Telling lies

Released: 2001
Director: Simon Ellis

Telling Lies is a 4-minute film directed by Simon Ellis. It is about a man waking up and having a series of phone calls. As he talks his words are displayed, centre screen, in a subtitle style. The subtitles narrate what he is thinking and so the discrepancies between what he says and what he’s thinks can be seen on screen. His lies are therefore being displayed for the audience to see.
The film centres on the theme of lies and goes about this through its portrayal of a conversation on the phone with the lies exposed for the audience. The film is mostly humorous and slightly thought provoking because of its rooting in a real everyday event that the audience can associate with.
Background remains blank throughout, however the emotions of the characters are portrayed through voice acting and the constantly changing colour and style of the typography. The black backdrop behind the text serves to keep the audience fixed on the conversation of the characters, it is for this same reason there is also no soundtrack. The pace of the film is set high with one event following directly after the previous. This keeps the attention of the audience on the plot rather then letting it wander.
Telling lies is not the cleverest constructed short film, but nether does it set out to be. Its simplicity means it is appealing to a large audience range. The combination of speech and visual text however leaves little room for interpretation; there are two set threads of narrative, voice, text and no more. The plot despite being simple doesn't really matter. The true value lies between the use of words and speech. The films Fast, quick pace serves to cover over the fact that the film has many weaknesses. The animation is pretty basic and the words move so fast at times that it can be hard to track them. Overall Telling lies is a basic and slightly unoriginal short, at the same time it successfully entertains and that is enough.