Disney Animated Movies
Slide One – Snezana
Our presentation today is on the codes and conventions of Disney films. When someone says Disney, for most people the first thing that comes to mind are the Disney Princesses, but there is so much more to it. Disney films can be categorized, you do it even without realising it. An example of this would be way you think about princess films practically being an entire genre of Disney movie even though it’s just like any other ‘regular’ movie made by Disney and not its own special genre.
Slide Two – Emily
Founded by Walt and Ray Disney on the 16th of October 1923, The Walt Disney Studio is an international mass media and entertainment conglomerate. The company, more commonly known simply as Disney, owns other film studios such as Walt Disney Animation Studios (their very first studio), Pixar, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm Ltd. All of these studios are used for releasing different sorts of films : Marvel for the obvious, Lucasfilm Ltd (Star Wars), Pixar is for films that don’t always follow the conventions of a typical ‘Disney’ film and Disney Animation is saved for the films that, well, do.
Slide Three – Snezana
What makes Disney princess movies be categorised by us though is that they all follow a general set of conventions we’ve come to expect and because they all follow these rules we can pinpoint exactly what is and isn’t a Disney princess movie often by just looking at a sneak peek of some sort.
Slide Four – Emily
The sound element of Disney films is one of the, if not the most, prominent part of the film itself. All of the songs are catchy and memorable, with some of us still singing songs from the 1937 classic that is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. They are all classic slow songs or pop songs, as if not to scare the children that are watching them. They all glide up and down the scales to keep the tone of the song simple for the younger viewers. For example, Beauty and the Beast takes a slightly scarier character for younger children and mixes it with a duet between the two contrasting characters as if to add balance to the film where it is lost in the characters. Tangled also includes a duet in a sadder moment to lift the films spirits. This is the same with films like Pocahontas, The Lion King and The Little Mermaid.
Slide Five – Snezana
Even Though I’ve already stated that the princess movies are not their own genera of Disney movie I’ll explain why we think that it is at first. It’s all due to the conventions they all generally follow! Female leads! Most Disney Princess movies have female leads however it’s an equal mix of strong and weak female leads due to modern feminism being a very strong and sensitive modern theme/subject. Another thing that links to this idea of strong female leads are bland male romantic interests, the exceptions though would be Prince Naveen from ‘The Princess And The Frog’ and Flynn from Rapunzel.
Slide Six – Emily
Due to most Disney films being animated, its hard to talk about the camerawork in them, but if you watch the films closely, you can see some clear shots that appear in most of the films. You always get longshots of the leading couples partaking in a song and dance, for example Tangled’s street dance, Beauty and the Beast’s waltz and Cinderella’s ball. With unanimated films like ‘Enchanted’, they use longshots to show the scale of the event, but still have to focus in on the dancing pair with a mid-shot, so that they are the focus point during everything that is going on. They also do this in animated films by switching between the longshots to close ups, which allows us to see how the characters are feeling during the scene. Camerawork tells a lot about a story, and Disney uses it to its advantage that they can decide on the shot types and angles that they want during production and after, with a much smaller cost during post-production as there are no reshoot costs. If they want to crop the screen so that a certain object is in focus rather than the characters, then they can do that quite easily.
Slide Seven – Snezana
When the emotion gets too tense, there’s a song to help the characters ‘let it go!’ I can’t think of a Disney princess movie that doesn’t have their characters burst out into song to make the plot move forward or to simply tell us how the characters feel. The songs are usually about ‘finding one’s true self’ or as I said before, strong emotions.
Slide Eight – Emily
Todorov came up with the theory of how films should be structured, and his idea on a traditional Disney film is starting at equilibrium, then a disequilibrium and then finishing with he restoration. For instance, The Lion King. It starts off with everyone being happy at Pride Rock, Mufasa dies and Simba leaves, then Simba returns, and everything is resolved. In most Disney films, the disequilibrium lasts throughout most of the film. This comes from examples like The Lion King, where Scar is the ruler of Pride Rock for most of the film, Tarzan is living with gorillas that don’t really accept him as one of their own and humans that do not either, and Tangled where Rapunzel is separated from her parents until the very last scene.
Slide Nine – Snezana
The final convention is that Disney films tend to have a lot of talking animals as companions. Sidekicks come in many forms and they are most often used as comic relief. In this case Disney’s sidekicks are talking and singing animals. I’m sure you can think of many examples. The first thing that pops into my mind is Pascal from Rapunzel or Flounder from The Little Mermaid.
Slide Ten – Emily
So to sum up a Disney films codes and conventions, we can clearly see that they are all followed to make sure that the film is a product of its time, and that it fits with the target audiences ideas of what a typical ‘Disney’ film should be.
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