My Beast Friend

Here is my textual analysis of a professionally made short film titled 'My Beast Friend', a film about Ed who has a fully grown man in the form of a cat, but he is the only one who can see the cat in this form. Everyone else seems to see him as a normal cat, but he is far from normal! I would class this as a comedy and I will not textually analyse this film. Looking at sound, there is only dialogue, and the added sound of a purring cat when the girl picks the cat up. This adds to the hilarity of the situation because the woman hears the cat as a normal cat, but Ed, the male character, hears the cat as a grumpy Scottish man. Looking at the camerawork, when all the characters are talking at the same time, the mid-shot is used to get all the characters in the shot, and this allows the viewer to feel like they are in the room with the characters. Also, close up shots are used to show the expression of the cat's face multiple times during the clip. This highlights the hilarity of the cat, as you can clearly see whiskers that are hand drawn on his face. Looking at editing, like a usual comedy short film, there are straight cuts between shots and the shot lengths are quite long, there are no quick cuts between shots, and this is typical of a comedy short film. At the end, before the cat swears, the image is cut, along with the sound, and the credits roll. This abrupt ending of the cat's dialogue makes the film very funny, because we can all guess what the cat is going to say anyway! Finally I will look at the mise-en-scene. The cat costume worn by the grumpy Scottish man is effective and it adds a significant degree of comedic value to the film. Location wise, the film is shot in one space and this is typical of any comedy production. For example, in Peep show the main location is Mark and Jeremy's flat, in the Inbetweeners its in the school, and in this short film, the main location is Ed's hallway. 

Watch this excellent film below. Enjoy!