Technical Analysis - "8" By Acim Vasic

The Short begins with a couple of medium close ups of the actors face and then his boot, stubbing out a cigarette in the snow. The first shot is very misleading as it shows what appears to be a man wearing a gas mask, however it is soon made clear that it is merely attached to the back of his head, along with a helmet to accompany his soldier’s uniform. The action of smoking and the way he stubs it out has connotations of masculinity.

The director then cuts to a long shot, showing the actor running across an open field. The diegetic sound effects of old fashioned aircraft's, alongside the characters costume signifies that this film is taking place during a war. The wide angle lens used for the shot demonstrates how lonely the soldier is in this situation. This also raises many questions, such as whereabouts he is and what exactly he is doing, these questions keep the audience engaged and wanting to carry on watching. After this cut the title of the short appears in the chosen font.

After this there is an establishing shot, where a new character appears who seems to be fumbling around with or stuck in a parachute. This straight away has connotations to the audience of this character being dopey. It appears that this second character, also in some kind of uniform, has injured his nose. This characters uniform is quite light in tone in comparison to the other character which connotes themes of good and evil. While he continues to fumble in order to sort himself out, he allows the first character to sneak up on him.

The Short carries on with the two soldiers trying to outwit each other in a tense game of cat and mouse, tension is built with the fade from slow to fast editing and the lack of any dialogue just pure camera work and acting. However there are a couple of shots that I really like the look of and I feel create a large impact on the audience, and this is where it seems like the director has used a "GoPro" camera and attached it to a mechanical piece on the gun. So when the actor moves with the gun the framing stays the same, this shot stands out to me and creates a sense of drama in the shot.