"Alone" By Brock Torunski

"Alone" - *Award Winning* Post-Apocalyptic Short Film - By Brock Torunski

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbTc81JmQTs

Media Language

Representation

Audience

Narrative

Genre

The story to this short film is an apocalyptic scenario, where the protagonist appears to be alone in the world. The plot follows a day in his life, trying to survive by himself, looking for essentials. The absence of other people in the world makes this task very difficult. The film represents the theme of survival and loneliness. The genre best represented by the film, and most evident is dystopian. The film's conclusion is comes as a surprise to the audience, and the reveal of the twist at the end is what sets this film aside as being very well made. The pace is set out as slow almost all the way through. It serves as a metaphor for the length of each day, and how slowly time will go for the protagonist in this dystopia.

Prop- Paper

The narrative falls into 3 main parts, the flashback, the middle scenes and the ending scene. Each shows a different part of the narrative, and the slow pace adds effect to the last scene, where the film ends on disruption. The plot starts off with an ordinary day in an office, lots of sound and characters shown out of focus. This is revealed to be a flashback, as the character explains this in narration after a cut from the past to the present. The protagonist is shown sitting behind a desk, doing some kind of office work. Props around him suggest this, paper, books, keyboard, etc. His facial expression also shows that this might be quite a mundane job, and he does not really enjoy it. There is then a phone call, which is assumed to be work related. The protagonist answers the phone to hear a panicked voice telling him that everybody is dying, then it cuts to the protagonist waking up, clearly also panicked by this flashback.

The narrator explains how he is alone, and has been for several years. This suggests that in the story, there has already been a major disruption, and that the protagonist has adapted to living in this new equilibrium. Because of this structure implied, it shows that there has already been elements of Todorov's narrative theory in the existing character's story. The director has chosen to show only the new equilibrium, and how the character has adapted to it. The other stages are briefly highlighted, but are open to interpretation, allowing the audience to make up their mind on what has previously happened based on the narrative told in the present. The way in which the narrator does not directly say what the event was that has left him alone in the world implies that he does not know the reason. This is backed up by his dialogue around 3:30. The lack of knowledge is also shared by the audience, which means that the audience can empathise with the protagonist. The first scene in the present day has a guitar as a non-diegetic soundtrack, and includes lots of single deep notes, which adds to the theme of isolation and survival.

Genre is shown in this short film. It is not an immediately identifiable genre such as horror or thriller, as there are not many semantic codes in the film. Rather, it is the absence of other characters that establishes this as a dystopian film. The protagonist is alone in a dystopian society. This genre can act as a social or political commentary. This can be seen in the scene where the protagonist is searching for supplies. He stumbles upon some cash, where he says that "the only thing it's good for now is starting fires". This is definitely a social/political commentary, as it shows that when the world changes very suddenly, money becomes worthless, and only helps with basic survival needs such as fires. It is implying that under different circumstances, value is not determined by wealth, but by utility. Just before this, he finds a survival bag and states how before he'd have "thought someone was crazy for making one of these". This is also another commentary on how perceptions and beliefs change under radical social or political changes (in this case complete isolation). Irony is also implied as someone who is unprepared is seemingly the only survivor, and those who planned ahead have not made it into this dystopia.

The last scene in this short film is an important one, as it shapes the rest of the story with the twist. The protagonist is walking home at night, and the diegetic sounds of thunder gradually crescends. This use of pathetic fallacy sets up the tone for some kind of disruption to occur. The narration continues, as the protagonist explains how he is walking further than usual. He goes to mention how he is alone, and during this side shot of the character, a house's light flashes on, implying that someone is in that house. The light is accompanied by sudden non-diegetic music. The music has a faster, more dramatic and intense rhythm, and carries on past the last shot into the title screen. The light turns on, the protagonist looks at it, then the shot ends. This sudden cut emphasises the change to the protagonists world, as he discovers that he has not been alone after all this time. The twist works because the narrative is being told from the protagonist's viewpoint, and we have as much of an idea of what will happen as he does, so the shock of the light turning on is the same for the character and the audience, despite there being little to no build up for it.

I think this short film works well because it builds up a slow pace throughout, and the twist at the end is not hinted at in any way throughout, allowing the audience to fully empathise with the protagonist. It sticks to the genre accordingly, with the little music and diegetic sound effects used throughout to emphasise the loneliness of the protagonist, as well as the dramatic change to this when the disruption occurs.