Tight Jeans (2008) Analysis

Tight Jeans, directed by Destiny Ekharaga, is a quirky short film about three young guys sitting on a wall waiting for their friend outside a block of flats. They go into a funny conversation about how a man who walks past is wearing such tight jeans, and the story continues with their conversation from there. For this short film I wanted to focus on the Mise-en-scene as the main focus on the plot originates from what a passing character is wearing. It's obvious clothes and how clothes relate to identity is the idea behind the film, and this is shown through many shots of clothes and what people are wearing. In the opening shots we see a market where we see many clothes hung up and being sold. We are even given an indication to what is going to happen with a shot of "MENS TROUSERS" being advertised in the marketplace, as later on the three main characters have a conversation about men's jeans.

There is an interesting choice of clothes made that the three main characters wear. They're wearing all wearing brightly coloured jumpers, which makes them stand out against the dull brown of the buildings. This could be to highlight them as the three main characters and could also be to give an idea of their loud characters, as they stand out with their personalities too. The colours they wear could also be a symbol their character type: the character in blue (Theo) is the more calming character of the group that tries to keep the peace and the guy in red (Joseph) is the louder one who gets more angry than the others at having to wait so long for their friend, suggesting he's impatient. The colour use could also be a representation the opposing reactions to what the character in the middle (Marcus) is saying, as red and blue usually thought of as opposites. Joseph is going along with what Marcus is saying slightly more whereas Theo is opposing and telling him his ideas are ridiculous.