Stutterer - analysing short films

Stutterer (2015)

Directed by Benjamin Cleary

This week, I looked at the Oscar-winning short film 'Stutterer', directed by Benjamin Cleary and released in 2015. The film is about a character called Greenwood who suffers from a stutter and has to overcome his fear of rejection and philosophical views about his stutter in order to progress and meet his love interest, Ellie. The film ends with Greenwood meeting Ellie and discovering that she is deaf, therefore fixing his philosophical conflict and helping him grow more self-confident as he practices sign language to communicate for fear of stuttering. The overall message with Greenwood's character is that he struggles to accept who he is, however this is resolved by the end of the 15 minute film.

The film won the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film in 2015 and has had critical acclaims that back it since then.

After watching the short film, I watched a YouTube video by Tyler Mowery about how to write a successful narrative for a short film, using 'Stutterer' as a case study for this. The video helped me understand the fundamental guidelines for writing and directing a short film, and, although I have chosen to make a music video rather than a short film, it has taught me how to successfully use show don't tell to convey a story without dialogue - which is something I will need to use in my music video. Mowery's video uses the story cycle by Dan Harmon to show how the story works well, even with a short runtime of 15 minutes. Again, this is something I can use to my advantage for my music video, as they tend to only be about 3 or 4 minutes long; a short time for a story. Through this, Mowery describes how the director can use this time to present the story, challenges and conclusions for the characters with little time. 

Here are my notes on Mowery's video and how to construct a short film. These will be useful for me when I eventually get to planning my music video with my partner, Olivia.