The Language of the Frame: Narrative and Communication in Short Films

By Birgül Tombul

Humanity has been trying to tell stories since the day it came into existence. From shapes drawn on cave walls to today's high-resolution short films, this narrative journey is called communication. Words, gestures, symbols, cameras, light, and even silence... All of these are tools. Because fundamentally, humans want to be understood.

Communication is one of humanity's most basic needs. Because humans are beings that can live together. Communication, which is the process of sharing our thoughts, emotions, expectations, and reactions with the outside world and with others, builds bridges not only between individuals but also between societies, cultures, and generations.

Today, communication has taken on a structure that is intertwined with technology and constantly evolving. This evolution process has also had profound effects on cinema, one of the most powerful branches of art.

So, is communication just talking or writing? No. At the point we've reached today, communication has become much more layered, much more visual, and much more universal. Especially when combined with the power of art, it can create an impact that transcends boundaries, languages, and even time. In this article, we will explore what communication is, how it has changed, the power of cinema in communication, and how short films have become a shining star in this equation.

What is Communication, Briefly?

Communication, in its simplest definition, is the process of transmitting a message from a sender to a receiver. This process can occur through verbal or non-verbal means. Speaking, writing, using body language, facial expressions, colors, and even silence are all among the ways of establishing communication. Effective communication is not just about conveying a message, but also ensuring that it is correctly understood. Because as long as the intended message doesn't reach the receiver, we cannot speak of communication.

Communication Methods

Communication, in its simplest definition, is the transfer of information, thoughts, and emotions between people. However, this transfer has never been limited to words alone. We have often expressed anger with our eyes, love with touch, and curiosity with silence.

Traditional communication methods are based on written and verbal expression. There's an expression: "I speak, they listen; they speak, I listen." However, over time, visual, digital, and artistic forms of communication have also been added to these. The main communication methods are:

• Verbal communication: Conversations, phone calls, face-to-face interactions.
• Written communication: Letters, books, social media posts, emails.
• Non-verbal communication: Gestures, facial expressions, body language, symbols.
• Visual communication: Photographs, graphics, posters, artworks.
• Digital communication: Social media, messaging apps, videos.

These have been divided into different channels. Today, these methods are intertwined. For example, an Instagram story can carry visual, written, and non-verbal communication elements.

Changing World, Digitalizing Languages

We are in an age where technology is rapidly advancing, where time is experienced almost in real-time. Digital platforms, instant messaging, AI-powered translations, and social media have profoundly affected our forms of communication.

• Now people can write novels in 280 characters,
• Express complex emotions with emojis,
• A 15-second video can trigger hours-long discussions.

Perhaps we can say the most important result of this transformation is this: The duration of communication has shortened, but its impact has grown. Because now people look not only at what you say, but also how you say it, what visuals you support it with, and what feeling it evokes.

Changing World and New Forms of Communication

Globalization, digitization, and mobile technologies have not only accelerated communication but also transformed it in form and content. Now messages are transmitted instantly, AI-powered applications eliminate language barriers, and people communicate not only with words but also with emojis, videos, and GIFs.

Another issue is that each platform in the digital environment now represents a communication audience and a different communication method. Each different platform that comes to mind and is installed on our phones creates a different meaning and communication language, and we also prefer a communication language suitable for this medium. While one requires being calmer and more polite, in another, your gentleness can be characterized as weakness, and you have to be tougher and more combative :)

This transformation is making its impact felt in every area, from human relationships to cultural narratives. In essence, it's also standardizing to some extent. The communication language of everyone who uses these digital materials becomes common, regardless of where they are in the world. This presents a two-sided interpretation. The first interpretation is that our communication method differences arising from cultural differences are disappearing, everyone is becoming similar; but another interpretation is that borders are no longer barriers. The possibility of communicating with people all over the world without communication problems, understanding and respecting different cultures, emerges.

Cinema's Universal Language: See and Feel

Cinema is one of the most powerful communication tools of the modern age. Because cinema thinks not with words, but with images. It tells stories with light. It makes you feel with music. It uses the camera like a language. That's why a film can make you cry, laugh, or think even if it speaks a language you don't know at all.

