Chicken Run media essay

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Chicken Run media essay

Wallace and Gromit eat your heart out there’s a new chick in town! Chicken Run, directed by Peter Lord and Nick Park is a sensational clay animation. A new piece of cinematic excellence to be added the title ‘a classic’, with its side-splitting humour, astounding action and stunning stop motion Chicken Run is a film well worth watching. I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed! Enough about how good the film is; what is it about?

Chicken Run is an all round great film for all the family. Ever wondered what chickens dream about? More chicken feed? A bigger coop? Not in the case of head chicken Ginger; all she wishes for is freedom for all the chickens at Tweedy’s farm! On her countless attempts to escape she has been caught by Mr. Tweedy on every occasion. Suddenly, out of no where, appears a radical rooster (Rocky) who claims he can fly! Ginger is convinced her prayers have been answered and Rocky is the key to their freedom. Meanwhile Mrs. Tweedy has a monstrous money making plot to make her chickens into pies! The chickens are in a race against time to get themselves out of this foul situation!

I am going to enlighten you into how the film makers use Mise-en-scene, language and character interaction to create Good and Evil amongst the characters. For all you newcomers to the film industry this means through the use of: Lighting, sets/props, expression, body language, costume and sound. I personally believe that the opening sequence is the most effective scene of the film; it quickly puts us into the main plot of the film in a humorous way. Also on a ‘first glimpse’ of some of the characters we are immediately given the impression of the presence of good (Ginger) and evil (Mrs. Tweedy).

Before we even see any picture on the screen heroic introductory music gives us a sense of heroism. This gives a valiant quality to the film and makes the audience feel good, too! The moment the titles have finished, the music descends from a triumphant melody into eerie gloomy drone. Combined with the music we are shown a crisp low angle shot of a full moon surrounded by darkness. Gradually the camera zooms in from the sky and we see an insert shot of the barbed wire fence giving us an impression of imprisonment. This is followed by an establishing shot of Mr. Tweedy and his dog. In his hand he is holding a torch and patrolling the area, as they walk towards us we can hear the ‘pitter-patter’ of the dog’s feet. Followed by, an extreme close up of an ancient rusted padlock (obviously keeping the fence locked). We are further focused on this as Mr. Tweedy shines his torch onto the padlock and checks it is securely locked, as he drops the lock we hear the ‘clank’ noise it makes as it hits the fence. The focus on the lock reinforces the theme of imprisonment given previously from the barbed wire. It is also an important element to the film as the audience has to believe that it is evil to keep chickens locked up. The music has maintained its ominous characteristics. All these presentational techniques have been used to create the idea that something important is imprisoned inside the fence; thus the reason of such great security. The ominous quality of the music changes when we first see Ginger establishing the idea that Ginger is not evil. The audience is obliged to laugh when Ginger is seen inside the fence, because from the beginning we are shown over the top security (barbed wire, Mr. Tweedy patrolling with dog and padlock) and then we find that all this security is for chickens! Studying Ginger in more detail, we notice she is wearing a woolly hat and a scarf; this is an example of anthropomorphism as Ginger is shown to have human qualities. Stealthily, Ginger grabs a spoon (insert shot of spoon) and begins to dig. It now becomes obvious to the audience that Ginger is trying to escape. Again this reinforces the humour earlier applied as the thought of a chicken, escaping from a coop; digging using a spoon is comical! Focusing on a scene from the opening sequence, I believe that Ginger is shown to the audience to be a leader. Not only in this scene, but throughout the film we see Ginger instructing the chickens this reinforces Ginger image as ‘the leader’.

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The manner in which we are introduced the character of Mrs. Tweedy conveys her personality to the audience; the door opens, from the door appears a blaze of light. Ginger gasps, as do the other chickens shown from a long shot. The camera now turns to face the character at the door, however firstly we are shown her feet, slowly the camera move up the character until we are finally shown a low angle shot of Mrs. Tweedy’s face. How is Mrs. Tweedy shown to be evil? As the camera moves up Mrs. Tweedy the dynamics of the music ...

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