"Otherwise Engaged" Analysis

The short film “Otherwise Engaged” written and directed by Alicia MacDonald is a Rom-Com of a couple who have forgotten the traditional idea of proposal and emotional intimacy. Instead the couple post photos and videos of themselves becoming engaged on to social media.
The two most important micro-features within this short film are mise-en-scene and performance.

Mise-en-scene is valued for helping set the emotion, tone and meaning of the shot as it captures everything within the frame. Of the short film “Otherwise Engaged” the set of the film is in a running-field where the couple exercise after jogging together, the outdoor and open-air set of the film may signify that marriage is a pure and innocent commitment that a couple makes, ‘breath of fresh air’ for some couples. Proposal is a very intimate action between two people, and the ring is usually what signifies this loyalty, however in this short film MacDonald has used the prop of a telephone to be seen as more important than the ring itself, during this moment of “intimacy” this may reveal to the audience that in modern day society, it is more important to share personal happenings with more than one person, such as Social Media as the woman in the film appears to do.

Performance is another important micro-feature in film, as the characters’ ability to show and make the audience feel as though the acting is flowing and believable to make them feel as though they are engaged with the film.
Within this short film, performance is important as the facial expressions and body language allows the audience to get into the mind of the character to understand what is happening on the scene and why the actors are acting in that way.
For example the facial expressions of the woman when being proposed to showed excitement, however the fact that she was looking into her phone while videoing the proposal happening showed she was more concerned with the viewings of others than the actual proposal itself, which added a sense of comedy to the film, the film was something that the audience would not expect therefore confusion was caused and the emotion that the audience tends to let off when confused is laughter.