Cinema's communication power comes from three basic elements:

1. Visual narration: Camera angles, scene composition, colors.
2. Emotional transitions: Music, silence, acting.
3. Subtext: Messages, metaphors, and symbols underlying the dialogues.

In cinema, every scene is a sentence, every shot is a word. And sometimes a single look expresses more than pages of narration. An impact that a short film leaves on you may remain unforgettable even after years pass. Cinema uses spatial memory very effectively and can create great impacts on the viewer.

The Language of Communication in Cinema

Cinema's power comes from the deep communication it establishes with the audience. Cinema, with its visual and auditory elements, doesn't just tell a story; it also conveys emotions, values, ideologies, and cultural codes. Every scene, every frame is a message. What directors want to tell reaches the audience not only through dialogues but also through camera angles, lighting usage, music selection, and color palettes.

For example, stories told without words in the silent cinema period show that it's possible to establish effective communication with body language, facial expressions, and music. This is an indicator of how masterfully cinema uses the power of non-verbal communication methods. Today, the message we receive from a wordless short film can be stronger than the message that could be conveyed through a hours-long verbal feature film.

Short Films: The Art of Saying Much with Few Words

Short films are the purest but most intense form of cinema. These narratives, ranging from 1 to 40 minutes, aim to create a deep impact on the viewer within a limited time. This tests the director's communication skills. It causes them to think more creatively and produce creative works. Because the message must be conveyed to the audience within a few minutes.

• A short film can show what war is from a child's perspective.
• It can hold up a mirror to a society's loneliness by describing the emptiness of a house.
• It can make us question human history with a simple object.

Short films are concerned with the essence of narrative. They don't beat around the bush. They say what they want to tell in a simple but striking way. In this respect, they perfectly adapt to today's fast but intense understanding of communication.

Short Films and Concentrated Communication

Short films are produced with the goal of conveying an intense emotion, idea, or message within a limited time. Therefore, short films are like artworks that carry the essence of communication. In this format where time is limited, the director resorts to symbols, metaphors, atmosphere creation, and emotional intensity to give the audience a powerful message.

A short film can make a social problem visible in a few minutes, make an individual conflict universal, or create deep meaning with a simple scene. This shows how effective a communication tool cinema is.

Some Communication-Themed Short Film Recommendations from Cineshort

A Way Out is a fantastic science fiction drama that you can only watch on Cineshort. Our protagonist Leo has to stay home due to the pandemic right after a relationship has just ended. Spending this period alone at home is quite a boring situation. He goes on a virtual journey with the VR glasses he bought and meets a woman there. This encounter causes Leo to question his real-life relationship and search for a way out. While watching the film, my own pandemic days came to mind. Each of us must have accumulated many interesting memories from the pandemic period. Returning to the film, it turned out to be a very interesting and beautiful film. I definitely liked the film very much and definitely recommend it to you.

A Fox and A Sun is an impressive animated short film that you can only watch on Cineshort. Our protagonist Fox warms up with the sun he makes himself when the sun sets or on days when there can't be sun. The presence and warmth of the sun is very good for Fox. One day the sun doesn't warm. Fox thinks it's sick and does everything he can to heal it. Just when he thinks all this is useless, the sun shows its smiling face again and their friendship begins. The short animation is full of quite beautiful psychological metaphors. It's also quite impressive. How beautifully expressed is everything in the world's need for the sun, our need for the sun to continue its existence, for environmental awareness to rise, the connection of everything in life with each other and mutual necessity. I liked the short animation very much and recommend it to all of you.

CALL 01321 is an interesting psychological experimental animation that you can only watch on Cineshort. The subject of our animated film is a call center established between Ilha Comprida and Rio de Janeiro and the psychology of reaching everywhere in this call center. The animated film has presented us with the most beautiful aspect of psychological experimental films in a wonderful style. By leaving room for interpretation to the viewer, it has masterfully included them in the subject. A call center is a solution center for all kinds of emergencies within the area of responsibility. Although we call with different numbers in each country, the operation is the same everywhere: Finding solutions to problems. The issue specifically mentioned here is, I think, that each individual who is part of a whole carries the same feeling and the call center creates a situation as if it were a single person. Another issue is the high level of wear in such intense stressful professions. Being faced with an urgent and traumatic crisis at any moment is extremely wearing psychologically. Understanding this is very important. I think we owe gratitude to all emergency call center workers. I definitely recommend the animated film to everyone.

