Analysis of 'When I'm Sixty Four' directed by Mat Johns

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'When I'm Sixty Four' is a short film about finding allies in unexpected places. Two outsiders, an old man and a young boy, come together and show their peers that a generational gap cannot hinder friendship.

The short film begins with a fade from black to a long shot of the title which is position in the bottom left corner on pavement which fades away as an elderly man on mobility scoot travels along the pavement. This clever use of editing is warmly welcomed by the audience as it displays competent use of editing techniques as well as a convention of the family genre. In the framing of the opening long shot, the audience can determine the age of the man as old; identifiable via elements of mise en scene such as the mobility scooter prop. By having this man on a shop mobility scooter travelling along the pavement of a street, it creates the social realism that the audience recognises and is familiar with, tagging alongside the usual connotations of representation of the character in the film and the actions associated with the character and so from this we can assume the usual traits: feeble, vulnerable, potentially incapable.

At this moment, diegetic sound is used to inform the audience that the mobility scooter is breaking down. The background lightning looks like it has been manipulated to create pathetic fallacy; this connotes that the character's life is possibly quite boring and that he may not have anything much to for anymore. This causes the audience to feel sympathetic towards the man, connecting the audience to the film more. This feeling is further emphasised when the character's scooter dies. slow sluggish non-diegetic soundtrack is played in the background which makes the audience feel bad for him, helping them connect to the film even more. On top of this, a long shot of a group of four youths giggling and laughing at the man's helplessness also doesn't make the audience feel any better for the old man.

A close-up of the elderly man portrays his facial expression as being one of despair and sadness, something that around the world is socially seen as horrible, especially if the person is elderly as they are seen as vulnerable. The shot transitions via a dissolve to a long shot of the man struggling to push his scooter along the road which is followed up with tracking medium shot where we see the man struggle to get his scooter in his front garden which gets the audience asking questions on where plot of this film is going to take us.
We then cut to a long shot introducing us to a new character, a young teenager boy (probably around the age of 13 to 14) standing at the window watching the man struggle, with his facial expression suggesting a sense of heartbreak. At this point we notice the boy is holding a remote control car and a screwdriver in his other hand, foreshadowing what might happen next. Non-diegetic string instruments are then used to imply the emotional state of this situation; this makes the audience become more aware of the boy's actions. This is important as this sets the protagonist of this film as this young teenage boy (and potentially the antagonists as the youths laughing at the old man.)

The next shot gradually zooms in on the elderly man who hears a banging coming from outside and so he assumes it is the troublesome youths (the antagonists) from earlier in the film. However, when the man goes to open the door, the mid shot shows his facial expression changing into a much more happy one, then looking shocked by the fact that the young boy appears to be fixing his scooter. At one point, a shot reverse shot shows the instant connection the young boy now has with the man, coming across as if it was grandfather and grandson. The audience immediately understands the connection and become attached to this emotion state create by the film; this could be consider a syntactic code in terms of Rick Altman's gene code theory as it's following closely to the conventions of the family genre.

Suddenly, however, the scene and atmosphere changes in the film when the elderly man approaches the teenager and shakes his hand. Accompanying this is the introduction of a non-diegetic soundtrack of the iconic 'Mission Impossible' theme song; famously associated with the action and adventure genre. This typically opposes the social realism of the scene as well as the characters, as both characters' ages aren't associated with roles that are all impact, all action type of roles, and so this opens up the film a bit more, keeping the audience entertained. A selection of fast-paced close up shots show both the characters picking up tools and fixing different parts of the scooter until a final shot of the young boy welding metal together brings the shots to an end before it fades to black.

The shot is then reintroduced with a close up of one of the youth’s faces, looking down at a phone before briefly looking up and looking back down again before double-taking and looking back up again. His face suggests that he is astounded by what he is seeing and so he nudges his mates to also look up with him, in addition to a group shot. They look up and are all seen standing there, mouths dropped in awe of what they're seeing. The scene continues with a long shot that pans up to face the elderly man who is now driving his shop mobility scooter again, however this time the scooter appears to have flames on the side of it, and so the audience assumes that this is the work done by the young boy and that the youths are shocked by this; or perhaps of because it is so unusual to see this is reality. Again, at this point the audience recognises the fact that the non-diegetic sound has now changed to a more upbeat, happy sounding track, and that the weather outside is a lot brighter, again connoting happiness. A light sense of humour is then briefly introduced when a mid shot pans past these two elderly women as they stand in awe, suggesting that he is driving past them, and attracting them, before they both wink and get flustered by him. By including this it helps to entertain the audiences experience of the film as well as falling into the general semantic codes of the genre.

I like how this film uses the semantic codes of the family genre to connect to the audience, I also liked how this was done on 'Ambition'; another film I analysed. The use of this in short films seems important therefore it is something I will aim to include in my short film.