Essay Sample on Film Techniques: 'Dear Basketball' Short Film

Introduction

'Dear Basketball' is a 2017 six-minute American animated film that charts the late Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant's transformation from child protégé to a world-class NBA champion. The short film was written and narrated by Bryant, animated and directed by Glen Keane, produced by Gennie Rim, and music by John Williams. The short film is based on the farewell letter the former star had written in 2015 ahead of his final NBA season. The moving masterpiece was undoubtedly labeled inspiring, breathtaking, and heartfelt as it even won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film during the 90th Academy Awards. In the subsequent paragraphs, this document will provide an in-depth analysis of the film techniques applied in the short film scene by scene and later on analyze the theme of love moments in the film that highlighted an important idea. In conclusion, the document will wrap it up and reflect on the discussed scene-by-scene techniques in the film and the theme of love portrayed in the Animation.

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Classical 2D Animation

The short film used numerous ways to convey meaning. It used Animation to capture a more compelling and visual flow of the story and capture all the emotions in the news more than live-action would have achieved. One central film technique used by Dear Basketball in close to every scene is traditional Animation, also known as classical 2D Animation (Andersen, 2018). Keane drew by hand every frame in the film, and it was fascinating. The numerous drawings were created one by one on the frame and then fed into plastic cells, hand-painted, and then developed into the animated series on painted background images.

Sound and Voice Techniques

Sound techniques and sound effects gave a whole new experience of the basketball feel. The film starts with commentary, cheering spectators, bouncing a basketball, rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the hardwood with Bryant making the game's final score. The integrated sound feeling made the film feel authentic. Moreover, the sound effects created an ambient atmosphere and helped build cinematic tension by gradually layering sounds (Baldin, 2020).

Voice is one of the most substantial aspects of any film. Voice is such a fluid concept, sometimes hard to incorporate in a film (Fienberg, 2020). In Dear Basketball, immediately after the time countdown and animated Bryant makes the game's final score, comes the narrative voice. Throughout the rest of the film, Bryant's voice narrates the long journey from a mere six-year-old visionary boy with a deep ambition of becoming a world-class basketball champion. The film meticulously connected voice narration with visual aspects to keep the audience entranced. Additionally, the deep narrative voice helped establish the pacing of the film and plot structure. It efficiently provided information to the audience so that it was easy to understand the whole idea and story of the short film.

Music Technique

John Williams did incredible work in composing an emotional score that went hand in hand perfectly with the film's narration in creating a touching message of both love and loss. Thinking about it, conducting an orchestra is not an easy thing to do. There are lots of instruments and different sections that need to be coordinated to create a harmonious sound. However, Williams fine-tuned the music to match the film; the piece is elegiac, but is not weepy and can articulate its saluting manner of the legendary achievements with modesty (Andersen, 2018).

Film Editing

Film editing plays a critical role in assembling the necessary hand-drawn frames in a coherent sequence to tell the film story (Greig, 2020). In all the scenes, the frames were joined together through a calculated and arranged series to bring out the film's intended shots. Keane (the animator who piloted the film creation) first started by analyzing every inch of Bryant's playing style. Additionally, he interviewed the enigmatic player on the unique approach he uses in matches. The information assisted the animator in creating the best hand-drawn frames to cover the needed story. The film used numerous editing techniques such as Master the Montage, whereby quick cuts were perfect in showing the progression of the information in Bryant's career development without necessarily having to get into details of each progression stage.

Cut in on the Action played a significant role too in the film editing. For instance, at the beginning of the film, when young Bryant is so passionate about basketball that he rolls a tube sock into a ball and virtually practices making a score on the wall, he is so obsessed with the game that he would give it much affection. At that moment, Cut in on the Action takes place, and the angle of the action changes, and the camera is brought closer to the head to give much attention to the optimistic thoughts running through the mind of the young Bryant. The film editing trick is used when the intention is to bring the viewer closer to focusing on the Action on the screen (Andersen, 2018).

Important idea: Love Theme

Though the film covers two primary themes; the ongoing flow of time, and love, the latter supersedes the former as will be noted in the subsequent lines. "I fell in love with you," "A love so deep I gave you my all, from my mind and body to my spirit and soul, as a six-year-old boy deeply in love with you" among other lines in the film, is a clear picture that Bryant personally had a strong love feeling deeply attached to the sport. Bryant classically uses metaphors in bringing the point forth, such as "tube socks," "the tunnel," and "sweat and hurt." Through the narration and visual aids, Bryant builds on his life's grand love affair, allowing the audience to experience the ups and downs of the said romance (Greig, 2020).

Bryant expresses poetry oeuvre in the film. He wrote the poem in a time of personal strife, a moment when he was feeling sad that he was about to be detached after the NBA final Season from his personified friend, talent. All through the film, Bryant expresses love for basketball and emotion, narrating the whole journey from being a young, ambitious, and determined boy in love with basketball to emerging as a champion and star in the game. "But I can't love you obsessively for much longer… My heart can take the pounding." (Greig, 2020) The above statements reveal an obsessive love Bryant had for the game though it is unclear whether the love he has for basketball is required or not.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, repeated use of the word love by Bryant shows that he really and deeply loved basketball. Towards the film's end, there is a shift from talking about basketball to referring to both of them as "we." For instance, "I want you to know now that Bryant is retiring, so we can savor every moment we have left together" (Baldwin, 2020). In this way, Bryant tells all his fans and personified basketball of the arduous journey he has had to endure in his career. Bryant concludes narration in the film with a reference to the portrait he made in the first scene as a child marking an emotional end of the film. As witnessed in the above paragraphs, the study has analyzed different film techniques visible in Dear Basketball, such as Classical 2D Animation, Sound and voice strategies, Film editing, and Music techniques. Afterward, the study focused on analyzing the theme of love as the most evident and important idea highlighted throughout the six-minute animated film. Undoubtedly as witnessed above, the film was thrilling.

References

Andersen, N. (2018). Film techniques and philosophy. Film, Philosophy, and Reality, 157-177. doi:10.4324/9781315814889-8

Greig, F. (2020, July 10). Dear Basketball: how Kobe Bryant's heartfelt poem won the NBA legend an Oscar. inews.co.uk. https://inews.co.uk/sport/other/dear-basketball-kobe-bryant-oscar-won-poem-short-film-animated-best-nba-watch-390620.

Badlwin, E. (2020, July 13). Analysis of Dear Basketball by Kobe Bryant: A Love Poem to Basketball. https://poemanalysis.com/kobe-bryant/dear-basketball/.

Fienberg, S. (2020, August 3). Kobe Bryant Poem Short Film Oscar YouTube. Dear Basketball. https://dearbasketball.com/.