Jerrycan from Bridle Path Films on Vimeo.

Jerrycan (Julius Avery, 2008) is an Australian short film about five bored kids who decide to blow something up. Adam Arkapaw’s cinematography captures the bleak, dull world the boys occupy, which is heightened by the raw, grunge like quality gained from the 16mm film. Avery pursues a guerilla approach to his film making, preferring to shoot on location and utilise existing light sources. He also chooses to cast non-professional actors (the local kids in fact) and have them wear their own wardrobe as costumes. These artistic decisions attribute to the short film’s realism. Notably, the film won the Jury Prize at the 61st International Cannes Film Festival in the same year of its release.

In this night scene (00:00-00:40) two young boys throw rocks at a street lamp. This along with a smaller lamp close by, provides the only light source and consequently are practical. The light the boys try to break omits a warm glow however once it is smashed it becomes apparent the second lamp is a different temperature, green like a fluorescent. The practical street lamp is responsible for the key light and mostly provides a rim due to the staging of the boys. The cause and effect relationship between the scene’s action and the practical light is interesting, since the boys are trying to break the only light that literally illuminates them as actors. The effect exemplifies the looming consequence of their action.

As there is only a single key light source whilst at night, the objects or characters cast long shadows. In fact, it is the shadows and surrounding darkness that provide opportunity for the boys to conceal their incriminating behaviour. Although there are faint lights in the distance they do not supply light in the scene, rather suggest context for the setting.

Another element is the shallow depth of field from a wide aperture that results in the movement of the boys and their identity falling in and out of focus. Although the wide aperture would have been in response to shooting at night, Arkapaw makes the resulting shallow DOF work for the narrative and the changing focus adds to the ambiguity of the scene.

The intercut single wide shot of the old man walking his dogs is not lit from the same source as the boys, however based on our understanding of the director’s filmmaking approach, I can assume the man is still at the same location but composed near a brighter light source. It is important we can identify the man and his preoccupation so that he remains independent from the boys. This shot may also imply that the small town they all live in tolerates a lot.

Interestingly, the scenes that follow are all in daylight and include a group of boys misbehaving (very seriously) in broad daylight. Through this contrast, the opening night scene establishes the small world the boys are limited to, literally and figuratively.