Cargo

This is a short film that won the Tropfest in Australia in 2013, which is an Australian film competition said to be the largest in the world. The movie lasted a total of 7 minutes and 3 seconds. It was directed by Ben Howling and Yolande Ramke. It was produced by Ben Howling, Yolande Ramke, Daniel Foeldes and Marcus Newman. Ben Howling has been known to co-direct with other directors. He rarely directs alone. All of his most famous films also happen to be short films and all happen to be 7 minutes. This means he is very experienced in packing narratives into very short bursts. Which is exactly what he did with this. The shots weren't particularly beautiful, neither was the light, or the mise-en-scene. For example the lack of people made it very clear that this was an apocalyptic world. Opening with a zombie was also very nicely done considering it set the tone and the world immediately, giving us all the info we need about the world. Considering it was a short film festival, that means there wasn't much time to tell a full story. They expertly used the already established zombie movie stereotypes to their advantage by cutting out time explaining things. For example the bite mark on his arm and the focus around it. Anybody who knows the whole zombie genre knows it's usually transferred through a bite. This shows our protagonist is on borrowed time. So while the mise-en-scene wasn't particularly flashy, it meant that the things that were focused on, stuck out exponentially and created a lot of meaning.