A Social Life analysis - Alex

Kerith Lemon's film, A Social Life is a short film about a career driven woman named Meredith who's living the life she's always dreamed of... online. Meredith strives to live a balanced life: staying fit, working hard and connecting with her friends; she is creating her "image" within her broader social media friend base. But she awakes one day and realises that her reflection is merely the collection of photos that she has shared with others. 

As the film begins the camera uses a crab movement to introduce us to the first character who is being woken up by her alarm clock like the start of a normal day. We can assume that the film is using linear narrative because the start of the day typically starts with waking up. The first thing that character reaches for is her phone which highlights that it is very important to her and the match on action when she puts it down makes it more dramatic and causes us to realise that it is a significant prop for this film. 

The match on action of her tying her shoe laces is to make the audience pay attention as it is an important event for later on in the film. We notice that she takes a photo of her trainers and this is made obvious to us through editing as the camera shot is on screen so that we can see the photos she takes, this carries on as the sequence progresses. 

 As she walks into the kitchen we hear her dialogue of her telling her mum that she can’t meet her and when her mum tries to push for it she redirects the conversation and then tells her mum she has to go because she needs to cook her “dinner.” In reality she wants to hang up the phone so that she can take a photo of her food that we think that she is about to prepare. This gives a negative representation of her as a person because she is prioritising taking a photo of her food over talking and seeing her family.

 

 The character then doesn’t even eat the food because we see her walk off screen and come back with a take away box. We see a medium shot of her eating her take away and it’s not even like she is trying to hide it because her composition with in the frame is central. As this is happening we witness how many likes she is getting on the photo she had taken of her “dinner.” We start to understand at this point that this photo sharing that she does is very important to her because even as she is doing something as important as eating she                                                                                        has her mind on how many likes she is getting.

There is a camera cut to her in bed again getting woken up by her alarm clock and we work out that this is the next day which confirms the idea that the film uses a linear narrative. The day starts off the same with her reaching out for her phone, taking a photo of her trainers to imply that she is going on a run, makes “dinner” etc. The pattern of the morning is made obvious to us because of this linear narrative, starting with the same thing every morning, reaching for her phone. Then the day is repeated again, however this time there are slight changes for example she changes which trainers she takes a photo of to make it seem like she’s been out and to keep people interested.

Match on action is used to show her pouring herself a glass of wine which she is going to drink on her own. Drinking alone is normally a sign of someone being really low in their life and she realises this because she doesn’t take a photo of it to put on social media. When she is drinking her glass of wine she scrolls through other people’s photos on social media and there is one in particular that she takes interest in. When she clicks on it there is a message which says “Stop working and come out with us!” which we can assume is directed at her and the fact that she stops on it and reads it for a while symbolises that she could be considering going out with them. However she doesn’t. 

As she carries on scrolling the camera changes to an extreme close up shot of her eyes so that we can see the reflection of the photos on her phone in her eyes. It also draws attention to the fact that her pupils dilate. This gives an impression that she is being brainwashed which a lot of the older generations believe social media does. Although it calls itself social media it doesn’t make people very social and I think that this film is supporting that view. As the film continues we notice that the non-diegetic soundtrack starts to crescendo to make it more dramatic.

There is a fade transition before entering a scene which is sped up. The purpose of this is to see how many times our main character picks her phone up during the time period of a couple of hours. In this time she picks up her phone and checks it continuously with only doing a few things in between. This continues to give a negative representation of people in the younger generations as it again supports the stereotypical view that they are always on their phones. The Non- diegetic music crescendos again to build suspense to the big ending of the film. After this sped up scene we observe her take photos of multiple wine bottles which is again her trying to convince the world that she isn’t as alone as she really is. 

When we see a close up shot of her doing her eye make up in the mirror it makes us question why because this isn’t part of her usual routine which we have seen before. Therefore it creates enigma. It is a significant part of the film which we know because of the close up shot and because of the synchronous sound. We later find out that she is doing her make up to pretend that she is going on a date and can take another photo. There is a pattern occurring which shows us that she wants to convince everyone that she isn’t as alone as she really is. She uploads the photo to social media and her facial expression is happy because of the reaction that she is getting from it.

As soon as she locks her phone her facial expression immediately drops as if she only has to wear the mask while she is on her phone. Her body language also tells us this because her posture is slanted. This again gives a negative representation of social media but also causes the audience to sympathise for our main character as she is obviously alone and depressed. 

Another fade to black transition is used to show the next day and the linear narrative shows us that this morning is different to the others in the way

that she has woken up on the sofa rather than her bed. We see this through a long shot from a low angle. One thing is still the same though, she looks for her phone which we can obviously see because the camera pans downwards to focus on her hand which is searching around on the floor for her phone. 

When she finds it she sees that she has no new notifications on her last photo, her facial expression shows that she is confused by this and she keeps refreshing the page to see if a mistake has been made and we know this because we can see her phone screen next to her which has been done through editing. As soon as she realises that she just hasn’t got any more likes she panics and goes to take another photo which implies that she may have an addiction to social media which gives social media a very negative representation. 

As she walks over to the mirror and points her phone at it the mirror is filled up with a lot of images of her which is done through editing. This symbolises that she can no longer see who she really is past the images that she has created for herself for others to see. This will make the audience think about their image on social media which is what makes the film so inspiring. The realisation of this causes her to stop and then she drops her phone to the ground, almost in disbelief. 

The sound of her phone hitting the ground is enhanced to make it more dramatic as it is a very important moment. There is a silence for a few seconds and then the non-diegetic music starts to play and crescendos massively as she walks away towards the stair case to emphasise that she has defeated her addiction to social media. The non-diegetic soundtrack continues as a tracking shot tracks her walking down the stairs and then after she has gone out of shot, lighting is used to imply that she is going outside because the shot gets lighter. As this happens the non-diegetic music crescendos even more which is parallel sound and is very effective in making the audience realise what is going on. To end the film the image fades the white which is the colour of peace and hope so I believe it was used well, this fade transition is followed by the name of the film which shows us that’s it’s the end before the credits start appearing.

I think that Todorov’s narrative theory applies to this short film as everything starts off normally because she gets woken up by an alarm clock like every other normal person, there is a disruption where she doesn’t want to go out because she would prefer to stay in and pretend, she recognises the problem when she looks in the mirror to take another photo and can’t see herself and then finally she goes outside which solves the problem and creates a new equilibrium.