700K is a thriller drama that you can only watch on Cineshort. Our protagonist Leo becomes a target after the loss of his girlfriend Victoria, who was an influencer with 700,000 followers. Victoria's followers wonder about her, blame Leo. According to them, Leo is responsible for this situation. Everyone shares the footage they have, makes shares like a reporter. They establish a kind of social media court and convict Leo. The young man is now a person everyone hates. Posts on social media can be really quite manipulative and merciless. As if we're more crime hunters than the police, more fair judges than judges, more reporters than journalists. Everyone puts forward an opinion on every subject and this is treated as information. We approach it as if it were really true. In this sense, we all have to be very good social media literate today. A word that someone throws around in their mood at that moment can darken someone's life or cause lynching. The worst part is being able to easily get away with this situation. The excuse "I didn't mean to say that actually" immediately saves these people from responsibility. Returning to the film, I really, really liked the film and found it successful. It touched on a very important problem. I definitely recommend everyone to watch it.

O156 is an experimental short film that you can only watch on Cineshort. With a very interesting and impressive narrative style, it touches on relationship problems that we perhaps experience most frequently in our lives, shows the problem, and offers solution paths. After all, a common ground must be found in bilateral relationships. Whether we're friends, spouses, or lovers, it doesn't matter, every kind of relationship should create an empathy, a common ground. We see this in our film. They're constantly in a push-pull state, conversations are at a cacophonic level. Nobody listens to anyone to understand. This is a problem, and our director has approached this problem with several solution suggestions. He tried to create a way of agreement with communication technique recommendations called Spectrum Game, Collective Monolog, Hide and Seek, and Mirror Game. Also, at the end of the film, how to apply these techniques is explained. I liked the film. Not just liked it, I found it quite useful too.

Flocky is a wonderful animated film that you can only watch on Cineshort. I must definitely say, it's one of the best animations I've watched in a long time. It contains quite emotional elements. A mother, whether her baby is born alive or dead, always carries within her that special state that motherhood has given. We have a mother who learns that she will have a baby and a very special bond forms between her and her baby. Spending time with him is a wonderful feeling. They're having quite a lot of fun actually. Then she realizes that she has lost her baby. That emotional break is very beautifully conveyed in the animation. Another important and beautiful point is that we watch all this film accompanied by a wonderful winter landscape. I recommend this wonderful animated film to anyone who wants to watch a beautiful animation accompanied by a train journey.

At the Other End of the Table is a beautiful animated film that you will watch with interest. Our protagonists are in a serious communication problem. Both want to say something but have serious problems understanding what each other is saying. Independent of the protagonists of the event, communication problems that each of us frequently encounters in our lives are processed in a very good style in the film. Sometimes not being able to understand each other even though we're mutual, and sometimes technological devices not giving the desired result as a communication tool creates communication problems. I definitely recommend the film to everyone. With the hope of being able to understand each other in the best way, enjoy watching.

In Conclusion

Communication is a phenomenon as old as human history but always renewing itself. In today's fast and visually-based world, cinema and especially short films have become one of the most creative narrative tools of this communication age. For every artist who wants not just to inform but to evoke emotion, make people think, and move them to action, short film is not just a language, but a form of expression, even a world.

Communication is not just talking, it's connecting. It's trying to understand each other. And sometimes the deepest connections are made without using words. That's why cinema, especially the short film genre, is one of the most powerful forms of communication. Because cinema tells the audience not only what happened but also how it made them feel.

In the changing world, words are getting shorter, messages are speeding up, but the search for meaning is deepening. People now want to talk less but feel more. In this age, a short film, a look, a metaphor... can be a voice to the whole world.

When you watch a short film, pay attention not only to the events but also to how the narrative is constructed, how something is said, and most importantly, how it makes you feel. Because real communication is often beyond words.

And perhaps the most beautiful thing is this: Even silence can speak now. As long as we find the right language of communication. Short films are also the most beautiful and artistic guide for us in finding this meaning. Thank goodness we have short films in our lives.