Short Film Analysis: New Boy

After finding and watching the short film 'New Boy' on Youtube I decided to analyse it as I think it draws in on a few themes that are present in our own short story, for example: representation and identity, fitting in with your peers and personal struggles.

'New Boy' follows the story of a young African boy, Joseph, who's moved to Ireland and is starting at a new school. The story opens immediately with Joseph's own struggle as he's immediately rejected by the rest of his classmates, and as the story progresses we see other struggles that he's had to overcome within his life. Although the story begins with a struggle, towards the end some of the weight of this struggle seems to have been lifted from Joseph and the film finishes on a more upbeat note.

Titles
The film begins with a dark screen and happy, upbeat, bright music playing, which creates a sort of contrast, but overall gives a joyous, energetic start to the film. The opening titles of the film which include film companies, writers, producers, film name and other necessary credits then play, and are displayed in an odd, distorted font, which again contrasts with the mood that the music sets to perhaps suggest some sinister element within the film. As these titles appear and the music continues to play, the sound of voices slowly fade in until the titles disappear and cut to a close up, over the shoulder shot of a young black boy sat in a classroom while the sound of the voices, which is the diagetic sound from the clip, continues playing.

Characters and Representation 
All of the characters within 'New Boy' are very different and help to represent the diversity that can be present in a classroom through both personality and race. All of the characters come together to create an overall realistic impression of a classroom and they all work together to create a certain sense of hierarchy and social balance. 


Joseph
Joseph is the first and most important character that we are introduced to. He immediately stands out as an outcast from the rest of the class as he is the only black child, showing already that he's a potential misfit. He is represented as a quiet, timid character in the first shot we see of him: a medium shot of him standing at the front of the class with the teacher looking down at the floor and slowly up to the class with a scared expression and eyes that dart around the room nervously. This timid look is kept throughout the whole of the film as his stiff body language suggests discomfort throughout all of the classrooms scenes and throughout the break time scene as he spends it isolated and wary of the other children. His refusal to speak also reflects his shyness and his constant upset expression suggests a hard past that has made his life a struggle and has left him unable to interact with others easily. I think that Joseph is successfully portrayed as the outcast of the group and any audience will be able to detect this based on his expressions and body language.

Teacher
The teacher is introduced to us around the same time that Joseph is, and although she has a fair amount of control over the class, it's apparent throughout the story that she struggles to keep this control as instances such as the children swearing and disrespecting her seem to startle her and the children take advantage of her shocked state by further mocking her and giving her back-chat. The teacher's role within the story is to keep some kind of peace between Joseph and the other children in the class, but she also brings a humorous element to it as she uses the phrase "Now," which is mocked by the children and gives the whole story a slightly humorous tone. I believe that the teacher within the story reflects one that may teach at a working class, local school, and so they will be exposed to working class children and may have to deal with attitudes that are perhaps rude and disrespectful, so I think this classroom scenario is perfectly believable as it sticks close to a common reality.

Seth
We are then introduced to Seth who is portrayed as a fairly unlucky character that gets into trouble due to silly circumstances or his lack of intelligence. Instances such as when Seth sees the teacher's knickers suggest that he may be the 'class clown' and doesn't take his education very seriously; although these aren't good acts, they're light hearted and joky which once again reinforces that he isn't a bad character. Seth easily succumbs to his teacher's commands and seems to be picked on a little by his teacher which shows that he isn't a bad child and makes the audience pity him slightly. We pity him once again when Christian confronts Joseph and Seth tells him to "Let him go" but gets called back by the teacher with the two boys anyway showing that he perhaps gets dragged into unwanted trouble frequently. Seth is representative of the child in a classroom that jokes around in class, gets involved with the wrong crowd struggles with work but generally means well and adds to the characters that would be found within a classroom to once again give the story a feeling of reality.

Christian
Christian is very quickly introduced to us as the 'bad guy' as he taunts Joseph by calling him 'Live Aid' and asking him if he knows it's Christmas; this is a very malicious comment for a child to make and it once again enforces the gritty reality children nowadays have to live in and highlights the shocking attitudes that children so young can hold as this comment raises issues such as racism and poverty.  Christian's bad attitude is reinforced throughout the whole film through his snide comments and rude attitude towards his teacher and his constant pursuit of causing Joseph distress. His hard facial expression and harsh tone of voice also add together to help represent him as a nasty, malicious individual. Seth is representative of the nasty, cocky school bully that can be found in most classrooms.

