Short Stories: ‘Soldiers’ and ‘Embrace’

For this assignment, I watched ‘Soliders’ and ‘Embrace,’ films that are no longer than 3 minutes 43 seconds long but tell a better story than most 30-minute long television shows.

Let’s start with ‘Soldiers.’ This film was very short (barely over two minutes long) and simple. A grand total of maybe 30 words was said in the film and Curtis used at max three different camera angles (that I can remember at this moment at least). Most of the camera focus seemed to be on the mother whenever she was on screen, including the over-the-shoulder shots behind Michael (the soldier). Little back story is given, which made it all the more impactful when you did realize what was going on.

The fact that the film was so short and simple made it all the more powerful, especially for me. My first job out of college was on a Marine base, so anything military-related usually hits home for me. Add in the fact that I recently lost a loved one and, not going to lie, I may or may not have shed a tear or two while watching ‘Soldiers.’

Next, I watched ‘Embrace,’ another film that doesn’t give much (or any really) back story, which again makes it all that much more powerful when the sirens begin going off and you realize what is going on. The camera shots are all great – the panning around the couple shot, the emotional close ups. The only things better than that were the audio and characters. Chad Bryant – the sound recordist for ‘Embrace’ – definitely earned his paycheck with a magnificent job catching the hard, frightened breathing of the characters, who to their own credit were very believable and acted just as you would expect any normal human being to do when placed in their situation. They were very relatable, which made the film all that much better.