1. Jian
Ellis is one of the most successful songwriter/producers/musical directors in the UK. Simon
graduated from Nottingham Trent University in 1995, specialising in Fine Art Photography.
On the begging of his career, his works are all short films but afterward he also joined the
music industry. He wasthe musical director for Britney Spears' record-breaking world tour,
“Circus”, her "Femme Fatale" 2011-world tour and Westlife’s "Gravity" 2011 world tour.
Most of his short films are about real life, which give a message to the audiences about
different types of society also to tell you by doing those things how you would affects others
people’s life.
Soft is a drama film, one of his most popular short film, that short film is about a teenage boy
got bullied by a gang and the victim’s father is coward, the father thinks by doing nothing the
problem will be solve but the son proved that you need to do something to solve problems.
The filmis based on a local living area where there are two kinds of social people, one of
them is a medium class and the other is a low class. The medium class is the protagonist’s
family; they wear clear cloth, organised house, the father seems to work in anofficebecause
he wears a suit with a suitcase and they have a good car.
The low class is the villain (the gang), they have bad education, the way they speak is very
rude and they use slangs, one of them suspended from school at age 15, they have nothing
to do apart from messing around on the street, which lead them to a miserable life. Theylook
like chavs by the cloth they wear.
In my view of this film, I think it is very informative and open viewed. By open viewed, what I
mean is that the film is not only focusing on the characters and the story, what I could also
see apart from the characters is the society and the environment, which made me feel like
this is not just a film that it is something that actually happened in the real world.
I would rate this film 4/10 because the logic of this film is somehow stupid. I would rate it
10/10 if it was a fantasy or action because I think in that kind of situation,those nonviolence
fathers normally would call the police, I know that drama should be dramatic but they are
over doing it which I think is a bad thing for a realistic drama film as this one.
Well that was my opinion but I also got opinions from others audiences who watched this
video online:
simbafreak:
well to be fair, the father cant do much. a grown man beating up a 15 year old will not look
good in a court, no matter how troublesome the kid is/was. its still going to look bad and the
the kid can play the, 'i was only jokin' card' and the jury would eat that shit up. whilst if it was
the son, its just a fight, "innit"?
Rendezvous:
A powerful, dramatic short about a subject that all of us know in one form or another.
NakedCrusaders:
Great composition. The editing is perfect. It dictates the pace, not dictated by it. Great work.

2. Jian
Telling lies is also a very interesting work from SimonEllis. The story is about a couple broke
up for certain reasons. The style of this film is very interesting because it is not like any other
film with motion videos. This film is more like picture drama because it only has text and
voice over. To make a film like this, you need lots efforts and imagination to make the
audiences to understand the story. Some of the text doesn’t match the voice because that’s
when they lie, as you can see the faces of their expression they made the them speak fast
with low voice and the texts smaller so the audiences can imagine a picture that they are
telling lies.
I would rate this film 8/10 because it has creativity and good story
Here are comments of others audiences:
Jordan ChesneyPlus
I love this short. Great writing, great casting, great performances, and really well executed.
Great work as usual.
Hernan Canto
Very clever. I liked the idea, it was a bit too fast for me, but its really fun! I enjoyed it.
Sean Kobi Sandoval
wow what an extremely brilliant and creative concept!
I think the film Soft is for all kind of audiences but telling lies is mostly for people who know
English because the video is all texts and if you add subs to it will be like double subs and it
will be hard to read. You will need to keep pressing pause / play and that is an annoying way
of watching a film.
The budge of Soft (£50,000 estimated) is way much more than telling lies (£?)because to
film Soft you will need to hire equipment, location fees, cameraman, etc… in the other hand
telling lies, just need voice overs and editors.