Analysing a short film

Love Field (2008)
Directed by Mathieu Ratthe




Love Field was directed,  produced, written and editted by Mathieu Ratthe. The short film combines suspsense, horror and drama. Intially we are lead to believe there is a murder but this view is quickly changed by the end of the short film when we see that it wasn't a murder being taken out but in fact a woman giving birth.

In the field, a cellphone, money and a purse are dispersed on the land and a woman with blood on the foot is crying in pain. A vertical panning shot is used to show the items and then eventually the woman. Her dirty feet are something which show she might be in danger something which is already put across the the audience by the panning shot of her things everywhere.

Later in the same shot the woman stops crying and a man with blood on the hands stabs a knife on the field. This implies to the audience he has just killed her. The blood and weapon are conventions usually found in the horror genre which gives the audience the idea that this short film is a horror

 The director used a close up on a crow which can be heard throughout the film. The use of the crow is another convention which is associated with the horror genre as a crow is mostly used to indicate something bad is happening and even sometimes a death, which appears to be the case in this short film so far.

 A close up on the man's arm shows a skull with scales tattooed on his arm, this could imply that this character thinks he handles life and death, which is perhaps why he has 'killed'  this woman in the field.

Although the next shot which is a long shot implies that the man is now nervous and looking out for someone incase they see.

This close up on the man's hands show how he is frantic to get into the car's boot. He also proceeds to pull a bag and blanket, presumely to the audience this is hide the body.

However in this medium shot it is revealed what has actually happened in the field, something which generally suprising the audience when they see that the woman  has actually had a baby.


The editing pace varies throughout the short film, while the man is frantic to get into his car and to look for something it is faster compared to earlier in the film where it is slow as it pans over the woman's thing which have been dropped in the field.

Like most short films it is within the range of length being between 3 and 30 minutes, Love Field is 5 minutes and 29 seconds. It has currently had 1,078,807 views on yotube.