Presentational Devices in Chicken Run
Chicken Run is an animated film about a group of chickens trying to
escape from a chicken farm. The film is a spoof of the film 'The Great
Escape' and as with that film there are characters, who represent good
and characters who represent evil. In Chicken Run, the character that
represents good is the chicken, Ginger. The chicken farm owner, Mrs.
Tweedie, portrays evil.
The film makers of Chicken Run have used presentational devices to
give us clues about each character. They use camera angles, setting,
costume, lighting, music, sound effects, body language and facial
expressions to portray a character as good or evil. I will personally
concentrate on Ginger and Mrs. Tweedie, and how the film makers depict
them as good and evil.
Before delving into answering the question, it is important to give
some more information about Chicken Run. In the movie, the film makers
have adapted many aspects of war films, to make the movie suitable for
children of younger ages, while at the same time, keeping it
entertaining for older adults and teenagers. For example, as with many
war films there are prisoner of war camps. In Chicken Run, this has
been adapted into the Chicken Farm. Another example is the character
who plays the hero. Ginger plays that role in the movie. Another
character that is usually present in war films is the 'brains'. By
this I mean the smartest character among the prisoners. The chicken,
Mac plays this part in Chicken Run. Villains are also always present
in war films. Mrs. Tweedie and Mr. Tweedie are the two who play them
in Chicken Run. However, Mrs. Tweedie is the more dominan...
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...er her, which means she is evil.
In conclusion I would like to say that I have learned, from Chicken
Run, that movies are not just about action and the different
characters of a movie. There are many different techniques which film
makers use to subtly tell us about a character's personality. Also as
you would have noticed, instead of saying how the film makers
projected Ginger as good, I answered how they projected Ginger and the
rest of the chickens as good. I did this because I noticed that they
used the same techniques on Ginger as with the other chickens.
Hopefully now, after learning about film language and different
presentational devices, I will now find it easier to recognize whether
a character is good or evil in other movies, and maybe even enjoy the
film more because I can recognize the different methods.
The Farm: 10 Down: Dir. Jonathan Slack and Liz Garbus. Perf. Warden Cain, George Crawford,
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