The Fly (2014)

The Fly is a short film written and directed by Olly Williams, and it is about a getaway driver waiting in the car as his crew are robbing a bank, and a fly starts to irritate him.

The film starts with a black screen, only using diegetic sound and dialogue to give us a sense of what's happening. It then cuts to a close up of our lead, played by Jack Doolan, sitting in his car impatiently. At first glance he looks like a tough guy, with an eyebrow scar and a severe look, however as the short film goes on we see him slowly lose his mind over a fly that won't leave him alone.

There is almost no dialogue in this short film, which adds to the realism as a person in this situation would not be talking to themself the whole time.

The acting is well done and convincing as he visibly gets more agitated and more frustrated as the film goes on, and this is done through his body language (nervous tapping, wide searching eyes, to progressively more stressful swatting) and his micro-expressions (eyebrows twitching, lip quivering). 

The cinematography and editing in this short film is done well, using a variety of shots and constantly switching between them at stressful moments to make this interaction with a fly more monumental than it is. The close-ups of the fly are done to show how unnecessarily focused he is on the fly and make it a focal point. The film also cuts to the door of the bank to remind us of what is going on while he fights a fly. This is done in a tense way, with the slow dolly into the door and the diegetic sound of gunshots and screaming, yet it is comedic as we know that our lead is fighting with a fly and is much more focused on it than the job he was meant to be doing.

The sound in this film plays an important part as there is no dialogue, and the short film uses sound to tell us what is happening behind the closed doors of the bank, rather than show us. There is almost no soundtrack or non-diegetic sound, only having a soundtrack play with the opening title. This is done to have the focus purely on the main character and the fly, as that is all he is focused on. We hear the fly buzzing, which irritates the audience as well as just the character, which allows them to justify his reaction to it.

I think this film is very well done, and is able to tell a story without much dialogue and with only one location.