not entirely sure what narrative theory this conforms to, maybe David Bordwell and Kirsten Thompsons theory of plot and story. The story to be honest is unknown but the plot of the film is very short, so there must be a much larger story behind these two characters. However, I think they crossed paths by chance?

Genre

Officially the Film is considered a comedy, possibly a black comedy. At first however, it has all the archetypes of your typical thriller. In fact, until the second part with the man’s perspective shown, I genuinely thought it was a thriller. The comedy genre is identifiable when the male character beings to talk. There is no tension because we see how harmless the male character is. It then turns into a comedy as the plot progresses.

Short films, typically use genre to attract an audience. The audience recognises a genre through familiar codes and conventions and are reassured. Authors depend on recognition for communication with the audience. The audience will know what to expect if they are familiar with the genre

This short is interesting because it’s similar to a hybrid of comedy and thriller. For half the film it’s a thriller for the other half it’s a comedy. However, the setting, lighting music and body language all suggest the thriller genre. We only really associate it as a comedy when the male talks or thinks.

Although it’s hard to class this films genre.
According to rick Altman’s genre theory, the semantic codes, i.e thriller iconography locations and characters, (female ‘doll’ victim male villain , dark urban alley etc)  all point towards a thriller. We would therefore expect the syntactic codes to be the women gets attacked/ is the victim. However, we see from the man’s view, and the syntactic codes, what we would expect to happen, don’t. This unexpected twist points towards a comedy and entertains the viewers.

Audience

The BBC film network is primarily there to help discover new and upcoming talent. Therefore, it would be expected that the audience will be film enthusiasts, other authors and young people interested in film. Short films tend to have a very wide audience that appeal to everyone. This film was rated a 12 by the bbfc, so the film must have been aimed at 12 and above. Teenager, middle aged maybe. Young to middle aged male and female, possibly students, with an interest in film, perhaps even filmmakers themselves.
The audience may be pleased by the film for a few reasons, firstly the twist or hybrids of genres that occurs surprises the audience and makes the film more entertaining: i.e it’s not the same repeated and expected syntactic codes that we are too familiar with that they are now not effective.

The creativity could inspire other film makers or perhaps be recognised by an institution willing to fund the author. Short films are very low budget and often the authors use them as a showcase of their talent to secure funding.
The short won the best Merton film maker award at the Wimbledon short film festival

Moreover, it was in the top 15 of the virgin media shorts competition (where it is also shown) but was not considered for the top prize because technically the BBFC considered the film a 12a as they said the humour was strong enough to lift the tone of the film, therefore it didn’t count.
Daniel Cormack, had several shorts before hand and established Actaeon Films

Media Language
For this concept Ill mainly talk about how the short film consistently uses thriller techniques to shunt the viewers idea of what the genre is. Making the comedic section even more effective. So, the codes and conventions of a thriller, which misleads the audience off the real genre for effect.

First of all, the digetic sounds of the woman’s boots on the ground are a great way to show her pace picking up as even slight increases can easily be heard. As her paces get quicker we expect something to climax: she gets attacked... but she doesn’t. There’s just a dialling phone on the floor. This also creates enigma.

Moreover, there are the quick cuts and tracking shots. The quick cuts give us the idea that something is drawing in closer to her and the tracking fairly clearly gives us an impression she is being followed. Which we know, but it just adds to the thriller archetypes (syntactic?).
The lighting as mentioned before is high contrast making shadows appear darker and conceal and distort facial features making characters, particularly the male seem more threatening.
In the second part of the film, media language is used purely to show us the males view and make us empathise with him.

When he falls down the hole at the end, the film is resolved (in a way),  and everything makes sense so there’s a new equilibrium according to Todarov’s Narrative theory... but without the male character.