Alone Is Nothing

This short film was made as a companion piece to the film Better Together? and essentially the film is the same style and approach but, in my view, works better because more is achieved with the edit. The two characters talk about singlehood and we cut back and forward between them – not in a way where they disagree with one another or even have anything to do with one another, but just in a way that has a nice pace, tone and contrast. The woman discusses being single in a way that looks at it being strange in terms of some of the things she did, while the man discusses it in terms of how easy it is to forget that he is single and when thinking beyond this tends to speak in very practical ways.

The pacing of the edit is much better as we do not spend too long with either person and every second of both their time is well used, whether it is a facial reaction to a previous sentence or a piece of dialogue. It is nicely done and the comically reflective tone works, including the playout scenes under Elton John's Yellowbrick Road – although this is my only issue with the short, is that the music makes the dialogue a little harder to hear than it should have done. Both Chok and Gillott deliver to camera well, being convincing and quite charmingly nature – not sure if they were working off a script or at least a frame concept, but they seem natural and they are easy to listen to here.

The shorts may be very short but while Better Together? felt like it didn't really deliver what it was looking to do, Alone is Nothing really felt more consistent in content and tone, as well as having better dialogue and good choices of edit. Nicely done.