Chicken Run is very similar to the fact based film ‘ The Great Escape’ but is adapted to chickens trying to escape the Tweedy’s farm.
I am going to be looking at how Peter Lord and Nick Park use different scene to portray the good and evil in the characters Ginger and Mrs Tweedy. I will be looking at Ginger for the good characteristics and Mrs Tweedy’s evil characteristics. The first scene which I will be analysing is for Mrs Tweedy. It is the very first scene that she is seen in, which is after Ginger has been trying to escape and is cornered on the doorstep by Mr Tweedy and the two dogs. Mrs Tweedy opens the door and is lit up by the light as if she is some god like creature, but we only get to see a close up of her feet, and the camera moves up her body to a close up of her face.
Whilst this is happening the music, which is non-diegetic, has a very menacing yet powerful feeling towards it. I think both of these effects show the evil in Mrs Tweedy because they both show that she superior to the chickens. Another thing in this scene is when Mrs Tweedy speaks to Mr Tweedy, again lit up as if god like, and the camera at a medium length, and angled normally, the once frightful dogs and Mr Tweedy quiver at the sound of her voice, and it causes Mr Tweedy to mumble and stutter. Also against Mr Tweedy there is a shot which shows not only Mrs Tweedy’s height against Ginger but also against her husband.
Which, again make her superior to the others, and that she is “ The man of the house”. My first thoughts of Mrs Tweedy is that she seems like a very powerful woman who knows what she wants in life, and that she also had a similar appearance to Ms Trunchable from Miltilda, who’s character is also very similar in the sense that they are both in control of smaller things. In her case children, and Mrs Tweedy, her husband, and hens. My second scene which I used to explore the characteristics of Mrs Tweedy is when the hens are lined up to be counted.
At the beginning of this scene a bell rings to signal the hens to line up. Again in this scene the first shot of her, is her feet walking towards the chicken coop. Loud stomps are made, as if she is making her presence known to all those around her, which works because the hens stop talking and quietly stand. As Mrs Tweedy walks further into the setting, more of her body is shown. She snaps the rubber gloves and the hens react with fright.
There are a lot of high, medium and low angle shots used in this scene to show that her height is very powerful compared to the hens height. This scene makes me think of a warden counting the prisoners the exercise yards. There is one main close up of her face when she is just about to pluck Edwina [one of the chickens] from the bunch to be slaughtered, and just before she grabs her, she gives an evil menacing smile whilst looking into the camera. This effect makes the audience feel as though Mrs Tweedy is powerful. In my third scene, where I will be looking at Ginger, is after Mrs Tweedy has been planning a new future for the chicken farm. We see Ginger banging a hammer and trying to get her kind sounding, quiet voice heard over the crowd of talking chickens, which proves to be difficult for her as she is just ignored.
Fowler the cockerel takes over and gets their attention straight away. I think this shows that she is quite a shy ‘ bird’, and although she is the leader she lacks leadership skills and confidence. I believe that she is wanting Fowler to shut up because she repeats herself a couple of times, stressing more as she has to repeat it. I think that this scene also shows that she is kind and cares for the others because she tries to explain to the chickens how much better it would be to free, and is also very persistent in describing to try and get their support.
I think she is persistent because even when one of the hens says the chances are a million to one, she still says “ so there’s still a chance”. In this scene there a lot of shots of Ginger on her own this is to show that she is the leader but also shows that she is shy and isolated. One for example, when the large chicken is saying that they should just stay on the farm, shows that she is really isolated, I think this because she feels that she is the only one trying to escape, and that the others have given up on her. The next scene I will analyse is the scene after Rocky has been introduced.
This scene is between Ginger and Rocky talking about him helping them to escape. During this scene she is very persistent in trying to get Rocky on their side. When the circus truck pulls, Rocky is trying to stay low, very cunningly Ginger takes advantage of this and uses it to bribe Rocky into helping them learn to fly. Squawking every now and then until he agrees.
This scene shows the audience that she wants to help the others escape from the coop and that she thinks they could do it with the right help. The sixth scene which again, is about Ginger is when she thinks that she has finally conquered the art of flying. The close up on her face shows that she is relieved and so happy that she has learnt to fly, but when she find out her facial expression shows that she is disappointed. My next scene about Ginger is when she orders the hens to attack Mr Tweedy.
This scene shows that her leadership skills and her confidence has had a huge boost as the chickens now do as she says and when she says it. She has also improved in vast amounts on persuading the hens as they are now very enthusiastic about escaping and she manages to get Fowler to fly their invention. She is also very heroic in this scene because when the ramp falls she goes to put it back up which also shows her kindness towards the others as she is risking her freedom to help the others escape. She is also surprisingly happy to see Rocky return after leaving them. There are a lot of different angles in this scene because it is on three different types of heights (the chicken’s height. Mr and Mrs Tweedy’s heights and the mid heights), the close ups in this scene show different emotions from fear (when Mrs Tweedy nearly axed her) to relief (when Rocky knocked over Mrs Tweedy)My next scene is about Mrs Tweedy and her determination to make Ginger into a pie.
She is so determined that she grabs onto the lights and tries to axe gingers head off, whilst they are flying in the air. The close ups of her face during this scene are again menacing and very evil, with one eye brow. When she thinks that she has cut of Gingers head she gives a very evil smile and both brows go up as if to say I have you now. When she realises that Gingers head is still intact her smirk goes into a wide mouth which is as if she is astonished that she has missed. As she is falling we see something very different for her which is fear as she is falling towards the ground.
She has her mouth wide and is screaming with fright. In conclusion I think that Ginger had a large improvement as she is in more control, has better leadership skills and is now very confident. Mrs Tweedy on the other hand stayed the same all the way through the film; evil, determined and manipulative. I think that the Nick Park and Peter Lord used presentational devices really well to portray good and evil in Ginger and Mrs Tweedy.
