How does my clip hook the audience?

How does my clip hook the audience?

This film is an animation film, it’s about a young mermaid who falls in love with a human, and her father finds out but isn't happy about it but eventually allows her to live on the land with Eric the prince. The target audience is young children and families; the story line hooks the young audience because it’s a fantasy, a princess falling in love with her prince. Todorov’s theory is the start of the film there is an equilibrium which is Ariel living in the sea, going off on adventures without her Father knowing. This dis- equilibrium is when she goes to the sea witch and gets legs for the price of her voice. The new equilibrium is her living on the land with her prince; the dis- equilibrium hooks the audience because it makes them want to know what’s going to happen. Weather she will live on the land or not.

Vladimir Propp’s theory is the idea that all films need character roles which are; the princess, prince, king, donor, dispatcher, father and the villain. Which the little mermaid does have. Ariel is the princess, Eric is the prince, the donor and dispatcher is Sebastian, the king and father is King Triton and the villain is Ursula. This hooks the children as the audience again because it’s the idea of the fantasy story being real.

Strauss’s theory is binary oppositions; this film includes various binary oppositions. One of these is the land vs. the sea, this hooks the audience as they want to know who which side will win, the audience are also likely to take sides in this situation, so would like their preferred binary opposition to get what their fighting for. Another binary opposition is good vs. evil, which is King Triton vs. Ursula, this hooks the audience because they are on King Triton side as he’s the good side. The audience know Ursula is up to know good by the signature mysterious evil laugh that is used in many films. This instantly hooks the audience because they know something bad is going to happen soon.

Barthes’s theory is the 5 codes. Action, enigma, symbolic, semic and culture. The only action in the clip is when the chef chases Sebastian with the knife but it’s still action, the enigma in the clip is weather her father is going to let her live on the land with Eric or take her back to the sea with him. There are connotations and denotations throughout the film and clip as I have and will mention some, and the culture code links with the myth of mermaids, whether they are real or not, which again is another enigma code. Another part of culture is how English the people are in the film, the royal clothing they wear for example the shoulder pads Eric wears.

There are many different camera angles used throughout the clip, an over the shoulder shot is used to show King Triton, Ariel and Eric all in one shot, it allows us to see King Triton emotions towards Ariel but also Ariel’s emotions towards Eric. High angles and low angles are used to show the different levels of authority between the different characters, e.g. they use a low angle looking up at King Triton to show his he is more powerful that the character he is looking down on, which in this case is Sebastian, this allows the audience to see who’s more important in the story without being verbally told.

The lighting in the clip changes from start to finish, at the start of the clip the lighting is dull and brown connoting the mood is sombre and dull, but towards the end of the clip the colour of the sea changes to a bright blue colour which connotes the mood has also changed to a happier mood, this makes the audience fell the same emotions as the mood in the clip, when the colours are a happy colour the audience tend to fell happier too as what’s going on in the clip usually is a happy event.

At the very end of the clip Ariel and Eric are getting married so Ariel is wearing a white wedding dress, Eric is in a very formal suit with gold shoulder pads, all of the guests aboard the boat are wearing formally clothing. The audience instantly know it’s a wedding due to the costume their wearing even the younger audiences would know. There is also a white wedding cake in the scene which would also connote it’s a wedding so the children would know.

In this clip there is Non-dietetic sound towards the end of the clip, it’s a happy tune played which shows the ‘happy ever after’ ending that the children in the audience believe in, this will hook the audience because their emotions will be happy like the tune played. The sound throughout the clip is parallel sound as the matches the emotions and content of the clip.

Throughout the whole film there is continuity editing as it’s an animation film, this is to make the film more realistic for the children, they try and make it as realistic as possible, as it’s a family film adults will also be watching the film when they take the children to see it in cinema or in their own homes with the children, so it needs to have a sense of realism for the adults. Which is usually does as many adults will watch Disney films like the little mermaid and tear up, for example Bambi. The Disney films can always pull on the heart strings.

Overall the clip hooks the audience in many different ways even though it’s the clip is of the end of the film, it makes the audience want to keep watching or watch the second one when it comes out because they want to know what else will happy, another Bathes enigma code, is it really a happy ending? Or will Ursula come back?