Hazel
Hazel is introduced to us as the 'good guy' as her first line of speech is sticking up for Joseph. We then see her represented as a stereotypical 'geek' as she wears 'jamjar' glasses and is seemingly very anal about her work as we see her taking particular care with her pencil case occasionally and is also called upon by the teacher to show the class how to do sums. Although Hazel is a stereotypical geek, personality wise she deviates slightly from this stereotype as she has several lines within the story that show her confidence and wit whereas geeks are usually portrayed as being quite withdrawn and shy. This shows a play on social expectations of what a geek should be appearance wise, but it then shows an audience that just because someone looks a particular way it doesn't necessarily mean they'll act in a way that society expects them to based on their appearance, ultimately telling us that we shouldn't judge people based on their appearances.

Storyline
The storyline within 'New Boy' juggles both a linear and non-linear narrative as the story starting from the boy's arrival in the classroom until the end of the day runs in a linear fashion, however, it is broken up by the boy's own memories to give a sense of a non-linear narrative and the audience an insight into the boy's background.
The flashbacks of the boy's memories create a contrast between his current life and former life as his old life is portrayed as being very warm, loving and uplifting, whereas the classroom scenes are very lonely and uncomfortable for the boy. This contrast helps the audience to sympathise with the main character and I believe it works well because it helps an audience properly engage with the story as they become emotionally involved and are concerned about the boy's wellbeing, meaning the audience develop a greater interest in the storyline and become more concerned about what happens next.
The storyline also has a very clear beginning, middle and end and so runs in an order than an audience will expect and be able to understand, meaning that the story is very clear and fluent and an audience won't become disinterested due to their misinterpretation of the storyline. This set up of the storyline also means once again that an audience stays interested as they know that something significant will happen towards the middle of the story and will want to see the resolution at the end of it, making for an all around successful storyline.

Cinematography
The sound throughout the whole of this short film is fairly simple as it mixes a nice balance of both diagetic and non-diagetic sound. The main sound within the film is ambient and dialogue meaning much hasn't needed to be added in in post-production, however, non-diagetic sound is featured over Joseph's memories to emphasise a certain emotion, for example, an airy, light hearted feel for the positive memories, and an eerie, sinister one for the bad ones; this mixing of diagetic and non-diagetic sounds works well to create a smooth out moments of silence and merge them with other, louder sounds.
The editing works alongside the sound to give an edgy consistency to the film, for example, when Joseph is reliving his memory, the picture and sound are cut out by Christian talking to him and the clip cutting back to the classroom; this cut could also be representative of how easily Joseph can be snapped out of his own dreamworld, therefore putting you into the main character's shoes. Another nice use of sound is at the end of the memory where Joseph's father is taken away and we hear Christian saying "You're dead" like he had done previously to Joseph in the classroom; this creates quite a sinister irony as when it was said to Joseph it wasn't meant seriously, however when played over the clip of his father being taken to his death it gives it a sick, twisted feel as it presents to us the memories and feelings that Joseph could've relived after hearing this comment. Shortly after this speech snippet is played over the scene, Joseph is once again snapped out of his memory by the sound of a water balloon bursting, and with how it's edited, the sound of this can be interpreted to be the sound of guns after Joseph's father being taken away, once again suggesting his death and giving a sinister feel to the scene.
The film is mainly made up of close ups and medium shots as the film focuses on dialogue and emotion more than scenic, decorative shots. There is also a lot of pulling focus from one character to another during dialogue to capture different characters and their emotions and personalities. The colour used within the film also varies between the classroom scenes and the memory scenes as the lighting and colour in the classroom and playground is pretty standard, whereas the colour in the memories is very saturated and bright and there is a lot of light; this once again reinforces the contrast between the boy's former and current life.

Credits
The credits are quite boring in the sense that they appear standardly rolling over a black background with a white font, however the music that was playing at the beginning of the film is playing once again, and this time, rather than any fonts suggesting anything sinister, the music creates an uplifting, relieving mood to reflect the positive end of the story and leave you with an overall positive feeling of the film as a whole. Although visually boring, this is an effective way to end a film and a clever way to make a lasting impression through the credits as it leaves the audience with a definite emotion that will have an impact on them.

Morals/Themes
I believe that the film 'New Boy' aims to tackle issues that most people face, for example, being the new person in a group, but also issues that minorities face such as racism and poverty, meaning that the film is something that perhaps everyone can relate to and become emotionally involved with, but it also aims to educate them to be aware of the difficult circumstances others may face. I believe it also tackles the subject of stereotypes as in this we're presented with the character Hazel and she turns out to be a lot different to how we'd expect her to be. Continuing with the theme of stereotypes, we're also taught to not judge a book by its cover as the group originally reject Joseph because he's different to them, however, towards the end of the film he finds balance and a place in the group, showing us that people may not always be who we expect them to.

Conclusion
I think that studying this short film has been helpful in regards to creating our own short film as it has given me ideas to consider when portraying characters such as how they'll act as well as look, it's made me consider how to combine sound and editing to create an overall better motion picture, and to finally think about a message our film may be sending out so it says something as well as showing something.