Drama Research: I Do Air (Martine Amati 2010)

In one of our sessions with Debbie, we watched a number of short Drama pieces and one of them that I particularly enjoyed was Martine Amati's 'I Do Air' (2010). I liked how there was no dialogue throughout the piece but I was constantly attentive to the storyline throughout. There are a variety a shots, from wide shots to those filmed underwater. I found it very interesting how the sound effects were used to connote certain feelings in this film; such as anxiety and panic. For example when the protagonist, a little girl at the local swimming pool, is stood on the diving board looking down, she is filmed at a close up angle and the sounds have been amplified to connote a sense of panic. From this effect, we gather that the girl is too scared to jump off and therefore scared of heights; a common fear among many people.

At times, we are also shown scenes from her point of view on the board such as the synchronised swimmers as well as a little boy jumping off a smaller diving board. This angle signifies the height that she is stood at so that we can empathise with the little girl. A repetitive action that we see the girl does throughout the film is her breathing in and holding her breath. This signifies that she is aware of what is needed when jumping into water but she still can't get over the fear.

When she is in the changing room, there are many close up shots but the one that stuck out to me was the one of her feet stepping up and down in the water. This emphasises the fear that she has towards water as she is not calmly standing in it, but tapping it so that her feet keep moving out of it. More close ups are shown of her eyes, which often connote emotions such as fear as these are the features of a person that reveal the strongest emotions. We then see the little girl close her eyes and soft music begins to play as she is somehow floating in the air; signifying her imagining she is in the water.

After this scene, she comes back to reality and is seen next to the swimming pool watching divers calmly swimming up and down. Suddenly we see the girl run down the lanes and miraculously gets into the water, before emerging herself completely under. As she does this there are various different angles underwater as well as light-hearted music playing to signify happiness.

I enjoyed this drama short as it used sound effects to create the narrative, in combination with a variety of different shots such as point of view angles, underwater shots and point of view angles/