Short Film Analysis 3

3x3

3x3 is a Portuguese short comedy, which has won numerous awards from many film festivals over Europe. The film is a comedy, professionally shot, simple with a great location. What I love about this film after watching it the first time through is that it can appeal to people in every language, as it has no dialogue just like a black and white comedy with funny characters, over the top characters and a comedic storyline.

The film is about a security guard at a basketball court who is a typical male, muscular man who we see trying to throw the balls in the court and successfully scoring many hoops. Then there is the janitor on the court who sees the guard playing basketball, and when the guard has gone to his security room he sees the janitor trying to play basketball through the CCTV camera screens. The guard laughs at the weedy janitor’s pathetic attempts to score a hoop. The janitor stops, pulls up a table and starts measuring distance from the hoop to the centre court line, the weight of the ball etc. The janitor draws up a formula and figures out a technique to score from the centre line. The security guard is amazed by this and runs down to the court to see with his own eyes, the janitor is dressed in a basketballer’s outfit throws the guard his own outfit to play with him.

The purpose of this piece in my mind is to tell the audience the moral of the story, ‘Don’t be arrogant and give everyone a chance’. For this reason I think that the target audience can be quite a young age group because it is a good lesson for children to learn, much like reading fables. The film opens with an establishing shot of the basketball court with the two contrasting characters, which immediately places the audience in a setting. Just from first appearances you can see the contrast in characters, as the guard is big, strong and handsome whereas the janitor is thin, young, weedy and not particularly handsome. This could connote different stories with contrasting characters such as David and Goliath.

There are lots of long and mid shots in this film, with not many close ups and extreme close ups. Unlike the other films I have analysed, there isn’t much focus pulling and interesting camera movement and angles, with simple cuts between each clip. There are no special effects, and the only transitions are when the establishing shot fades into the frame from black, and fades out at the end, creating a smooth start and finish.

There is a good backing music track to this film, which is very well used considering there is no dialogue. The music is comedic, and builds up in certain places, telling the audience when there is going to be a hilarious moment and creating a perfect atmosphere.

With all these point in mind, I think 3x3 is a great film, and a prime example how not using interesting camera angles, edits or movements can still be successful. In this film it’s definitely more about what happening then using camera angles and shots to make something more exciting.