Social Realism Analysis

Soft Soft is a 2007 short film directed by Simon Ellis about a father and son who are both confronted by the same gang and are forced to retaliate. However, it is much a subverted role in terms of stereotype as the son is forced to overcome his fears and take action for both himself and his father, who freezes in front of the gang. It contains themes of bullying and violence in modern youth, and also raises uncomfortable issues such as the relationship between the father and his son and his inability to protect him. The establishing shot of the film is on a hand held phone camera showing a group of youths running to where an attack is about to occur. The filming shows them running toward the scene and when they finally arrive, the audience are exposed to the attack. Because the scene is shot on a mobile phone camera it effectively portrays teenage behaviour of filming anything on their phone no matter what the content. It also puts into perspective the reality of the situation and showing us that this can happen to anyone, especially as it happened to a father and son, in spite of the age difference between the man and the teens. The next establishing shot is an aerial view of the street where they live. This shot is also used to end the film which connotes that despite what happened nothing had changed. During the main sequences of the film many different camera techniques edits are used. For example after the father has been assaulted, over the shoulder shots are used repeatedly to blatantly show that the father and son cannot look at each other in the eye due to the fact that the father is so ashamed of his cowardliness. This is also emphasised in the dialogue between the two characters when the father hypocritically says to his son that he has to stick up for himself more. When the father finally confronts the youths his mind-set changes portrayed by a close up of his face and everything around his face is blurry and all sound is distorted. This is effective in showing the fearful state he is in. After the violence has occurred, the father stops the car alarm which gives the audience a signal that things might be over for them now and

the son drops the cricket bat in front of his father displaying the message to him and the audience that that was his job and he shouldve stood up to the gang in place of his son.