"Family Dinner" DepicT! Analysis

This 90 second short film from the UK for DepicT is one that is powerful and relatable for most people.  

The Mise en scene is impeccable. Every character has props relevant to them, like the teenage girl and her phone, the older characters with their glasses on alcohol. Each character has food on plates, connoting it is a dinner.

The lighting is also impressive as it uses ambient, and lighting in the scene. This creates the effect of the scene being lit but in a way that connotes it is the evening, which is typically when most families sit down for their evening meal.

The film has a good use of sound too. It uses a good mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic sound to create the atmosphere of a family dinner and they mix together well. For example there is a soft guitar music used in the background while everyone is talking; this creates a relaxed environment where everyone is just sitting down to enjoy their dinner. This is interrupted by the small boy dropping his sister into trouble after he reveals she was kissing a guy named Roger, when she meant to be babysitting him. This causes the music to stop and is followed by a lot of shouting out from her family, which creates an awkward tension in the room. This use of sound is good because it uses sound to set the mood of the scene.

The scene following where them music begins again and the sister slaps her brother around the head is a good ending to the film as you only hear the sound of the slap. This creates a cliff hanger as to what ensues after the slap.

The films visual and audio elements go well together to create a realistic scene.