'TIGHT JEANS' SHORT FILM

'TIGHT JEANS' SHORT FILM

'Tight Jeans' follows the conversation between three older teenagers as they sit on  a wall waiting for their friend, Tyrone, to leave his flat and give them a lift in his car to Battersea.

 In the opening to this short film, the average short length is shorter compared to the rest of the film. Different shots show a market, selling men's trousers on sale, and groceries. Another shot also shows two teenagers playfully playing football and shoving each other in a park. This opening creates a feeling of ambiguity about what the film is going to be about. 

All three boys are wearing baggy denim jeans. They are each wearing either a red hoodie, a striped orange and grey hoodie or a blue hoodie. The teen in the red hoodie is wearing a black cap. As for setting, the three teens are all sitting next to each other on a wall. The bright colours of their hoodies stand out against the brown / dark grey background of the estate. The setting feels like an estate because we can see graffiti on the wall of the building behind them. There are also numerous blocks of fights surrounding a car park. The setting, stripped of colour, compared with the mise en scene of the teenager's hoodies, as well as lack of any props, draw our focus to them and their conversation only. 

The teens see a white man wearing tight jeans as he walks past them across the car park. The majority of the short film's duration after that is the teens' conversation about why black men wear baggier jeans than white men. During this conversation, the average shot length is very long, the shot doesn't change with the excepting of a few close ups of the characters' facial expressions in reaction to something mildly outrageous/comedic someone says. Our visual attention isn't as engaged as our vocal attention, because the shots aren't engaging; again, instead we are focus on what the three characters are saying. 

The music in which the film opens and closes with has an electronic aesthetic and it is quite energetic. There is no music during the characters' conversation, so in contrast to the opening and closing music, the film feels quite calm. This non diegetic music is contrapuntal to the action on screen; it doesn't fit with the norm of buying groceries. However, this sound could reflect on the type of music the characters in the film on the estate listen to.

In terms of cinematography, the camera pans to show the block of flats in which Tyrone is, as well as the white man walking out in to the car park. However, it is later revealed to us that this specific block of flats is where Tyrone lives. During the conversation between the three characters, the camera is at mid shot. This way, the camera is close enough to create an intimate enough atmosphere where we can focus on the language and conversation of the teens, but it isn't always a close up of their faces, so we can see the body language and facial expressions of all three characters. We also get the sense that there isn't a main character, however the teen in the orange and grey hoodie is the one who tells the main story, so he is situated in the middle of the three. The camera does short pans from side to side during this long mid shot, in a way to remind us the we are watching a short film, as it would feel more like real life if the camera was still for the whole conversation. When Tyrone comes out of his flat and stands on the balcony, there is a high angle and over the shoulder shot looking down at the characters on the wall, reflecting on how in that moment Tyrone is more important than them, because they are waiting for him for five more minutes even though he is already late; so they are doing what he says. 

'Tight Jeans' has a comedic aesthetic. The theme is very usual and everyday, for example, the lighting is not chiaroscuro, the film is set in daylight, on a cloudy day. At the end of the film, another white man walks past, this time wearing a tight white T shirt instead of tight jeans. The character in the orange and grey hoodie begins another story about why white men wear tight T shirts, the other two characters react, and the film ends, creating a satisfying closure.