Q4
Who would be the audience for your media product?
Primary Target Audience
Female audience more in common with the female gender then males.
Ages 8-12
Interests are school, drawing, reading fiction books, playing, and a animal of some kind, e.g. dolphins.
They like fairytales and make believe stories
But they are not too young; they would prefer more a modern touch to it.
I.e. they would be interested in the whole fiction aspect of the film but to make it more believable it is in modern settings all children of this age can relate or recognise i.e., school, and bedroom.
Open to the interest of people of all ethnics, as every ethnic had children of similar these ages, and majority of children share similar interests.
However, British and American audiences mostly, as they are very similar audiences.
And from my research, I have found a lot of fantasy movies are American and British and that American movies have had just as much impact as British movies and vice versa.
We chose these age groups for our target audience as we believe it would appeal to a younger audience, it wouldn’t appeal to a older audience as there is nothing much to relate to, it would be too simple. Whereas for our audience, they require something to keep them busy, something they can follow on easily, something that feeds them every aspect of the film they needs to know to understand it. The story contains one idea followed throughout, it does not branch into more problems and does not pack in too much, and this is so it won’t confuse our audience. However an older audience would require more, more events, trickier problems, unique story plot and much more expectations in a film.
However, before we made the decision of why we chose these age groups, we took some feedback off our colleagues.
From feedback of 9 people;
• too serious
• it not clear its for younger audience
• falls into drama, becomes too serious
• need to watch more fantasy movies, and show similarities between these films and your film, need to adapt key elements off these films.
Therefore from this feedback we re evaluated the whole of our film idea and all aspects within it that did not come off strong enough to ‘fit in’, with its audience or genre.
We realised we forgot sometimes who our audience was; therefore, from the feedback we made changes that became drastic a drastic improvement.
We realised our audience needs things to be slightly more slowly paced and not packed with too much. Therefore we changed the opening of our film, and we also made the equilibrium and new equilibrium shorter and simpler and easy to follow.
This changed a lot to how others perceived our film; it made the film seem more light hearted and less serious, helping the film narrow down to its actual target audience.
Films our audience would/might of watched;
Nativity
Night at the museum
Christmas carol
Planet 51
Alien vs. monsters
Ice age 3
Harry potter
Alice in wonderland
The thief of Bagdad 1940
Wizard of oz
King Kong
Jason and the Argonauts
Harry Potter film series / Harry Potter
The Lord of the Rings film trilogy / The Lord of the Rings
The Chronicles of Narnia film series / The Chronicles of Narnia
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Pan's Labyrinth
Big Fish
Corpse Bride
Pirates of the Caribbean films
The Science of Sleep
Nanny McPhee
Eragon / Eragon
Night Watch / Day Watch
Stardust
The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising / The Dark Is Rising Sequence
The Golden Compass
300
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
Shaolin Soccer
The Spiderwick Chronicles / The Spiderwick Chronicles
Spirited Away
Donnie Darko
Howl's Moving Castle
Twilight / The Twilight Series
New Moon / The Twilight Series
Inkheart / Inkworld trilogy
Coraline
Race to Witch Mountain
Underworld series
Friday, 1 January 2010
Evaluation - Question 3
Q3
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
After pre-production and the production process after comes post production. This is the part where the exhibitor decides how the film will be exhibited. Who will distribute the film and how will it get from the exhibitor to the audience and in what form, also how well is it distributed to determine the success of the film.
Distribution is the process of the film getting from the producer to the exhibitor to the customers. To gain loyalty with fans, get people excited and be the first to see it, to judge the film and keep them from a long wait, it is shown in cinemas before the actual film is on sale to the public to buy on DVD, video or watch on TV. Distributors have to consider when it is best to release the film, they have to be aware of all other films showing and how rated they are, depending on the demand to see the films, if it is high; it will cause tougher competition and a risk of loss of customers. Even if there are films that share similar values like story, genre or target the same audience then their will be trouble of competition. Again the generation of sales output is at risk and also the trouble of having to promote and market the film more to defeat competition would cost more money and for filmmakers like us, as we are students and are on low budgets, costly ways to market our film is not in our means. Therefore, we had to think about what is in our means.
Firstly, how would I promote our film?
Internet:
YouTube
Indie film maker websites
Create a website based on the film
Even Facebook would be a good way to promote the film, with no fees attached.
