"Soft" vs "Wasp"

 “Soft” is a short film written and directed by Simon Ellis, which is about a father and son who are bullied by other young teenagers. “Soft” is a film with the genre of social realism as it shows many realistic aspects of contemporary London.  Crime is another genre within the short film, as youth delinquents cause great trauma and fear to a vulnerable family. The film explores many themes, such as fear, pride, role models and humility. The director uses these themes to create tension and a sense of discomfort for the viewer.

“Wasp” is another short film, written and directed by producer Andrea Arnold, whom also wrote and directed the film “Fish Tank” which is very similar to “Wasp” and “Soft” in terms of genre and themes. The mutual genre between all three films is ‘Social Realism’ as all three films show how life is for different people.
“Wasp” is about a single mother who struggles to care for her four children due to poverty. An old potential lover re-enters her life, which enforces the ‘versus’ element upon the single mother, as she is torn between her old lover and caring for her children.

Both “Wasp” and “Soft” are similar in terms of cinematography, both short films were similar as they both purposefully used poor quality filming to show each of the characters’ struggle, which helped emphasise them.
Hand-held camera was used in “Wasp”, creating unsteady footage which could be perceived as the family in poverty.
In the short film “Soft” the camera work was also Hand-held, making the film more realistic to the audience and allowing the viewer to feel as though they are there with the characters.
The Hand-held camera in which moved speedily from the father to the son to the troublesome teenagers which were causing the problems, created tension for the viewer.

Another similarity between the two short films is that the parents in both films are portrayed as ‘bad’ parents, however in their own ways they are also people struggling with parenthood.

Both films were interesting to watch, I was eager to find out how each character would overcome their struggle.