FramingThe man is usually in the middle of the shot - the focus is on him and his reactions.
Rule of thirds - When he stands up and looks around (for the police car), He’s in the middle of the screen to show how alone he is. No help is around. 
The director has chosen not to put the woman in the frame, otherwise the plot of the short film wouldn’t be too interesting. 
The wheat field location has been put in a wide frame - to show isolated the characters are

 

Camera angle, movement and position 

Establishing shot - iconic image of the wheat field - Camera pans lowers down to each strand of wheat - the focus blurs as it zooms in on each strand of wheat. Various depths of field. Wide shots to show how far away from civilisation the film is set. No one could hear or help you. Slow movements - slow camera rise showing crow sitting on welcome sign - creates tension. Camera at the same height of the wheat - is all what it seems? Slow diagonal pan showing phone, money, etc - Gives the audience clues. Pan up to reveal man. Pull focus between him and the crow showing that the man knows the crow is the only witness. The manipulation of the camera only tells one part of the story, filling us with a sense of dread until all is revealed

 

Editing and special effects 
Fade transitions, wheat image moulds into one another - slow to build the tension.
Editing and sound work crucially together - planned carefully - the spike of the violins matches when the foot goes still and the knife strikes the ground. 

Mise en scene (including location) 
Crow - connotation of bad luck, sign of danger - Mathieu Ratthe uses the connotation of the crow in other short film work he has done such as ‘The Talisman’. 
Number 13 - On the ‘Welcome to Hedren Hill’ sign, it says there are 13 miles to Bishopsville, the number 13 is known as bad luck - a connotation of danger -there are numerous films based on this fact, ‘Fridays the 13th’, etc. 
Location - wheat field. Iconic image - wheat field - from Ridley Scott’s ‘Gladiator’ - intertextuality. 
Props - Phone - we know that someone has tried to make a hasty phone call. Money - we can see money on the ground, is the person being robbed? Pants - covered in blood - we can only assume that if she isn’t being robbed for money, she’s being raped. Bin bag - when we see the bin bag the man pulls out from the car boot, we immediately think it’s so he can hide/cover the body.
Clothes - Man wearing dungaree’s and baseball cap - already looks suspicious. 
Make-up - Man looks dirty, greasy and sweaty - makes the audience think he’s a bad guy, when in fact he’s just delivered a baby after working on a tractor all day. Woman’s hair is wet with sweat from the stress of having a child. 
Lighting - In the beginning, when we have the establishing shot, the sun is covered with clouds, creating a darker looking surrounding. This goes well with the narrative when the audience is still finding out what actually happens. Just after the baby is revealed, the sun comes out. In the ending shot, we can see the light reflecting off the police car’s windshield and the wheat looks shinier. 

Sound 
Non diegetic tense, long violin chords - builds tension.
Welcome sign creaking - Crow cawing. 
Phone beeping - telling the audience it has no signal/the call failed. 
Diegetic sound - Woman crying out in pain - Audience instantly thinks the worst. 
Soft music composed by John Williams, famous for music in ‘Jaws’, ‘Star Wars’, ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Schindler’s List’, is played when the baby is revealed. Mathieu Ratthe has filmed a short demo scene based from the book ‘The Talisman’ by Stephen King with Cameron Bright starring. Steven Spielberg owns the rights to the script, Ratthe hopes to be recognized for his talent by the director. Spielberg has had a long relationship with the composer - Ratthe knew this and used William’s composition in his short film. 

Script The dialogue is important in this short film - when the man proclaims “It’s a boy.”, we know he is innocent. When the woman replies “Thank-you”, we now know he was only helping her. 
No regional dialect.
I think the director wanted no dialogue at the beginning, only the woman crying out in pain, to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. You’re imagination got wild with ideas when there is no dialogue - you rely solely on what you can see within the shot - the director wants this. 

Titles/Institutional Reference
Simple font - names in capital letters - doesn’t represent the film as such, it represents the man who made it. 
Black screen, white writing - used in all Mathieu Ratthe’s work - title’s stay on screen for four seconds. 
Fades in from the middle of middle word. 

 

Ideas Generation/Reflection Area
This short film completely blew me away. I was not expecting the twist ending at all. The man seemed totally evil but then it turned out he was the good guy! I hope I can somehow create something as thought provoking as this. It’s such a simple idea! This short film proves that you can make a well made product with a limited budget just as well as a massive Hollywood production. This film relies heavily on editing tricks, sound and camera movement and it definitely works out in the end. I hope to see more from this director soon, he is so talented, he’s an inspiration to me.

 

Representations 
Context - obviously set in present day - tractors, mobile phones, police cars. 
The micro elements build up The Man to look like a villain - the bloody knife, etc, when in fact he’s actually the hero of the story. 
The film challenges stereotypes: The evil rapist is actually a helpful caring farmer. 
Gender - Men have been represented, in the end, as kind helpful saviours. 

Audience 
The target audience of this short film could range from any age to any person - there’s no guidelines. 
The audience would respond positively to the film because of the happy ending. 
The audience are being asked to identify with the man because the narrative is being told from his POV. We won’t initially sympathize with him until the twist in the story is told. 
The audience would also have to be computer owners with internet access, also have an interest in short films. 

Themes/Messages
“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
Everything is not as it seems.