Evaluation - Question 1

Q1
In what ways does your media product USE, DEVELOP or CHALLENGE forms and conventions of real media products?

Our opening sequence is based around the fantasy genre and contains several hints throughout the opening sequence in order to convey this. It contains the typical elements of a typical fantasy film. ‘Little Blue’ is surrounded by the genre of fantasy and all its codes and conventions. The aspects of the fantasy genre includes the idea of it being a ‘fairytale’, a story, magic, moral in the story, unique imaginative characters and a lot of creativity within the film as a whole is to be expected from this genre.

Our opening sequence contains the following that most fantasy opening sequences would contain:

- a hint of narrative
- key character
hint of sister relationship- themes of family
- Music to set the mood, relates to genre.
- References to character through title of film
- Production title called ‘tale’ a hint for the genre and its aspects in the film (of being like a ‘fairytale’

Our opening sequence consist of many key themes that run through the story of ‘Little Blue’, including, jealousy, family, magic, fairytale, sibling rivalry, moral, love, hate, happy ending.


Similarly to the opening sequence of ‘labyrinth’ my opening sequence has a floating and smooth feel to it, as it pans through the room and its objects within in a slow steady pace, portraying a uplifting magical feel or atmosphere to it. Using close ups and mid shots to frame the most important elements of the film, to specify its audience and who the film is based around, which by the close ups of teddy’s and fairytale books suggests the character as a young girl.


Similarly to night at the museum, in its opening sequence a lot of artificial glows were added into some shots to give a magical effect. This gave me and my group members an idea to include a similar effect helping it to relate to the genre of the film and pass more hints of the ‘magic’ to come. We developed the idea of a glowing effect by using natural lighting coming into the room from the window; we also used artificial lighting through flower lights which is seen on the bed frames, the colours are pink/redish suggesting the theme of love and danger. A lamp placed beside the frame, shadows light directly onto the frame to highlight its importance and makes audience focus on the frame which is a key element to the narrative of the film. Also, Edward scissor hands begins with an effective opening sequence of a panning from a ceiling to a door, it then tracks through the door whilst it opens, similarly we arrange our shots of our opening sequence in the same order to achieve the effect to invite the audience to the film and to discover something.


In Cinderella’s opening sequence the first main character introduced is the Cinderella herself, then her father and then soon after we are introduced to the evil step sisters and step mother, similarly in Labyrinth we see the main character first, then the family (step mother, father, baby), soon after the villain. This order of showing the hero first then the villain is quite common and so my group decided to adapt this order in our opening sequence. However, my opening sequence differs slightly, instead of instantly introducing our actual character on screen, we explore and discover the world of our main character first, and its only towards the end of the opening sequence we only see a fraction of the characters body reach into the frame and come straight out, the next shot is 3 quarters of a frame where the Little Blue’s parents stand at each side, here we are introduced to the family, the next shot shows the last quarter of the frame where another character appears, here, we are introduced to the villain although it is not entirely clear this character is the villain but is only suggested through the dark lighting that confines her and her costume and facial expression.


Our character were based on and made of from the inspiration of Cinderella. Little blue as the antagonist and her step sister is the protagonist similarly to Cinderella and her evil step sisters. The fairy god mother is the one who comes as the solution the magical character that appears in the story of Cinderella; similarly, we continued the theme of folklore and used a ‘witch’. our character was also made in relation to the classic fairytale, ‘little red riding hood’, who is a character known for her red hooded cape and is associated with the colour red, similarly, we associate our colour with Blue, she is called Little Blue, Little suggests the age of the girl as young and small, the colour blue is linked to her actual character and her world, not being perfect she feels incomplete and blue, sad.

We developed the idea of using folklore by using a witch as a good person that becomes a positive element to the story, originally the witches are the bad elements in folklore and usually do ‘wicked’ things and create problems not end problems like our character does. This can also be viewed as challenging the genre too; it develops the idea of the use of folklore but challenges the character of it too. This is similar to how Harry Potter uses good and bad wizards and witches. However, we only hinted that folklore is in the narrative but it is not obvious what type of folklore is going to come, this is purposely done to keep audience guessing and in interest of the film.

We also challenged other opening sequences by introducing only the world of the main character but not the other characters, other characters were made not as significant as the main character. Therefore other characters were shown through a photo, and were also represented as fairytale characters from fairytale children story’s shown in the sequence.


