3x3 - Short Film Analysis

The short film I chose was called 3x3 and was created by Portuguese film maker Nuno Rocha. The film is about a Janitor who sees a security guard playing basketball and is obviously inspired by how good he is and wants to try for himself, however at his first try he isn't the best, but it seems that the small stereotype of Janitors being extremely clever is filled here as he uses maths equations to work out how he can get the ball into the basket.

The main title of the film within the establishing shot 

The very first shot is a smooth establishing shot which shows the viewer the setting and a basic idea of what the film is about, and in this case you can see a basketball hoop with some basic titles and then a basketball comes into shot with the main title of the film. 

The tracking shot from the side shows the posture of the janitor
that helps to better interpret him as a character

An observation I made was that a lot of the first few shots of the janitor cleaning seemed to be tracking shots which followed him and give a small impression of his character, judging by the posture of the janitor , which seems to be quite hunchbacked , he may no have a lot of confidence and may be quite introverted and quiet. 

The reaction of the janitor is also slowed down which makes it seem
as if his shouting is even louder

The reaction of the security guard in slow motion adds
to the comedy of the moment

The film is edited in a way that it is dominated predominantly by action-reaction shots, for example, when the janitor misses the shot, the next shot shows the security guard laughing at the footage he is seeing, however their reactions are both in slow motion which emphasizes the emotion of the characters within that particular scene, for example when the security guard is laughing, the footage has been slowed down which puts emphasis on him in that one scene, especially due to the fact he has food in his mouth which makes for a more comedic moment. 

The diagetic sound from the pump helped add some realism to the film

The use of sound in 3x3 is quite unique as many different techniques are used, for example there are many diagetic sounds being used throughout different points in the film. There are many examples of this throughout the film, one is where the janitor is pumping the ball up and you can hear a slight hissing of the pump behind the background music. speaking of background music, the majority of the background music in the film is quite upbeat with a slight humorous tone to it which matches the theme of the film. Another thing I found interesting which was quite unique was when the sound of the basketball bouncing in the court was slowed down with the footage which made that scene a bit more intense

as it built up. 

The deep sound from the basketball bouncing added a bit more drama to the scene as it built up

I think that the use of mise en scene helped to better establish the characters positions of power within the setting.

This shot makes it seem as if the security guard is
in control

The shots of the security guard looking on his screens shows that he feels he has power over the janitor as he can see everything he does whereas the janitor is made to look powerless. 

His facial expression and body language are quite smug

There was the stereotype of the janitor being a genius

I think the characters were portrayed to the stereotypes in which they are normally portrayed as in modern media. I think that the security guard was coming across as slightly abusing his authority especially when he was still playing on the basketball court whilst the janitor was still cleaning, his facial expressions when he was looking at the janitor also seemed to be quite smug. I think that the janitor was also portrayed stereo-typically as a genius which seems to be something that is portrayed in a lot of films, this is shown when he is doing a complicated mathematical equation and he eventually ends up scoring 3 shots in a row because of his techniques. 

In conclusion I think that the message that the film is trying to get across is "Don't judge a book by its cover", as the security guard did just this and looked down to the janitor as he was scoring with the basketball, especially his facial expressions and body language. I think that another value that is being shown here is that if you put your mind to anything you can be good at it, the janitor might not have even been good at basketball but he applied his knowledge he already had to it and it ended up working. 

The janitor ended up proving the security guard wrong and that he could be just as good as him