A Case Study of Nonverbal Lobsters with Black Lung

Here are the two videos my group produced once again. The first is:

Case Study of Nonverbal Communication

It was a mocumentary, satirizing the school film genre as a supposed expert analyzes a brief exchange between two individuals using only their body language.

The second is called Blck Lung and Lobster

This was a more straight forward short sketch, and while it isn't a parody, I think it works well as comic short.

There is a great deal of contrast between the two in framing. In the first the director had the actors framed very differently. The protagonist is always shot from a higher horizon line which gives him the impression of being very vulnerable.

 The antagonist is shot from a low horizon to make him more powerful.

 
They also have very different shaped heads, with the protagonist having a triangular head.

And the antogonist has a square head with square sunglasses.

Now let's take a look at the same techniques employed in Black Lung and Lobster.

In this video the use of horizon line isn't as important. What is more critical is the use of space. The protagonist is in flat space with a plain white wall behind him and square, flat computer monitor blocking him. Having a flat background makes the viewer focus more on the character, and hiding him behind the monitor not only solves the audio dubbing problem, but forces the viewer to look into the character's eyes, which are above the monitor ridge.

Now lets look at the antagonist. He has a cluttered background using limited space to make it harder to focus on him. This shot makes us focus less on the man in the picture and more on the environment itself. It's disorganized nature is a true contrast to the first office's austere appearance, and gives the viewer a lot to look at. This also not only solves the issue with the same actor being used, but it also makes this office appear busier than the charity's.

But where the two films do use a similar method is in shape pertaining to the characters.  The protagonist has a triangular head. The hat makes him almost a perfect triangle. This makes him less sympathetic, and that is important for the joke to work.

The antagonist here has a round head. This is good for comedy, and that alongside the cluttered space he's in makes the viewer empathize with him at first, which sets them up for the surprise ending that he isn't that sympathetic after all.

The two films have a contrast in the emphasis and use of lines and space, but have something of an affinity for their use of shape. What I think is remarkable is that Mathew played three of these characters and was able to take on all three distinct shapes in his characters. Simple props like a hat or sunglasses helped transform from one shape to the next as we needed him to.

These were both very good short scripts that took an amazing difference in style to tell the same story. I was very happy with the way the both turned out. They did what we set out to do.