1st Textual Analysis Short Film:Black Button

My first Textual analysis is on the short film Black Button, this short film was made and directed by two people Hayden Grubb and Lucas Crandles. The genre of the film is drama, the black button might commonly associate with feature length films due to the fact that, the concept of the film relates to it. Black Button has some generic convetions which allows and shows the audience the category of the short film, example the white background in the scenes represents that the man is in heaven.

As we decided to make a short film I, research on the internet and a found this short film, I liked it and decided to write my 1st analysis of the film.

The storyline of the black buttons, starts of with a man named Jeffery Robers who had a car accident while going to work and his in heaven to make a choice , In heaven he meeets God who gives him two choices, to press a black button and take a brief case of 10 million or take a key to the door and leave. but theres a catch, pushing the black button and taking the brief case means he kills someone on earth. so the question is would he killed someone for the brief case. After some talking and temptation from God, the Jeffery decided to push the black button and take the briefcase. Unfortunately it turned out that he died in the car accident and had signed his papers to hell. The stroyline shows the audience some of the choices u make could change your whole life.

This short film has different shots and camera techniques to show the audience what exactly is going on and also to make the audience follow the dialogue. The film starts of with a white background with a quote "God will not suffer you to be tempted,above that ye are able", "but will with temptation also make a way to escape". It then fades out and in to a point of view shot of Robert looking at God with a little blurriness effect, showin that Robert is not in a good state. the shot is then cut to a master shot showing the whole room and which location they are. Series of medium shots between the two characters is seen in order fot the audience to follow the dialogue. As God introduces Robert to the button, the button is zoomed in, this shows the audience the significance of the button, this is followed by bass sound showin the tension. As Robert goes to the door, a close-up short of the knob is shown in order to show that the door is actually locked and that the only choice is for Robert to make a desicion, we also see this when the a close-up shot of the key to the door and the brief case is shown. As God was tempting Robert to push the button, fast and series of cuts between Robert, God and the button is seen, this shows the audience that, Robert is under pressure and he can't cope, therefore he ended up pushing the button. After he had pushed the button a flash back of what happened before he got to where he was is shown in black and white, this tells the audience that he his remembering his past.

Black button uses some editing and mis-en-scene to emphaise the situation in the film, example the white background fades in with Roberts shirt this effect makes the film more outstanding, also the effects used through lighting makes it more outstanding that we are in heaven.