Evaluation - Question 2

Q2
How does your opening sequence represent particular social groups?

Our opening sequence represents particular social groups through its characters, the music, and the way it’s edited and through Mise en scene.

The key character in my film is Little Blue, seen in the photo frame.

She reads a lot of fiction stories and fairytales which represents her character as imaginative but also dreamy and reflects on her world and her life as wanting it to be something that it is not. She wants a real family, but does not feel her family is complete as her sister rebels against the sisterly relationship Little Blue tries to pursue. She wants an older sister to play with her, talk to her, be nice to her, and comfort her, the usual sisterly things. Instead there is no sisterhood there, Little Blue instead confides to her fictional characters and toys and animal objects, this is shown through the excess amount of animal objects such as animal soft toys and teddy bear on the bed, the turtle ornament and dog toy on the window ledge, the cat clock, dolphin snow globe, the frog ornament, the hello kitty bag, hello kitty soft toy etc. It is her alternative to her sister, she cannot play with her sister so she plays with these toys and objects and reads books to enter her fantasy world. Her character is represented as a young shy girl, there is no dialogue therefore reflecting on her as a quiet character, her mouth is smiling shut in the photo showing she is not outspoken. This is very similar to Sarah in the Labyrinth; she talks to her pet dog and uses the dog as her companion. She also has animal toys etc.

Another social group represented is the parents. The parents seem fully content with things, the happy facial expressions suggest an absolute absence of there awareness of anything wrong or unhappy with them and there family, they play happy family. They are also represented as the figures that are oblivious to the realism of the situation of there children. The parents smile openly showing they are open with there emotions whereas the children smile shut, not giving away the emotions to the whole family, this also represents a family social group, and the gaps between ages of the adult and child in most family’s are parted at a lengthy distance. Again this is similar to Sarah and her family in the labyrinth, there is a gap between Sarah and her father and step mother, there are things not understood between the two age groups.

There were few issues when it came to cast. Firstly we needed our main character Little Blue; we needed to look for a short, small, skinny young girl, so we had to look for a someone to match the specific physical look. We already had this cast member in mind previously so it was not much of an issue. We just had to make sure this cast would come off looking like an 8 year old. We achieved this look by costume and hair, and no make up. When it came to the photo the parents where the real parents of Jess (Little Blue), this made it more realistic and therefore more believable.