My Media Portfolio

This video for Unit 1, Task 2 and is an analysis of a media product produced by my chosen media institution; Disney. I will be focussing on a Pixar production released in 2015- Inside Out, directed by Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen. The conglomerate company Disney have one main target audience of children; therefore their main aim through each subsidiary company is to create products with the purpose of entertaining children. This film in particular also aims to educate the target audience about emotion and inform a younger target audience of possible social issues common in today’s society.

Genre is derived from a French Word meaning “type”. Each film has features known as conventions to a specific genre. Films with several conventions may be a hybrid film and therefore attracts a wider target audience. For example, Inside Out is an Animation film, however also features conventions of the Adventure and Comedy genre. This film meets the conventions of an animation film as there are no people, but instead characters developed from drawings or illustrations, linked with voiceovers. Animation is not specifically a genre, however is a key feature of this film, as animation is often linked with entertaining a young target audience. Inside Out uses unusual locations as the majority of the film is set inside the protagonist’s mind. This, alongside the exciting storyline, portrays the adventure genre, as the unusual location portrays both the character and the audience are on a journey. The diegetic and non-diegetic sound used alongside the narrative is used to portray the change in emotion the protagonist feels, therefore providing a sense of adventure. Inside Out uses Point of View shots and Medium shots alongside dialogue and sound effects to explain the narrative and create a comedic effect on the audience. Iconographies such as bright colours that connote emotion are also a popular convention of the comedy genre and are used throughout Inside Out. Denotation is when we describe literally what we see (for example Sadness is the colour blue), however connotation is what the colour implies, makes us feel or how we react to it (for example blue makes us feel down and gloomy) this therefore demonstrating the importance of colour in media, specifically in film. By including conventions of the Comedy genre, it keeps the target audience interested throughout the “journey” portrayed by the Adventure Genre. // The narrative takes the audience on a journey as Riley grows up, and clearly follows Todorov’s theory. As a brief introduction we see key moments in Rileys life, right from when she was born, including her first steps, having fun with her dad, scoring her first hockey goal and meeting new friends at school. Even though there are several emotions throughout these times, Riley is generally happy representing the equilibrium. The disequilibrium is introduced with a rhetorical question in the dialogue: “What could possibly go wrong?”. As Riley’s parents plan to move to San Francisco we see each emotion have an effect on Riley, including fear when starting a new school, and anger when her parents ask about her day. Not only do we see Riley in the disequilibrium, we also see the emotions inside her, as Joy and Sadness leave headquarters unexpectedly. As Riley continues to be unhappy, Joy recognises the issue and begins the repair stage by trying to return to headquarters. We constantly see the use of Binary Oppositions (Levi-Strauss’ theory) as the emotions fight over how Riley should feel, for example Joy vs Sadness. Inside Out conveniently uses these 2 characters together to keep the audience entertained. When the characters return to headquarters, the new equilibrium shows Riley happy in her new hockey team with her parents supporting her from the side. As the narrative portrays a journey which concludes with the traditional “happy ending” it helps attract a wide target audience, as this is something audiences strive for in a story. Audiences like to feel as if the story is complete and has a positive conclusion, as do children, therefore Inside Out successfully attracts a wide audience.  As with this happy ending, Inside Out educates (as well as entertain (Katz and Blumler)) the target audience on emotion, as the audience get to see how different situations can affect their emotions, and how they can re balance their emotions by changing their current situation or what they’re doing. The film educates the younger target audience with regards to memories and encourages them to think of past memories when they are feeling sad or angry. This film really educates the younger audience on how much emotions can control your life, as they see different situations and learn about social thinking. Inside Out demonstrates the variety of social situations that children are put in throughout their childhood, including social challenges, social relationships, thoughts and feelings, and situations based in school/a classroom setting and at home. Inside Out helps to educate children on practice thinking and talking about how they relate to others via different emotions.   // Inside Out uses Propp’s character theory, however not in depth as Riley is the main protagonist, however instead of there being one villain, there are potentially 4 as anger, sadness, fear and disgust are trying to bring Riley down from being happy. We also see a helper, who aids Joy to return to headquarters whilst lost in long term memory etc.

