Planning

Children's films consist of many elements. There are many of these elements; ranging from a happy ending to a jolly sing-song. Obviously, a film aimed solely at children under the age of about 7 won't be particularly plot heavy for fear of confusing a small child - if its target audience doesn't even understand what's going on, the film will not appeal to anyone.

The opening of a film, it could be argued, is the most important part. Many people can decide whether they want to watch a whole movie or not within the first five minutes of watching. As with children's films in general, an opening has many elements to it that are usually all included. These are:

• introduce the plot without revealing an ending
• introduce the main characters
• establish the genre
• introduce production companies/main crew
  
• introduce the names of headline or lead actors
• reveal the name of the film
• set the tone of the film
• often includes music which helps to set the tone

The next few posts onto our blog will be analysing the openings of various different children's films.