Project 01: Frames in the film

Exercise: Telling a Story Part 2

For this part of the exercise, you are to look at other students stories and answer a series of questions.

The first blog I looked at was Choe’s (https://chloeclikproductions.wordpress.com/page/2/), who’s blog is amazing. Her energy seems to bubble off the pages. And I wish I could draw like that!

What is the story?

The story is Hansel and Gretel.

What information is conveyed in each frame?

Frame 1: Woman tells the man (woodcutter) to get rid of “them”. One of the children is listening to this conversation.

Frame 2: The woodcutter leaves the children in the forest and they are scared. The woodcutter is clearly upset at leaving them behind.

Frame 3: The children eat the sweets on the house and a woman with an evil looking grin comes out of the house.

Frame 4: Hansel is in a cage. Gretel pushes the witch into the oven.

Frame 5: The woodcutter is happily reunited with his children.

What information is necessary to understand the story?

The woodcutter has to abandon the children in the forest.

The children need to find the witches house and be captured by the witch.

Need to understand that the witch intend to eat the children.

Hansel gets locked in a cage to fatten up, whilst Gretel works in the house.

Gretel pushes the witch into the oven.

The children escape and find the woodcutter.

What essential information has been left out and/or what is included unnecessarily?

I cannot see anything in the sequence that is unnecessary.

Two bits of information that may have been helpful – in the first frame, it was hard to see the relationship between the woodcutter, the step mother and the child. When the step-mother says “Get rid of them” – it’s not clear who she refers to.

The second bit of information missing (possibly) is why Hansel is in the cage. If I recall the story, the witch was trying to fatten him up by feeding him well. When she would check to see if he was ‘ready’ – Hansel would pass a bone through the bars and the witch was too short sighted to see that it wasn’t his finger. I’m not sure if this was vital to the telling of the story.

The second blog I chose was Emily’s – because I discovered she also did Cinderella, so I thought it would be interesting to see what she did. http://emilyoca.blogspot.de/2012/01/ex1-telling-story-in-five-pictures.html

What is the story?

The story is about Cinderella.

What information is conveyed in each frame?

Frame 1: Cinderella, in rags is sweeping the floor whilst her ugly sisters are getting excited about the royal ball.

Frame 2: The fairy godmother turns Cinderella’s clothes into a ball gown.

Frame 3: Cinderella and the prince dance together whilst everyone look on.

Frame 4: Midnight has struck and Cinderella is running away as her clothes turn back to rags. The prince finds her glass slipper that she lost as she fled. (I’ve never understood why the glass slipper didn’t convert back to it’s original, but I suppose that’s why it’s a fairy tale.)

Frame 5: The glass slipper fits Cinderella’s foot and therefore the prince knows that he has found the girl from the ball. One of the ugly sisters, with suitably large foot, is seen to be clearly unhappy that the prince is in love with Cinderella.

What information is necessary to understand the story?

Cinderella is left behind whilst the ugly sisters go to the ball. The fairy godmother magically changes Cinderella’s clothes and uses a pumpkin and mice to convert to a carriage and escort.

The prince falls in love with Cinderella at the ball.

She flees at midnight leaving her slipper behind.

The prince uses the slipper to find Cinderella.

What essential information has been left out and/or what has been included unnecessarily?

I cannot see any unnecessary information.

I did wonder if it was clear what would happen at midnight. I did the same thing as Emily by showing the clock only in frame 4, however I did wonder if it was necessary to show the fairy godmother, somewhere in frame 2, indicating that it was important to be home by midnight.

Other than the above, I don’t think anything essential was left out.

 

One thought on “Exercise: Telling a Story Part 2

  1. Thank you so much for such kind words and really good point about Hansel and the bone and the relationship between them all. I struggled a bit with the first frame. Thanks so much again 🙂

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