Short Film Research: Unleaded (Thriller): Short Film

 The short film Unleaded begins with a black screen, typical from a thriller short. The audience is only given the sound of what is revealed to be a person filling up gas at a station. A woman is shown to be sitting in her car as she looks inside the gas station. She then is shown to be watching two people robbing the gas station inside, one pointing a gun at the cashier and the other holding him down. Another car pulls into the gas station and the women watches the car very closely. What is going on in the car is then revealed. There are two men in the front and a third in the back. The two look to the back and at the third guy as he objects to going inside the gas station. It is not known if they are aware of what is going on inside, but the man who was objecting in car ends up going in, putting on a gray hoodie, and walks right past the robbers. The robbers notice and one sneaks up from behind the guy in the grey hoodie and points a gun from the back of his head telling him to leave. From the robber's point of view, it looks like the man in grey is not leaving and not listening, but then it is revealed that the man has headphones on playing at high volume under the hood of his jacket. This made a very anxious feeling as a viewer, since we are given the whole story of what is going on, but the man in grey looks like he does not know he is being held at gunpoints from behind. The two guys then call the guy in the grey hoodie and as they have a conversation over the phone, the man in grey responds out loud, but the man behind him with a gun think that he is actually talking to him. The conversation conveniently matches up, for example, when the man in gray asks the boys over the phone "What the f*** do you want now?", the robber thinks he is talking to him and replies "I want you to leave." However, the boys on the other line answer the man in grey saying they need papers, and the man replies "You know what, no." The robber mistakes this as a response to him. This continues, for a while, and the scene also cuts for a second to the women watching from the car. She gets out and sees the boys calling the man, and walks into the gas station where the robber shoots at her. When the robbers leave, the man in gray watches the robbers leave and brings things up to the cashier to buy, he gives a smile at the cashier and the short ends. I really liked how the short gave the audience information that some of the characters do not know. I think this is important to create that feeling of anxiety in a thriller. Also, the short included humor, although dark, I liked how that was incorporated into a genre far from a comedy. Also, a trend I noticed was that thrillers seem to begin with a black screen with a background noise from the environment, not necessarily music. I liked how this kept the viewer from knowing what was going on for a couple of seconds.