Out of all the videos we watched in class, this one is by far my favourite. Amati takes an innocent child and manages to portray, how timid she feels by showing everything big around her in a taunting and almost menacing way. The beginning or establishing shot shows the business of what we would assume is a diving team or school in practise. As the young girl walks to the edge of the highest diving board the shot changes to a shot from under water, we can vaguely see the young girl through the ripples of the water, all the sound is muffled away, this is almost a point of view shot but in reverse, it is meant to show how menacing the water appears to the girl from the top of the diving board, the muffled sound exaggerates this by making it appear as though everything is far away as though its not important. We are then shown the girl from the top of the diving board, and it is here that we get a true idea of how high up she really is. This shot is done at a slightly tilted angle, just enough to be looking down on the pool. Now we see a P.O.V shot from the girl’s actual perspective, we know this because her toes are slightly in shot; this again is used to exaggerate how afraid she is about jumping or diving such a distance. We are then shown a cut away of a much older boy on a lower diving board. This shot could have been done for a number of reasons such as: she wishes she could be on a lower diving board, to show that she is surrounded by people who are unafraid, or she wishes that she too was unafraid. So far in the film this girl is the youngest person to have been seen, this almost exaggerates her loneliness in this environment, and she has no one to turn to for comfort or reassurance. As the cutaways continue the cuts become faster and the shots become more shaky (as though hand held) as though her fear and her heart beat have increased, a ticking can be heard to emphasise the faster cuts. When the girl turns and climbs down the ladder, the shots become closer and remain at her eye level. This is done to emphasise how isolated she is from everything else around her, even when she is subject to mocking from two boys, their faces are not focussed upon clearly showing that they are unimportant to the feel of the piece. It should also be noted that there is no accompanying music up to this point. However all the sounds are loud and over exaggerated, maybe to make them a bit more intimidating and also to express the amount of activity going on around the girl. When she moves into the changing room and sits on the bench, the shots become even close to her until they are extreme close ups, and a shallow depth of field is added further adding to her feeling of loneliness and isolation against the world around her, which in comparison is much bigger than she is. The film up to now plays on the eye level, by showing her at her own level and not focussing on much above her head Amati creates a clever metaphor, showing not only the fear of a child in a diving school, but how intimidating the world might seem to a small child. In the changing room scene a baby can be heard crying, the sound of the crying gets louder and louder. This is a very useful technique to show the girls innermost feelings, she feels alone and scared and the best way for her to express it is to cry, however the expressions we are shown on camera shows that she feels she mustn’t cry if she is to be accepted by the larger world. She appears as though she is ashamed of her cowardice upon the diving board. The audience is made to sympathise for the girl as she struggles with her fear. As adults we find it hard to see the affect we have on smaller children, the film almost makes us feel guilty. Throughout the film we see the girl hold her breath and all sound stops. This is almost as though she is escaping into her own world for the few moments she can hold her breath, which brings into mind the title ‘i do air’ its almost as though its from the mind of the girl “i do air” meaning why do i do air? Why can i not live without it and live in my own world without fear?
The blurb of the film states “beautifully shot and mainly dialogue-free short film about a nervous and isolated young girl feeling disconnected at the local lido. There is not a lot of story but there is a fair amount of underwater shooting as the girl struggles to connect with those on dry land before finally finding unlikely friends who also 'do air' .”
Which I would agree with 100% the unusual scene where the girl appears to be floating in the changing room as though underwater, brings us into her dream world for a brief moment, as though it was not the water she was afraid of, merely the height. However when she finally has to release her breath she seems disappointed as all the sound of laughter from everyone older comes rushing back. The girl then happens to meet what are known as free divers, people who can hold their breath underwater for longer than the average human anything from 5 – 15 minutes, by training their lungs to hold more air than usual (as a side note, this technique has been practised for thousands of years, it has been noted that a Greek city many hundreds of years ago, under attack from the sea, sent free divers out underwater to sabotage the ships of the invading fleet from beneath the water line)
At this point a slow dream like melody can be heard, which signifies the start of her revelation. As she slides into the water, the tempo speeds up and the shots begin to move more freely around her, this also signifies that she has begun to feel less isolated and the world seems to shrink.
Amati does an excellent job of showing the transition between isolation and fear to bliss and dreams.
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