Soft Review

Soft is a short film created by Simon Ellis in 2006 about a father who rediscovers his fear of confrontation at a very crucial time. The film follows a father and his son who have both encountered the same gang of people on the same day at different times. When the father discovers that his son was attacked by the same gang as the group he encountered earlier on, he almost begins to shrivel up and became too scared to approach the situation. Having just talked to his son about learning to stand up for himself, he finds himself in an ironic situation where he becomes afraid to approach the gang causing the son, Scott, to lose respect for his father.

I thought that this film was very well made and the characters were left in the right place, their faces told the story very well which is a great example of showing the story as a supposed to saying it. I also liked the camera shots they used. The camera crane shot was used to great effect, especially at the end when the neighbours walk out after the asbo was hit with the cricket bat. This is a great interpretation of how 'soft' and afraid the neighbours were to approach this scene and makes you wonder if trouble caused by the group is a regular occurrence in the area. Another camera trick I liked was the use of the low quality phone camera to film the gang beating up Scott. This adds an element of realism to the scenario and allows you to really engage with the situation.

I felt like I took a lot from this short film as there was a meeting between the two main characters of the story, the father and the son and it adds an element of irony to the situation with the father telling his son to stand up for himself while he struggles to approach major situations himself. There was also a lot of foreshadowing in the film that I feel I can use in the future, such as the cricket bat being visible at the beginning of the film with the father tripping over the bag that the bat was concealed in as a hint of what the character (his son) gets up to a well as what's about to come in the film.