'The Ellington Kid' and 'The Fly'

 The Ellington Kid

before watching, thoughts based on the title

• echoes of westerns and gangsters
• could have themes of coming of age
• follows a kid from Ellington

after watching

• story that is told that is just a bit too unlikely to be true→ it has a sense of dark comedy while giving a few twists in the short time span
• told through flashbacks
• switches from the more sinister side to the more comedic side of the 2 men eating
• shows the vibe as soon as it opens with the knife sharpening and cutting the meat
• can guess the twist of the story relatively early→ when the man asks why the other man would get the burger- after seeing the focus on chopping the meat you can guess.
• Hitchcockian close up in opening to attract attention→ relatively dark humour- sinister
• opts for a comedic switch between the casual setting of the men eating- then a more sinister and tense setting of the flashbacks

The Fly

before watching

• could follow a fly→ more candid shots→ voyeuristic→ feeling of being a fly on the wall

after watching

• Anxiety inducing- we feel the same anxiety as the man but for different reasons
• the fly is a physical representation of anxiety
• diegetic sound- the car horn- the fly- the sound of bank robbery- the cars engine running
• foreshadowing with the toothpick in his mouth- feels like something will go wrong
• off screen sound tells us what is going on inside the bank without us actually seeing it- we only see the after effects
• lots of clever things with budget
• Kuleshov effect- shots of the watch and him in the car and then of the bank we know he's a getaway driver
• title card is much more loud and in your face than the actual film
• airbag and horn increase our anxiety
• for someone who's supposed to be inconspicuous he's very loud and short tempered
• pace of editing speeds up when the horn and airbag go off, decreases again after the toothpick goes into his lip
• pace of editing increases again when he loses it and destroys the car, before slowing down to show the robbers exiting the bank with the sound of sirens in the distance