Research Tasks - "Lou Lou Lives Here" - Gareth Allen

Lou Lou Lives Here
This short film the genre seems to be a thriller. The reason that i think that this is a thriller is because, you are in the unknown, through most of the short film and can't answer questions about the film. This short film is presented in black and white colours and set in the countryside, by a forest. This has the makings of a thriller except it isn't filmed at night; which could be why they use black and white through the film. Also within the film,there are points where they make the viewing seem to be distorted and blurred. The reason that they could do this is so that you can't quite make out what the character is seeing, maybe because this is what they are seeing aswell.

This film I think uses the same genre throughout the film. It uses the thriller genre throughout. This I belive has been done well as you are left in suspense at points in the film and the audience are not sure what is going to happen next. This is different to other short films that I have seen before because, in the other short films, they normally use two different styles or genre conventions within the film. This could be because the director feels that because the film is shorter than feature length ones, they are able to include another genre to what the genre in the film is primarily.

It uses the short film format by the way that they are constantly including moving images on the screen. This keeps the pace of the film going even though it is just over 4 minutes long. You don't actually find out what happens in this film at the end of it, which keeps the audience questioning what they think happened ( is the little girl able to transform to a dog, did the dog kill her, did the man with the rabbit toy let the dog loose on the girl etc.) .

The sounds that you hear at the start are diegetic. You hear the sounds of dogs barking, a helicopter flying past, and birds singing. These are all noises that you would expect to hear within a countryside on a day to day basis. After hearing these sounds at the start of the short film, you don't hear many noises afterwards. You do however hear the calling of 'Lou Lou' a few times. When you first hear this, you suspect that this is the little girl possibly, but at the end of the film, you see the dog going through a gate with a sign saying 'Beware..Lou Lou Lives Here'.

This short film has been left open by the director (Grian) so that the audience can make up their own mind about what has happened during this short film. This I think has been done very well as, in thrillers, you are meant to keep the audience guessing and they have to think to themselves what is happening or what has just happened. This film has had many different views to what actually happens at the end of the film, which is probably what Grian intended for when he was creating this short film.

This film I think is targeted at older adults. The reason that I think that an older generation would prefer this sort of film is because, it involves a lot of thinking and knowledge to try and work out what this film is trying to show.

Gareth Allen