Clown Face - Short Film Analysis



The film that I have chosen to analyse is Clown Face, a dark comedy by Jason Jeffrey. This is one of my favourite short films that I have seen recently and I think elements of its comedy have inspired me during the creation of River, however its cinematography is also very well done and has inspired me as well.

 The main focus of the film is Michael and Laurie, a father/daughter relationship that is being strained by other family issues. They discuss the breakup of Michael's marriage and Laurie expresses her disgust and dismay at Michael's recent actions, including disrupting her date. All the while, Michael is sitting with clown makeup on but hasn't noticed due to the lack of mirrors in Laurie's apartment, which she mentions towards the end of the film. Michael eventually notices when he gets into his car and checks his mirrors.

I feel that the storytelling in this short is quite conventional, if described using the terms that I outlined in my previous post discussing the conventions of short films; it begins by establishing some conflict but it is just discussed, no attempt to resolve the issue and thus is never resolved. This is somewhat unconventional in itself, however, it does take on the societal issue of divorce and broken families.

As well as this, the characters in terms of development are rather conventional. I have already discussed this briefly in my post outlining the conventions of character in short films, however I will go into a bit more detail here. The characters, as I mentioned, are never really developed. They brush over their names, we only figure out Michael's occupation from seeing Laurie iron it and then Michael wearing it at the end. We never figure out if Laurie is employed.

The comedy in this film is subtle. It takes quite a serious issue and adds a bit of light-heartedness to it, which helps the audience feel more relaxed. This is something that I would like to do in River. The comedy should always be subtle but not affect the overall mood of the film.

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