8) Favourite film

Animation is one of my favourite genres as it is very family friendly and allows the whole family to enjoy a movie altogether. It has comedy elements, at times action and a love story which appeals to all ages as it can be seen as a ’guilty pleasure’. One of my favourite movies which I have repeatedly watched over and over again (mostly because my little brother was OBSESSED) is Toy Story.

The title sequence begins with the company’s indent; which is separate from the main scene as the company has its own ‘ritual’ which includes a castle figure in the sky blue background as the name flashes across the screen while music plays as an ambient sound. An establishing shot is altered in this sequence because a tilt movement (instead of the regular pan) occurs, causing the audience to focus on certain factors such as the cloudy novelty wallpaper and the cardboard structure of a western village. Before even laying eyes on any characters, the audience can see that this may be a child’s bedroom or play space because the cardboard structures are drawn in a childlike way due to the misspelling and untidiness of certain words such as school and billion, as well as the crayon like colouring in. This all portrays the innocent imagination of the child as we then go on to see him playing with his lined up and ordered toys as he gives them different voice depending on how he imagines their personality to be, indicating that he is in control of the toys movements.

 Once the ambient music of the now iconic ‘You got a friend in me’ theme tune begins to play, it informs the audience about the key theme in the movie which is Friendship. The song seems to foreshadow certain aspects of the movie because it implies that as the movie seemed to start on a high, there are definitely going to be a dilemma that the characters are going to have to overcome. The music plays slightly over the diegetic sound of the boy speaking in the background.

The high key, bright lighting is a typical convention of an animation movie as well as the boy and toy centred relationship as the novelty theme is presented throughout the opening. The camera movement and editing consists of pans, tilts and fades; which highlights the subtlety of the child centred movie and factors such as music, lighting and the lack of dark colours help to promote this genre as the movie is portrayed to be a good light hearted film. The id appears in building block like letters, attracting the younger audience. The technique used in this sequence is titles over moving images which helps to give the audience a rough idea of the storyline.