Yousaf Ali Khan

Yousaf Ali Khan was born in a estate in salford and in his early life he bought up by his mother who suffered from schizophrenia, He is mixed race is mother was English and his father was Pakistani. He and his family came under unwanted attention from the national front, which inspired him to write and direct the film "Skin deep" about a mixed race boy growing up in 1970's Britain dealing with racism.

As a child he was in and out of care and believes that keeping the family unit together is of paramount importance, even in cases where the parents struggle to look after their offspring. This could be way the family in his Oscar nominated film "Talking to angels"  is always in fear of visits from the social services and are terrified that the kids will going to care and the mother into a nursing home. These are issues he and his brothers and sisters had to go through.

Khan left school at the age of 14 with no gcses. His next project is a feature film about Jewish children who miraculously escaped the horrors of belsen in the holocaust. With him being Muslim, his partner producer being hindu and the film being mainly funded by Palestinian business man is shows his intent to unite people through his movies and this  didn’t go unnoticed this is a  factor why he was featured in the screens international "stars of tomorrow" short list

Khan rarely talks about his personal life but from what we know, we see his childhood plays a big factor in his movies. His films haves are realistic yet they have a sense of surrealism with camera shots and techniques. The surrealism normally represents what is in the character mind , some film critivs believe he focuses on the mind so much because his mother was in a constant battle with her  

bibliography

bibliography:

• youtube.com
•  yousef khan-http://film.guardian.co.uk/afterdark/story/0,,1449133,00.html
• oscar-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Live_Action_Short_Film
• cfilm review-http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?DVDID=10070
• yousef khan-http://www.britfilms.com/britishfilms/directors/?id=D5D44D5202b6219733NtYqFA0A71
• film festival-http://www.encounters-festival.org.uk/

The Stairwell- directed by shane meadow

• The film was filmed on a mobilephone which shows you dont need expensive equipment to makes a short film 
• mise-ene-scene is in the typical style of shane meadow its is gritty, run down and urban 
• the lighting naturalistic and very dark which adds a sense of mystery to the films ad makes it tense 
• The music is dramatic and bulids up tension, whilst giving us the feeling something bad is about to happen 
• challenges our expections of the film with the anti climax ending 
• Diffrents shots,angles and cuts makes the film more intresting and also adds the tension 
• we have a sense of mystrey from the start because we cant really see the mans face to his identity is hidden

Shane meadows

Shne meadows is one the uk's best short film, He was born in the midlands in england, he was born in the early 70s. He dropped out of school before getting is o-levels and he thought he would bulid himself as a career in crime, which quickly he found out he wasn't cut out for it.

In 1994 shane meadows got his hands on a video camera and editingequipment by voluntering his services a nottingham based intermedia film and video ltd, in return they allowed him to borrow what he need. Meadow started to experinement with making films and asking friends and family to be in them, who were at firsy wary. but as Shane started to make more movies, his family and friends were impressed and become more enthusatic to be in them. He began doing as many as 1 short film a month and him and hisfriends started of there own film festival which later became an international and is now called "Flip side".

His first film to catch the attension of the film industrey was "where's the money, Ronni?". The film got him recongnation amoong the film world and channel four give him the opportunity to makeshort documentary "King of the gypsies" about shanes friends bartley gorman for the channel four "battered briton" series

Since then shane meadow has become well known for his grown breaking feature film " This is england" in which the film portrays a England in the times of high racial tensions, he then filmed a set of hour long tv drama called " this is england 86". Shane still does short films and also tries to help new film makers, he even did a a video master class on filmmaking called " Shaynes World"

He still does short film and sticks too his kitchen sink realism that he he in reknown for. This shown in his settings and his style of filming he deals with various issues buts mixes a humour into it. He focuses on real issues big and small , from the national front to bumping into someone. He doesn't really focus on the surreal but one thing he does focus on his england and more specific the  working class.

Mainstream cinema and short films

Quotes on Short film

"Spare economic narratives, interesting storytelling, well structured work which draw in the audience quickly" -Catherine Des Forges

"Short films are long films that end earlier. A good idea, succintly told, less is more" -Gareth Evans

Irish short film: Teeth

Teeth is a comical films about two old men who are on a fishing trap and both end up losing the dentures Directed by John Kennedy & Ruairí O'Brien

•  I thought the opening establishing was amazing because its captured the feeling of peacefulness and them both being out there on own 
  
•  By making it all in black and white is good because it gives the film a vintage feel along with both protagonist being old. The title also makes the film feel vintage because the font looks old fashioned 
  
• (maybe wrong)The white balance/saturation in the film is amazing I think because despite it being black and white the different shades stand out and plus it gives it a very clean and crisp look  
  
• The non-digetic music adds the  atmosphere of the film, which is a peaceful and light-hearted one 
  
• The shots where you could just see your silhouette of both of them back to back in the boat with the fishing rod is beautifully visually and well composed 
  
• I think the story line is very funny and light hearted, plus unlike mainstream cinema you would rarely get to protagonist so old
  
• I think by just having a laughing but by having no talking makes the film more humorous. But by having no talking means facial expressions have to be exaggerated and they are that is what adds to the humour
  
• The ages of both protagonist and the story line gives the film a bit of an “aw” factor
  
• The way the film ends is very funny when the man throws the teeth back in water, which makes the light hearted short very charming and a favourite of mine 
• The film seems very do able because it doesn't seem like it was a high production value but seems simple and all realise on good camera work, plus the ablity to get the right settings on the camera to give it that clean-crisp look