Inspiration

The musical fantasy, Labyrinth (1986); the film told a story about a young girl who wished away her step-brother to the goblin king (David Bowie), who will keep the toddler, if Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) cannot complete the labyrinth within the time limit of thirteen hours. As soon as I heard the soundtrack to Labyrinth, I became hooked, playing it every second of everyday. Through the songs David Bowie poured emotion into his music, making me feel close with the characters, and giving me a better understanding of the story; for instance, the ballroom scene when the Goblin King begins to slowly fall in love with girl and attempts to make her feel the same way, Bowie shows this by using the song “as the world falls down” this song descibes how he sees her sadness and wishes to take her pain away; a romantic gesture which shows one sided love, in a short amount of time. In the same year as the film was released, a book was also published, The Goblins of Labyrinth (1986), which is an encyclopedia of goblins within the movie. The sketches are beautiful drawn with a small caption describing the characteristics of each creature; I automatically fell in love with the style of art that Brian Froud portrayed, especially the way he made the illustrations come to life with realism; he also uses a pale colour palette, making the drawing seem historic but not as vibrant, as other illustrated books would be, giving this illustrated book it own unique style. The clothing and staging for Labyrinth seems almost gothic (1980); which is a style that combines romance and horror into historic clothing making a new type of genre, by doing this the director (Jim Henson), made the film seem even more magical and real. Each character has a different type of clothing which resembles there personality, for instance the Goblin King’s outfit shows his alluring, devilish side and armour that refers to 15th century knights and for Sarah, her outfit resembles her purity and innocence, which in fact attracts the Kings attention with a 18th century dress.

 

Labyrinth (1986) film. Directed by Jim Henson. [DVD] AND IMDb [Online] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091369/ [Accessed: 28/03/15]

Sketches by Brian Froud and captions by Terry Jones (1986) The Goblins of Labyrinth (Published in October 1986 by Pavilion books)

Goth subculture (1980) Wikipedia [Online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goth_subculture

“As the world falls down” [song] David Bowie [DVD, CD, Online] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_the_World_Falls_Down

 

Final Project idea

The idea is to create a humorous advert, about everyday uses, that become a weapon or a self-defensive mechanism; in which the characters will have to avoid these situations by using the products. The scene will be slightly static like an old TV box would and black/white, with a hint of colour for the important pieces and a mixture of style from 1800-1900. The advertisement will include a family that will react differently to the situation at hand; they will be in less detail due to the fact that the attention will be set on the products, during these scenes there will be a narrator that will explain the products in a funny way using pronounced words that sound serious but humours like the Tfl advert (2015) about safety.

I like the way the narrator speaks and how they use a children’s story to represent a serious problem about teenager careless thinking when crossing the street. The advert has a double meaning, the rabbit represents people who act rashly by being quick, which is how most people get killed when cars are involved because they don’t look before crossing. However the other meaning refers to the children story the tortoise and the hare; which is evolves a rabbit that acts impatience, and a slow tortoise. The rabbit races the tortoise believing he would win, but the tortoise waits for the right moment before taking the lead. The reason the advert uses this story is because the tortoise was patience which allowed him to win, the same as a person who waits till the road is safe before crossing the road, being patient can save your life