Short Film Analysis 2 - 'Skipped'

‘Skipped’

This Sci-Fi Comedy short film was written, directed and edited by a man called Faisal Hashmi. The initial plot to this short film, according to the description of the video on YouTube, is about a man working at an office late at night, the lighting made me think this as it looked very dark outside and the evidence for this is at the very beginning , and stumbles on a time-travel power that can boost his productivity. This would happen whenever the man sneezed. 

However, he abused his power which made him sneeze too far into the future, we can see this at 2:53 to 3:08 as the man has all of a sudden turned into an old man as the camera pans onto the mans hands as they have gone wrinkly and then it shows, in a medium shot, the mans hair has turned from brown to grey and his face has gone wrinkly too. From 3:04 to 3:08, the man looks at a very futuristic sign which no audience member could even read what it said, but we all assume it is the emergency green exit sign which connotes safety, as we are all used to seeing in nearly every public place. However, because we can’t read what the sign actually says, the brain thinks it is a language that is developed in the future where the film ends up ending, making the future seem very alien-like.

A short film that is similar to ‘Skipped’ is a film called ‘The Black Hole’ which was written and directed by Phil Samson and Olly Williams. This film is about a man who is fed up with his job and waiting by a printer when a piece of paper with a black hole on it comes out of the printer. The man then finds out that the piece of paper has some supernatural powers, in the film he put the piece of paper by a vending machine window reach his arm through the black hole on the paper and get a chocolate bar from the machine without paying. 

Then he tries it on a safe full of pound or dollar notes, depending where the office is, and climbs through the hole on the paper into the small square safe. This then results into the paper falling onto the floor, trapping the man in the safe. The reason why I stated that ‘The Black Hole’ was similar to ‘Skipped’ was because both of the main protagonists in both of these films interestingly have two main things in common, they both felt the same power and greed when they figured out they had this supernatural object or power. 

They both felt the need to abuse their power by using it for selfish reasons for the day to go quicker or to be better than it was. As to which, lead to both of their demises as the man in ‘The Black Hole’ got trapped in the safe and the man in ‘Skipped’ sneezed too much and we just see his skeletal body on the floor. We can tell that the man sneezed too much because he ends up getting a nose bleed, which we all know can be triggered by sneezing. 

I also found this short film quite relatable as everyone that has an office job or have a job that requires sitting at a desk for a long period of time with ginormous amounts of paperwork to fill out or work to do would love to have this power to speed up their day. However, the only problem with this power is that there is no way of going back or reversing time so that they’re is no way to stop. I also thought that because there wasn’t as many actors in it, I felt I could easily focus on the main character instead of worrying what characters were coming in where which I thought was a very nice feeling. 

What I also find interesting about the storyline, was that it made me think about what might happen next. Will an alien find the skeleton on the floor or will it be there forever? It also made me think if the man would resurrect and come back to life. I know when people think that when they see a skeleton then the person won’t come back but I wondered what would happen to the skeleton if the story were to continue on from the end of the film.