Comparing 9 the Short Film and 9 the Full-Length film

 Regarding the short film:  

The short film is about 7 minutes long. While characters and certain relationships were established, there wasn’t much time dedicated to them or their individual personalities. However, the audience still gets a sense of who these characters are and what they do in their world. From the near beginning of the film, it’s established that these characters are prey, but that they’re also inventive and creative. The plot is also established very quickly. The protagonists(doll-like beings) are clearly the prey or underdogs in this world, just trying to survive, but one makes an attempt to defeat the antagonist: a mechanical wild feline creature, with the ability to take the souls of the protagonists.  

The plot has an extremely clear beginning, middle, and end. Most apocalyptic stories have some sort of backstory to explain how the world got to be the way it was. However, this film has a limited amount of time, so it makes sense to cut details like that out.  

In terms of character development, there seems to be little to none. The plan to defeat the antagonistic creature looks to be preplanned, which makes any sort of development of this plan and the character’s bravery beyond the scope of this short film.  

Conventions of shorter films often a variety camera angles and movements, mis-en-scene, sound and editing, but with limited storytelling abilities, just because the plot needs to fit into a smaller amount of time. This is shown mostly through the lack of relationship development between the characters, with a lot of seemingly pre-established relationships being implied.  

Full-Length Film:  

The full-length film is around 1 hour and 20 minutes long. The first thing I want to talk about is the backstory. This film has a wonderfully written backstory(in my opinion), that explains the apocalyptic setting that the characters are in. It also explains why these characters(the doll-like being mentioned) exist in the first place. It’s also revealed towards the end of the film(when one of the protagonists discovers it), which allows the viewer to be more immersed in the world of this film.  

Character personalities and relationships are also more established. There are scenes in which characters just interact with each other, and their personalities and relationships are revealed through those. The full-length film is also very immersive, with a more robust soundtrack and creative editing to push the appropriate emotions onto the audience. For example, when characters have their souls taken, some characters want to help save them when they are in the creature’s clutches, but others say it’s too late and to just run. These sorts of interactions always help mold a character.  

The setting of this world is also explored a lot in the full-length film. In one scene, the characters enter a library and find relics of human civilization. This allows the audience to infer the origins of this current setting and foreshadows the moment in which one protagonist finds out what truly happened.  

Comparison:  

In regards to character development and overall immersion in the setting of the film, the full-length version of “9” accomplished this better. It was enjoyable to see the characters speak with each other more and see their true personalities shine. The full-length version had the characters explore their world, and in those scenes the audience can infer that the setting is post-apocalyptic time on Earth. Those sorts of scenes can make a film enjoyable and it seems to be best to try and include those aspects in our own film.  

This is not to paint the short film as entirely horrible. First off, it’s likely that it was an idea that the director had, which was made into a short film, just to explore the world that was created. The full-length film likely had more thought put into it and was clearly based on the original short film, just with an expanded story and more vivid characters. Secondly, the short film does a great job at establishing where the characters are and how they interact with themselves and the world around them, especially for such a short time frame. A straightforward story would be best to implement into our film and we hope we can accomplish as much as “9” did.