With regards to these particular scenes, Inside Out use specific technical, audio and visual codes to create the appropriate audience reaction. Sadness is shown as blue, therefore instantly connoting sadness, loneliness and something quite negative. This instantly directly addresses the audience, creating the response the director is aiming for. Sadness wears glasses, has quite a simple haircut and wears a plain beige jumper implying unoriginality. The narrative portrays sadness as more depressed, rather than just sad, therefore these visual codes imply that people with depression are boring and potentially lazy, as supported by this scene when sadness claims she’s “too sad to walk”. This is also supported by the character being showed as short and not particularly thin (like Joy), but rounder. Earlier on in the film we have witnessed Joy instructing Sadness to not touch any core memories. However several visual codes have been used here to create audience response; firstly, the use of a head-on mis shot allows us to see the angle at which Joy is talking to Sadness at, and gives us the impression that sad people are often talked down to, as Joys body language is bent down and hunched over. The camera positioning here is clever as the 2 aren’t in the centre of the shot, in fact Joy is more central than Sadness implying sadness (or sad people) are never centre attention and are often pushed to the side. This therefore suggests isolation, which is supported by the mis-en-scene of the next scene, where Joy draws a circle on the floor and leads sadness into it. Her instruction is to not leave the circle; therefore giving the visual representation that sadness is not equal to the rest of the characters and therefore should be separated from them. As a child, this representation may not be clear, however to an adult, the film helps outline this social issue in society that depressed people are often isolated and not included in situations. Again, the use of a wide shot allows the audience to see both characters’ body language, again implying Joy is looking down on Sadness. In both scenes Sadness is fairly quiet and lack of dialogue suggests a character with little or no confidence, often a symptom of depression. Both scenes also use similar low key lighting- Sadness is fairly dull and not very colour enhanced, whereas Joy is lit up, with almost a glow around her. This shows Binary Oppositions and keeps the audience interested in where the narrative is going. When the characters enter imagination land Bing Bong claims “everyone’s a winner”, which is supported by the upbeat, fun-fair like non diegetic music. However, when Bing Bong and Joy receive prizes, Sadness only receives a participation award. This is not only shown by the dialogue, however by the colours used, as prizes for the other characters are gold, however Sadness receives a green rosette. The use of the colour green in this particular scene is relevant to Sadness’s emotion, as the character Disgust is green throughout the film. The dialogue helps to contradict the happy music, and again the shot angle leaving Sadness not central implies that Sadness is not as good as the others and is always going to be not as important. This also supports the idea of isolation and suggests if someone is sad, they don’t deserve to be a winner. Finally, this scene uses visual, technical and audio codes to help support these dominant ideologies; not only is sadness once again not central in the shot, she is also on a cloud which is raining, the rain being iconographic for her tears. The lighting on her is dim, and even the cloud is dark rather than being white, and even though Joy isn’t in the foreground, she still is given attention as she is lit up. Overall, Sadness is represented as isolated, lonely and unwanted. Even though film is extremely clever in 2D, without the 3D effect audiences rely heavily on the use of different shot angles, sizes and colour to be able to respond to what they’re watching. When a film is in 3D it allows the audience to be further participated, however when just in 2D, we still feel as if we’re watching something, rather than participating in a scene. This is proved throughout Inside Out, as we still feel as if we’re watching emotions, whereas if the film was in 3D, we the audience may feel as if they’re a particular emotion themselves, rather than a mix.

Like any other animation film, the production process is incredibly long and therefore credits include endless roles and names. Pre-production includes illustrations of how the director imagines his ideas, as well as working with the scriptwriter to create dialogue and a narrative for the film. As the characters are animated, it is hugely important to find the correct actors to produce the voiceovers, as this can have a huge impact on the audience’s response. Animators for the film include Eric Anderson, Simon Christen, Rob Jensen and Shad Bradbury however are accompanied by a huge animation team covering character design, set design, lighting artists and colour artists. Credits are given to Dana Murray, production manager, Michael Warch, shot production manager, Patrick Lin, camera director, and finally Kim White, lighting director. Music Production Director, Andrew Page and Visual Effects artists, such as Chris Foreman, Jason Johnston and Nick Lucas, are incredibly important in both production and post-production. Finally for post-production, credits are given to Kevin Nolting, for film editing, Rachael Bigelow for post-production assistant and many other editing, colour and software assistants and engineer

 Re-Submission for Distinction:

As with this happy ending, Inside Out educates (as well as entertain (Katz and Blumler)) the target audience on emotion, as the audience get to see how different situations can affect their emotions, and how they can re balance their emotions by changing their current situation or what they’re doing. The film educates the younger target audience with regards to memories and encourages them to think of past memories when they are feeling sad or angry. This film really educates the younger audience on how much emotions can control your life, as they see different situations and learn about social thinking. Inside Out demonstrates the variety of social situations that children are put in throughout their childhood, including social challenges, social relationships, thoughts and feelings, and situations based in school/a classroom setting and at home. Inside Out helps to educate children on practice thinking and talking about how they relate to others via different emotions

Colours are a main feature of the film that helps to educate the younger audience, as it encourages them to use and wear bright colours when happy and to encourage them to recognise sadness when darker colours are used. Even from a young age, Inside Out forces the younger audience to relate certain colours with certain emotions in the future, so subconsciously they are more socially aware and can relate to narratives and situations in both film/tv and real life by recognising these links of colour and emotion. By using the different coloured characters, it allows the audience to recognise each emotion more clearly, rather than misunderstanding what they are feeling. It also allows them to consider in future situations whether their first instinct emotion is what they’re actually feeling, and causes them to wonder if it is a different emotion that they are actually feeling. Films of the animation genre are often mainly used to entertain the audience, however Inside Out have chosen a narrative that every member of the audience can relate to; emotion. This means that even if the audience don’t enjoy the film, or aren’t entertain by it, they are still educated on different social situations and how colour is linked to emotion, particularly without them even realising.