The six-minute short film titled Feast focuses on a pup named Winston who sees his ownerâs life change from a bachelor to a married man. The audience sees this change through what the pup is eating, which is an interesting perspective that works in director Patrick Osborneâs favor. Osborne also keeps Disneyâs typical tone, which is light and airy even during the darkest and saddest of times.Â
The premise of the short film is seeing how Winstonâs food habits change as his ownerâs life changes. The film opens up with a shot of the pup on a dark street sniffing around for what one assumes is food then a fry drops on the ground in front of him. Winston goes up the fry timidly and eats it, then a guy hands him another which he takes with less hesitation. The next thing the audience sees is Winston at the guyâs house in a collar and a dog bowl set out in front of him filled with food. As the film progresses, Winston is eating spaghetti, pizza, hamburgers, eggs, bacon, etc. The film comes to a slower pace when he is handed something green and healthy instead. At this point, the owner begins dating this woman who has no name throughout the film. Winston does not like this healthy change, so he throws a fit by shredding items left and right.
At some point within the film, the theme gets a bit darker both in color and in mood. The owner and the girl are no longer together. The resolution of the story begins when Winston starts eating his ownerâs spaghetti when he notices a green leaf sitting on top of it. He pushes it off the spaghetti when his owner picks up the green leaf and stares at it sadly. Finally, Winston grabs the green leaf out of the guyâs hand and runs out of the house with his owner following him. Winston leads him straight to the girl where they make up and later get married and have a child. This child, like his father, starts leaving behind unhealthy foods such as meatballs that Winston eats. One can get the feeling that everybody is happy and it has come full circle for Winston and his eating habits by the end of the film.Â
The dramatic structure of the film consists of three parts. The first part is when Winstonâs owner is single and is eating unhealthy, so Winston does too. The second part starts when Winstonâs owner starts dating the girl and they all eat green, healthy foods much to Winstonâs dislike. Then the third part is when Winstonâs owner and the girl get married and have a kid. The child starts throwing around food, which makes Winston happy to be eating junk food again.
Most of the shots used within the film are close ups. This is needed in order to effectively show how a character is feeling because without it the audience has nothing else to rely on due to there being no dialogue. Because there is no dialogue, the production crew relied mainly on diegetic sound. They used it when Winston barks, when he whines, when food is being poured in his bowl, sniffing, etc. All of these sounds bring the film to life.Â
Editor, Jeff Draheim, did a fantastic job with the pacing of the shots. In fact, the pacing of the shots enhanced the mood and feel of the film. Draheim is able to make the audience feel sad and happy when the moment is right, which is a hard thing to master, but Draheim pulled it off. One cut that stuck out was when Draheim did an intentional jump cut right at the moment Winstonâs owner and the girl got back together then when they got married. It was a focus on their feet. This helped create a time jump that was necessary for the story. Draheim did this a few times within the film, which helped move it along nicely.Â
Based on the script by Damian Elkinson, Invasion (2016) is about a young, gamer guy who plays Minecraft often enough that he eventually starts seeing real life imitations of his favorite characters around his house. These imitations are Lego size and they taunt him endlessly, which freaks the guy, Rob Marks, out. The film ends with Rob bolting out of bed in a rush just to see another Lego man sitting on his alarm clock.Â
The aesthetic ideas the production crew had for the film Invasion was completely opposite of the Disney short Feast because the crew wanted it to feel darker and horror like. The shots within the zero-low resource film played a lot with shadows and warms colors such as red. These decisions helped enhance the tone of the short. Because of the absence of a lot of production gear, the team had to get creative. They used floor lamps and table lamps to light the actor and even created sound effects when needed for the actorâs small stunts.Â
One way the Disney short and Invasion were similar was that they both told a story without dialogue. Each film relied on characterâs body language and or facial expressions to help tell the story. This made the film both challenging and fun to shoot. Â
This film couldnât have been possible without the director Darshae White and the cinematographer/writer Damian Elkinson. The role that the writer of this blog took on was the role of producer. Props to all those involved in making an excellent first short film.Â
T. (2015, March 02). Feast Disney Short Film HD (Oscar-winning Short Film) - Dailymotion Video. Retrieved November 18, 2016, from http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ig373
White, D. (Director), & McPherson, K. (Producer). (2016, November). Invasion.Â
