"Where have I been all of your life?" Analysis

“Where have I been all of your life?”

Mise-en-scene

The film setting is in a car at the beginning and then moves into a normal-looking street where it then transitions inside of one of the houses as the narrative continues. This is effective as it creates a very real and true to life feeling as a documentary should. There are also no major distractions in the setting to bring the audiences attention away from the narrative.

Character expressions are typically surprise when the father finds out he has a long-lost son, as well as the look of horror on his wife’s face when she finds out that he cheated on her years ago. This point can also be conveyed through her snappy and aggressive movements too.

Props haven’t been used too much in this short film except for the paper showing the address of the house, which initially is read incorrectly which adds to the story.

All the lighting used in the whole film is natural and soft as the overcast skies are typical English weather. The lighting is also soft when the setting moves indoors too due to the windows.

Similar to the film setting, hair and make-up is kept very subtle and typical of the current time.

The parents are wearing more traditional clothing of an old couple, as the younger couple are wearing typical clothing of an adult in the early 2000s.

Cinematography

Camera shots are something that were not a priority in the making of the film as the macro elements are what tells the story and drives the narrative forward. For example, medium to close-up shots are predominantly used throughout due to the conversations taking place. Especially as in the rather small house, a long shot wouldn’t be necessary. However, an interesting outside-of-the-car shot is used a few times to imply that the couple are travelling somewhere. Camera angles similarly are kept at eye-level to the characters as conversations are taking place and it almost makes the audience feel like they are there.

Sound

Some sound effects have been used to add to the ambience of the street, such as cars occasionally driving past, beeping horns and police sirens. All the sound is diegetic as, despite the sound FX, the dialogue from the characters is all filmed there and not in a studio.

Editing

As with most of the micro elements, the editing is kept fairly basic with the use of simple cuts and one or two wipe transitions. This is due to the fact that “Where have I been all of your life?” is very similar to “Stories We Tell” in the fact that it’s filmed in a documentary style while telling a story in a film-like narrative.

Narrative

Narrative is one of the most dominant macro elements present as the way that the story is told is very original. Within the first 2 minutes, the audience are already engaged in the narrative and can see where things are going and know what to expect next, except the twists create a much more interesting film. These particular stories of reuniting with a family member is personal and relatable but adding in the extra elements such as finding out both the husband and wife have been cheating all of these years creates a memorable shock factor.

Audience

This film could be aimed towards a more mature teenage/young adult and upwards audience as you need certain knowledge to be able to understand the humour and what’s actually happening in the film. There is also some bits of dialogue that’s aimed towards adults such as innuendos that children won’t understand. Despite this, it is still filmed and conveyed in a documentary style and there is a message behind it, so this could be watched anywhere at any time. It obeys the comedy film rule of having some emotional parts to balance out the humorous parts. Therefore, this film can and should be watched for entertainment purposes, but I think it has been made in a really clever way. The topic this filmed touches on can be quite difficult to bring up or talk about but adding comedy to it allows and opens up conversation about it, so I think it acts as much more than a comedy film.

Genre

As mentioned in “Audience”, I think “WHIBAOYL” comes under multiple genres such as comedy, social-realism and documentary. Elements of each of these are used to ultimately convey a difficult-to-talk-about topic and a realistic family situation and bring humour to it. It’s like how people find humour in the worst situations to make themselves feel better. It’s used as a coping strategy over awkward situations. The social-realistic aspect is down to how real and true-to-life the plot is with the inclusion of having an affair and having a long, lost child out there and trying to find their real parents.

Representation

Representation is key within this type of documentary as it is how the characters are constructed and conveyed within the narrative is what drives it forward. For example, the real father, initially, is made to look like the bad person in this messy situation, but towards the end of the film, we find out that his wife has also been having an affair with the neighbour, therefore representing them both as bad, unloyal people. It’s the micro elements that really contribute to creating this representation of these characters, such as the shots of the middle to lower class housing estate, the contemporary clothes and the rougher accents they have.