Statistics show that there are millions of users on Facebook each day, as a social media site, you can make ‘pages’ for your film, more then 700,000 local businesses have active pages, this means it could be used for our purpose too. As a social media site, with millions of users worldwide people are more then likely to hear about our film through Facebook, and could achieve status through word of mouth, judged, given opinions etc. they can become a FAN of your page or groups, there is even a London film festival group on Facebook open to the public to join. Also once you become a FAN, other people such as friends of the fan can see the page you have become a fan of, this helps to engage potential audience through existing audiences or group members helping it to build awareness. This makes it a good way to promote the film without cost just time and devotion.
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
One way to screen my film would be through film festivals like Raindance, Exposures, phoenix, Screentest etc.
Phoenix cinema holds regular events, festivals and one-off screenings which would be very useful to distribute our film, as it would gain and reach a big audience.
Exposures, is one of the largest film festival in UK. The National Student Film Festival helps promote student films and film-makers. Every year they host a three-day film festival with celebrity speakers, screenings, workshops and an awards ceremony. This would get people interested in the film or at least have and know about the film enough to spread the word of it. Being the largest film festivals shows it is quite a success therefore by screening the film for such an audience would determine the likeliness of the film spreading through word of mouth and gaining interest and potential fans.
Screentest is the UK’s only National Student Film Festival; Screentest provides the opportunity for students to meet other student filmmakers and learn more about the industry from professionals and in talks and workshops. Three-day film festival, the festival has an advantage of celebrity speakers, screenings, workshops and an awards ceremony.
There are many special distribution outlets for independent filmmakers
this link has a list of company’s.
http://www.planetindie.com/distribution/
here are the 3 main ones I picked.
Underground Film
“Digital Distribution Company whose goal is to utilize the internet's resources to bring film entertainment to international audiences. Their goal is distribute "everywhere the Internet goes: on computer monitors, television sets, cellular phones, projected on screens, and whatever the next new digital distribution opportunity might be." Resource for independent filmmakers to collaborate and show their works, and the public face of the Undergroundfilm digital library.”
http://www.undergroundfilm.org/
Indie Flix
“An online independent media distribution site which provides a forum for filmmakers and their audience to interact. Independent film DVDs are produced on demand and the filmmaker gets a substantial share of any profits. Free preview clips of most films.”
http://www.indieflix.com/
http://www.joinfilmbaby.com/
Helps promote your film. Makes a website for the film, allows film viewers of your product to comment on the film. Features your film trailer and for a small cost.
Although it has cost involved, it is very affordable for an independent filmmaker and it does a lot to promote your film and get it to the viewers.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
After pre-production and the production process after comes post production. This is the part where the exhibitor decides how the film will be exhibited. Who will distribute the film and how will it get from the exhibitor to the audience and in what form, also how well is it distributed to determine the success of the film.
Distribution is the process of the film getting from the producer to the exhibitor to the customers. To gain loyalty with fans, get people excited and be the first to see it, to judge the film and keep them from a long wait, it is shown in cinemas before the actual film is on sale to the public to buy on DVD, video or watch on TV. Distributors have to consider when it is best to release the film, they have to be aware of all other films showing and how rated they are, depending on the demand to see the films, if it is high; it will cause tougher competition and a risk of loss of customers. Even if there are films that share similar values like story, genre or target the same audience then their will be trouble of competition. Again the generation of sales output is at risk and also the trouble of having to promote and market the film more to defeat competition would cost more money and for filmmakers like us, as we are students and are on low budgets, costly ways to market our film is not in our means. Therefore, we had to think about what is in our means.
Firstly, how would I promote our film?
Internet:
YouTube
Indie film maker websites
Create a website based on the film
Even Facebook would be a good way to promote the film, with no fees attached.
Statistics show that there are millions of users on Facebook each day, as a social media site, you can make ‘pages’ for your film, more then 700,000 local businesses have active pages, this means it could be used for our purpose too. As a social media site, with millions of users worldwide people are more then likely to hear about our film through Facebook, and could achieve status through word of mouth, judged, given opinions etc. they can become a FAN of your page or groups, there is even a London film festival group on Facebook open to the public to join. Also once you become a FAN, other people such as friends of the fan can see the page you have become a fan of, this helps to engage potential audience through existing audiences or group members helping it to build awareness. This makes it a good way to promote the film without cost just time and devotion.
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
One way to screen my film would be through film festivals like Raindance, Exposures, phoenix, Screentest etc.
Phoenix cinema holds regular events, festivals and one-off screenings which would be very useful to distribute our film, as it would gain and reach a big audience.
