Short Term 12 - Analysis

Short term 12 is a social realism drama which allows  the audience to gain a perspective on what its like for some children/teenagers who have been neglected or abused, the film is set in side a residential treatment facility where we get to to learn about the different characters inside the facility and some of the extreme mental and physical abuse they have endured through out their childhoods. I think the structure of the film was linear as we see a short glimpse of what life like in the facility in chronological order. 

I thought the use of cinematography was very effective in making you feel like you were almost involved in their lives as shots taken from inside the rooms made you feel like you were actually there increasing the sympathy and emotion you felt for various characters throughout the film. Close ups were also often used in order to capture a clear facial expression of the character and convey the exact emotion they are feeling. For example we see a close up of Marcus as he raps about his mum and the shocking pain he had to endure because of her, in this scene the close up shows his eyes filling with tears as he continues to rap, this enhances the emotion and sympathy you feel for him as we can tell from his detailed facial expression just how severe his circumstances were. I think audio codes also helped during the film to give certain situations the severity they deserved, if the audio codes were not used in these situations it would not of been so suspenseful making it less effective on the audience. When we see Jayden run back into her room as she realises her Dad is not coming to pick her up she threatens to cut herself as she pushes on the door in order to keep staff members out, as they push back on the door in order to get to her the tempo of the music increases making us think something bad is going to happen as a build up of suspense is formed, when she eventually opens the door and they restrain her it switches back to her shouting as suspense is released as she does not harm herself, giving us a sense of relief. I think the shark and octopus story Jayden tells to Grace is one of the most hard hitting scenes in the film, I think this as Jayden is denoting the abuse she has had to endure in the form of a children's story, I thought her devastating childhood was told in the form of as kids story purposely in order to give a strong message to the audience, and ultimately show that many children do have to go through circumstances like her, leaving much of the audience reflecting on how lucky they are as there are children that go through these travesties in todays world. 

I personally really liked this film as the visual and audio codes helped to create a realistic drama delivering a strong message to the audience, showing us that many children from all sorts of different ethnic backgrounds (as displayed in the film) have to go through some extremely tough circumstances and reminded me how lucky I am to not have to endure the physical/mental pain some people do in reality represented by the various characters in the film.