The narrative is directly linked to a typical fairytale; it has an antagonist, a protagonist and a type of folklore, a witch. Our narrative has a magical element to it, shown at the very beginning when the door opens by itself. It pans through the bedroom, crossing a bundle of fairytale books, when panning through the table it crosses a paper with drawings on it, layered with objects of colouring pens, the drawing has scribbles of colours, a rainbow of colours was drawn, as it continues through a close up of a book opened out onto the table, it pans through a close up of the villain, the godmother, and Cinderella. The basic narrative of a fairytale is shown and this reflects upon the narrative of our story also. The colours in the drawing and pens links to the coloured sweets given by the witch as the magical solution to Little Blue’s problems. however, though it shows the antagonist, protagonist and folklore character in the Cinderella book, we have developed the idea of the characters by showing it in a more modern view, through family characters and through unusual folklore (witch) being a good folk character not the typical baddy.

There is no dialogue but just non diegetic Music; this is because we found it unnecessary as through Mise en scene the world of our character and the hints of narrative are visually more effective, especially to our audience. The sound creates the mood; it indicates the magical touch through the twinkling and fairytale like music. However, as we pan into transitions of cross dissolves into close ups of the shots, the music deepens and changes tone and pace as it explores the world of little blue, this helps to show her world in different angles and highlights key parts where narrative is hinted. It becomes slightly suspicious the music as it frames onto the photo frame, making the audience question who is in this frame and what is it telling us, it leaves them to wonder. It ends in the suspicious music leaving the audience not tense but leaves them feeling there is more to be seen, discovered, it leaves them feeling curious and wanting to watch on. The music has a hint of twinkling sounds at the beginning, making it sound magical. This follows the conventions as it uses magical sounds to relate to the genre and bring a magical atmosphere about. Night at the museum starts off with a sparkling kind of sound at the beginning like my film. The music develops by having different sides of it,

Costume hair make up, the little blue character appears near the end on the opening sequence, she is wearing a Blue coat, this helps indicate the character and tells the audience who this person is. The following shot is of the photo frame, in the photo is the character Little Blue, from her small height and skinny figure, it suggests her as ‘little’, and from her blue top she wears suggests she is the character, ‘little Blue’. The next shot following shows the other half of the frame, which is the other character in the film, she has rough hair, wears dark clothes with very little colour. However little colour shows her link to the magic coloured sweets that follow in the later in the film and this relates to its narrative. However she is mostly in dark colours, which creates the effect of her blending in the background, giving her less importance, and shows the ‘dark side’, and it also hints out her as being the antagonist in the story.


Body language & facial expressions is shown through Little blue, in the frame holds her hands together; this suggests her feelings inside of being lonely as she has no one to rely on, (hang on to). It reflects on her character, she is always by herself she has no friends too, she holds onto herself only. Although, her posture is upright, hands held together to the side, this reflects on the characters personality as sweet and cute, as she stands tilting her body in a cute innocent way, she seems harmless. Little blue smiles in a half heartedly way, she smiles with her mouth closed as if she is hiding something inside in terms of her feelings, it suggests she is not quite happy and fakes the smile. We understand the gap of happiness when the next shot shows the step sister with a blank facial expression, almost emotionless we cannot see any happiness visually, though this reflects her character and her personality as dark. The shot showing the frame has structured and well thought out composition, the main character is centered in the frame, besides her, her parents stand on each shoulder side, there heads are slightly cut off on the frame, this is purposely done to show they are not key characters in the frame making them less significant, the key character in this frame is blue and she is centered in the photo frame to show importance. She is at eye level in the photo frame so eyes will fall onto this subject first.



The setting and props are the most significant elements in the opening sequence that gives off an atmosphere, link to genre, narrative and film as a whole. The setting and props are the main elements that hint the narrative and help the audience to follow the world of Little Blue. The setting is inside a home, suggesting the theme of family. It goes into a bedroom, it dissolves and pans into the props in the room, children’s books, snow globes (symbolising another world, fantasy world), toys, colouring pens and paper scattered, a dress (indicates gender of character), mirror (relates to snow white, ‘mirror on the wall’, moving cat clock (moves by itself, seems magical), teddy bears and soft toys (typical child possessions), pink fairy printed duvet (fairy relates to the fantasy genre and the folklore in the narrative, indicates genre too), pink heart cushion (indicates genre through colour), Flower wired lights. And a photo picture frame, this is the main prop as it helps focus on the theme of family. The step sister is distanced with a gap between her and the rest of her family, this symbolises the family a incomplete, it also helps us to understand our characters and how they feel. The photo frame is big clue to the narrative however it is not a complete giveaway and keeps the audience curious and in suspense. The fact that a lot of our props had some relation to animals reflected on our character as quite a loving child. We realised in a lot of films like Cinderella, animals were featured a lot, mice, birds, dogs, cats and a horse etc. Similarly with labyrinth, animals like a dog, owl, and swan is seen. I’ve noticed that like little blue, Cinderella and Sarah are lonely characters; they live in their own world, and seem to confide to animal or woodland creatures, Sarah talks to her dog, Cinderella talks to the birds and mice. So like these characters Little Blue has many animal toys and animal figures all around her room to suggest her lonely character.