Exposures, is one of the largest film festival in UK. The National Student Film Festival helps promote student films and film-makers. Every year they host a three-day film festival with celebrity speakers, screenings, workshops and an awards ceremony. This would get people interested in the film or at least have and know about the film enough to spread the word of it. Being the largest film festivals shows it is quite a success therefore by screening the film for such an audience would determine the likeliness of the film spreading through word of mouth and gaining interest and potential fans.
Screentest is the UK’s only National Student Film Festival; Screentest provides the opportunity for students to meet other student filmmakers and learn more about the industry from professionals and in talks and workshops. Three-day film festival, the festival has an advantage of celebrity speakers, screenings, workshops and an awards ceremony.
There are many special distribution outlets for independent filmmakers
this link has a list of company’s.
http://www.planetindie.com/distribution/
here are the 3 main ones I picked.
Underground Film
“Digital Distribution Company whose goal is to utilize the internet's resources to bring film entertainment to international audiences. Their goal is distribute "everywhere the Internet goes: on computer monitors, television sets, cellular phones, projected on screens, and whatever the next new digital distribution opportunity might be." Resource for independent filmmakers to collaborate and show their works, and the public face of the Undergroundfilm digital library.”
http://www.undergroundfilm.org/
Indie Flix
“An online independent media distribution site which provides a forum for filmmakers and their audience to interact. Independent film DVDs are produced on demand and the filmmaker gets a substantial share of any profits. Free preview clips of most films.”
http://www.indieflix.com/
http://www.joinfilmbaby.com/
Helps promote your film. Makes a website for the film, allows film viewers of your product to comment on the film. Features your film trailer and for a small cost.
Although it has cost involved, it is very affordable for an independent filmmaker and it does a lot to promote your film and get it to the viewers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Opening Sequence Script Remake
Int. Corridor. Day
Production title in Blue screen fades to view of ceiling, a light hangs down, and a florescent patthern shawdowed in bright light onto the ceiling, glowing . Moves gently down and across from the top right until it reaches a door slowly coming into the centre of the frame. A subtle daylight highlights through the spaces around the door as the door opens and the room is being slowly revealed, light grows brighter as we move closer toward it. As the door is opening we continue to move forward into the room.
Int. Bedroom. Day
A fairytale like room is revealed to us. Long shot of toys fill the room, shelf of books, table filled with pens, paper and a fairytale book, toys, and children type possessions, fairytale like snow globes, this is shown through a pan, establishing the setting, a bedroom. We look across to the shelf of books; we see a close up of the books. Fairytale books are lined up across the self, some battered some new. We follow on from the right to left as it leaves the pan of books and moves towards the left, going into a pan of a table we see coloured pens scattered on top of a drawing, some few pens have lids off. We then see an open book lying across the corner of the bottom left side of the table, opened in the middle. Moving along past the table. We next see the bed, with a teddy bear on the front right corner of the bed. As we get closer to the foot of the bed LITTLE BLUE walks to the bed side and picks up a blue bag. She walks away and to us is revealed from behind her a picture frame. We look closer to the frame on the bedside table as it closes in on the picture of a family. From left to right we see the FATHER, LITTLE BLUE, and MOTHER and further away STEP SISTER. Then fades to a blue screen. Fades to blue screen and title ‘Little Blue’ appears.
Production title in Blue screen fades to view of ceiling, a light hangs down, and a florescent patthern shawdowed in bright light onto the ceiling, glowing . Moves gently down and across from the top right until it reaches a door slowly coming into the centre of the frame. A subtle daylight highlights through the spaces around the door as the door opens and the room is being slowly revealed, light grows brighter as we move closer toward it. As the door is opening we continue to move forward into the room.
Int. Bedroom. Day
A fairytale like room is revealed to us. Long shot of toys fill the room, shelf of books, table filled with pens, paper and a fairytale book, toys, and children type possessions, fairytale like snow globes, this is shown through a pan, establishing the setting, a bedroom. We look across to the shelf of books; we see a close up of the books. Fairytale books are lined up across the self, some battered some new. We follow on from the right to left as it leaves the pan of books and moves towards the left, going into a pan of a table we see coloured pens scattered on top of a drawing, some few pens have lids off. We then see an open book lying across the corner of the bottom left side of the table, opened in the middle. Moving along past the table. We next see the bed, with a teddy bear on the front right corner of the bed. As we get closer to the foot of the bed LITTLE BLUE walks to the bed side and picks up a blue bag. She walks away and to us is revealed from behind her a picture frame. We look closer to the frame on the bedside table as it closes in on the picture of a family. From left to right we see the FATHER, LITTLE BLUE, and MOTHER and further away STEP SISTER. Then fades to a blue screen. Fades to blue screen and title ‘Little Blue’ appears.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
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