1. Filmed by channel 4 and the This is a 14 minute short film
UK film council. about a family being
terrorised by a local gang who
Award winning for Sundance pick on anyone who goes
film festival 2008. by, particularly the main
characters son. This leads to
the boy then flipping out and
taking out his anger on the
gang.

2. Long shots looking down at the
Camera angles / father to show weakness and
distance and effects lack of power which is how the
teenagers use this against him to
mess with him.
The film is shot on both camera phone
quality and a professional standard, Eye level close-up's of the boy to
this is based on the contrast between show his reaction to his daily life
their lives (the gang and the quiet events and translating to the
family of the boy and his father) audience the film is about him and to
shown by the difference in quality and give the audience an emotional
insulating the quality of life difference. connection to the character like other
close up’s where you can se his tears.
There is a close up on the son so
The cut scenes that interrupt the
the audience can see the after
good quality camera with the
effects of being beat up but also
phone quality show the contrast
that his dad hasn’t even noticed
between what the boy see’s and
yet hinting at their relationship
what the delinquent teens see and
distance.
how most of the bad stuff happens
from their end through the phone
camera.

3. The anger the father vents at his son is The last shot makes use of a high angle
effective to show the audience that the father from a crane over the credits to have the
is scared and also by using less camera changes effect that life still goes on as we can now
it gives the feel that they are just waiting for see how this event affected the rest of the
time to pass by. people on a larger scale and how
communities all get involved but only
The use of close up shots is how they after the event has happened to show
communicated the power shift between the people gawking to really get the meaning
boy and the father after the boy realises his of how people act when negative things
dad is scared. So by using a low angle shot it happen as they don’t want to get
shows how he changes suddenly to become involved. This relates to social realism and
aggressive and fight back. how in real life there are no real hero’s

4. Diegetic and non-diegetic
sound The diegetic use of the boys music also
suggests at the distance between the
Speech such as conversations with neighbours is boy and his dad being that the boy
friendly and positive ‘Morning’ when the father ignores his father when his dad talks to
speaks. him. The music acts as a physical barrier
In contrast to this teenage conversation involves between them and when the father asks
colloquialisms such as ‘merk it’ representing him a question at this point it get’s
aggressiveness and encouraging for negative louder (dropping) signifying the
behaviour response of not listening and ignoring
him representing the relationship they
There is no song at the end to represent how have as strained.
although this event was big to that family, it will
not change how the world works. Speech such as ‘where’s mum’ from the
boy further shows their distance as he
The car alarm signals the approach of a bad doesn’t want to talk to his dad about
event and it then turns off after they have run off anything, also their physical distance
suggesting the danger is over for now was noticeable at this stage with the
representing the danger. paces the boy was away from him.

5. Meaning
Being part of the social realism genre the film conforms to the usual by representing
youth culture and lower class life but there is also another more hidden meaning about
the relationship between the boy and his father being strained and distant.
Also this film being a short shows how effective they can be. Because it leaves the
audience in shock showing how the film doesn’t have to be long to be effective.
Using Barthes theory of film this short conforms to usual expectations of social
realism films by being used to conflict with the norm, it does this by having enigma
coding as it does not have a real ending, it does not show how this will effect the
family because real life doesn’t just wrap up nicely like it does in other genre of films
staying true to natural life and it’s genre.

6. How is this like Jimmy Prophet?
Because they are both about social realistic situations they both represent life in a
very natural and true way. They share in common themes like violence and lower
class life.
However Soft is more about gang culture whereas Three Tears For Jimmy Prophet
is about violence as sport, however they both go on to show how these things then
effect family life and their own lives.
They also both manage to do this in a very short space of time as short films, but
are both very effective and hard hitting to the audience, this is intentional as most
social realism films have a political meaning behind them and this is something
that definitely both films share in common.