Target Audience Extension

Beetlejuice.



Beetlejuice - The Wedding Scene.

Adam and Barbara are a normal couple... who happen to be dead. They have given their precious time to decorate the house and make it their own. After a car accident in which they die, their ghosts stay in their house. Shortly after a a family move in and not quietly either. Adam and Barbara try to scare them out but ends up becoming the main attraction to the money making family. They call upon Beetlejuice to help, but Beetlejuice has more in mind then just helping.

There could be many targeted age groups to be argued for this particular film/animation by Tim Burton. The grotesque and dark imagery portrayed through the visual art such as Beetlejuice himself can seem scary upon first impression but his twisted and funny humor eliminates the scary look. I would class this as a thriller/comedy therefore anybody could watch and enjoy it. I think Tim Burton intended this film for kids and adults ranging from 14 to anybody over. Due to the actual story that lies behind the imagery, kids under 14 may not understand the true meaning of it whereas people over the age would more than likely understand the story and enjoy the film at the same time.

Tim Burton as a director unleashes his imagination and experiences when making a film, his unique skill at creating dreamscapes of unusual, freakish characters, outsiders conflicting with the so called 'norm.'
Instantly people watching this can see this is definitely Tim Burton's work, well maybe not everybody, but from a horror freak fan's point of view like myself and a great Tim Burton lover, as soon as I seen the dark/sinister and grotesque work portrayed throughout the film, I knew.

Beetlejuice offers a barrage of sights, stop motion animation, and over the top characters. The design however is so original, and it has been handled with such a great deal of energy. Beetlejuice is recognizably a Tim Burton film because of a number of elements; the obvious outsider status of Lydia, the real heroine of the picture, who has a morbid love for all things black, and the contrast between the normal world of the Deetz family, portrayed as weird within the film, as opposed to the weird world of ghosts, monsters and bio exorcists which becomes the normal of the two.

Edward Scissorhands.

Edward Scissorhands



In a castle high on top of a hill lives an inventors greatest creation, Edward, a near complete person. The inventor died before he could finish Edward's hands; instead, Edward is left with metal scissors for hands. Since then, Edward has lived alone, until a kind lady called Peg discovers Edward and welcomes him into her home. At first, everyone welcomes Edward into the community but soon things begin to take a change for the worse.

Edward Scissorhands is a new era fairy tale, with a slightly older target audience then usual. While this PG rated comic fight of the imagination may be too dark for younger viewers, everyone can stand to learn the lesson; just because a person is different, it shouldn't make them an outcast. Everyone can be a useful member of society, even a man with metal blades for hands, right?

When it comes to creating a dark fantasy world, one name clearly stands out. Tim Burton is the king of darkness. His body of work includes the dark films of Beetlejuice, A Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman and Sleepy Hollow, and of course, this beautiful fairy tale, Edward Scissorhands.

The unique use of color in this movie adds to the different emotions that you feel in each of the different worlds. Color helps create the interest when the grandmother is beginning her story about the snow. She is wearing a bright red outfit and the girl is in a bedroom that is very decorative, but with still normal and neutral colors. I think this sets the mood of a fairy tale. In this second world, the colors give you the feeling of safety and normalcy. The houses are bright, the outfits are bright, and everything is uniform which gives off a feeling of peace and a structured environment. The third world, Edward's mansion, is dark in color along with his outfit, which is a direct contrast to the town below. At this point you can get the feeling of good and evil although there is a twist because the dark is actually not evil at all. The overall soundtrack to the movie helps create all different types of feelings. One specific scene where Edward Pushes Kevin out of the way of the van, you can feel the tension building and a turning point coming with the music as the notes are long and deep. The sound of his scissors also creates feelings of happiness and sadness, when he is being a hair dresser and a dog groomer we feel happy, but as he cuts Kevin by accident, it creates sadness and a feeling of how you wish it to stop.

One of my favourite qualitys of the film is the camera angles used at the beginning and at the end of the movie. As the movie begins it shows the grandmothers house, shows the suburbs, and ends at Edward's mansion. It begings with a point of view of the grandmothers house looking at the mansion and ends with a new point of view of the mansion looking down at the suburbs, this is a great transition into the story and looks visually great as well as giving the viewers an idea of the surrounding areas.

Tim Burton is a master of the dark and nightmarish corners that lurk within the human mind. He has and uses several techniques in a variety of his films such as Edward Scissorhands which have becomes types of signatures in his film making, making the visual style of Tim Burton's work instantly recognizable. Some of these techniques include Point Of View Shots, Burton enjoys employing point of view shots quite often in his films and especially in this particular film. This film has several shots where the camera is clearly seeing something from the point of view as a specific character, rather then serving as an outside eye looking in. Color is a large part of Burton's camera mastery. He shoots subjects in over saturated and under saturated color, often in order to use the color of the scene to help add to the Gothic mystery or surreal and dream like states that his storied frequently find themselves in.