Analysis: Intertextuality
Time: 0:16
Ariel's Fear
Torn
Time: 0:41
Time: 1:38
Gasping For Life
Tragedy
Time: 1:45
Unable to Speak
Time: 1:00
Separation Anxiety
Time: 2:10
Description:
Description:
Ariel is unknowingly caught in Ursula's wrath as her voice is taken away from her in exchange for legs.
Description:
Prince Eric sadly speaks to Grimsby about wanting to find his dream girl, who is pressuring him to settle down with someone.
Description:
Ariel and Eric fall into each other's arms after she has received legs from the sea witch.
The souls that Ursula has taken show distress as they are trapped in her underwater lair.
Description:
Ariel panics in the water as she watches Eric's boat goes up in flames.
Analysis:
Ariel and Eric are separated in the water and reach out to try and grab each other's hand before the water pulls them away.
Analysis:
Ariel’s face says it all; she is trying to convey how she is feeling without saying anything. In her situation though, she actually can’t say anything, so gesture plays a huge role in both this still and the entire trailer. She is forced to convey feeling and emotion in her face throughout nearly the whole plot, and when you look at this still in particular, there’s a clear amount of both panic and sadness running through her simultaneously. She has been stripped of the one thing that will be able to reunite her with Eric, so now it is up to what she does with her face, the gestures she makes, to get across her message. In The Vocabulary of Comics, McCloud talks about how "our constant awareness of self flows outward to include the object of our extended identity," (McCloud 39). Based on Ariel's expression and the panicked dialogue in the background, it is shown that she is completely aware of how she's feeling, so her gestures show a piece of her identity. By using this clip in the mashup trailer, the idea of how scared Ariel truly is gets conveyed easily.
McCloud, S. (1994). The vocabulary of comics. Understanding comics: The invisible art. New York: Harper Perennial. [pdf]
This clip is a great example of montage, because the frame and all of the others surrounding it were put together to convey the overall feeling of the trailer. Here, Ariel appears to be in another dangerous situation, and it represents the consistent conflicts she struggles with on her journey in this film. By putting clips similar to this together, a new clip is formed as a montage. It’s interesting to see how a few chaotic clips can develop a whole new meaning. Although the clips take place at different points in the original film. placing them back to back gives the audience the thought that this film will be even more action-packed than before and they’ll want to know what happens next. Kevin Kelly comments on how "flexible images migrate into new media and seep into the old. Like alphabetic bits, they can be squeezed into links or stretched to fit search engines, indexes and databases. This relates directly to montage, as these 'flexible images,' or clips, are being turned into something completely new and original: mashups and remixes. Montage has the ability to pull in the audience and give them reason to want to see the entire film, which is what the montage in this trailer was designed for.
Kelly, Kevin. (2008, November 21). Becoming screen literate. The New York Times. [Printable version.]
The entire trailer, including this clip, represents an example of intertextuality. In this particular frame, Eric and Ariel are in each other’s arms. The audience is aware that Ariel has no voice and about the deal she made with the sea witch. While Eric has no idea, she continues to try and win his heart without the ability to speak. So, this explains one idea (Eric searching for his dream girl) while the audience knows something that he doesn’t. He references the fact that he had seen his dream girl and was looking for her, but he doesn’t know that Ariel is in fact her. This is another example of intertextuality, showing that the audience is aware of something while he isn’t. Tryon discusses how "while many movie remixes significantly rework the original film, most popular fake trailers seem to have at least some affection for their sources," (Tryon 162). This relates to both this screen cap and the overall video, as the intertextuality caused by the combination of these two movies maintains a high level of affection. When you look at the photo above of Eric and Ariel, you feel that affection, and putting together the Little Mermaid clips with the Titanic dialogue makes the affection even stronger. It makes the storyline a bit more complicated and shows that intertextuality can cause conflict in a trailer/movie as opposed to helping out the characters.
Tryon, C. (2009). from Reinventing cinema: Movies in the age of digital convergence. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. pp. 161 – 173. [PDF]
The very end of the mashup trailer is a great example of closure, and not just because it’s the end of the trailer. It connects all of the ideas portrayed in the trailer together into one meaning, and shows the overall consensus of what the movie is about. The still frame shown, of Ariel and Eric being pulled away from each other, connects their two opposing worlds and shows that the main message of the film is not caring about coming from different places. It’s important to have some kind of closure, because the idea of a trailer is to pull together all of the ideas that are shown. The meaning here lies within the idea that Ariel and Eric’s love will prevail despite the constant obstacles that jump in their way. In this moment, you hear the Titanic dialogue repeating 'oh god' and 'this is it,' which validates how this is ultimately the closure of the story. McCloud discusses how "the closure of electronic media is continuous, largely involuntary, and virtually imperceptible," (McCloud 68). This notion appears to be true based on this screen cap and dialogue. By watching the trailer, the plot was headed towards a disastrous ending the entire time, so it was both continuous and involuntary to have this type of tragic, yet predictable, closure. This still is representative of nearly the entire movie, and I think that shows a successful attempt at closure.
McCloud, S. (1994). The vocabulary of comics. Understanding comics: The invisible art. New York: Harper Perennial. [pdf]
In this clip, the male lead Prince Eric clearly looks grim, while Grimsby is on a completely different emotional level. There’s a huge contrast between the two of them, and this still in particular is a good example of juxtaposition. There are two different ideas going on here, which is shown in both their expressions and the way they are standing next to each other. One is upbeat, looks optimistic, and outgoing. The entire way Grimsby is standing and the quaint smile on his face shows a positive outlook, as opposed to Eric’s, which is glum and shows a sign of sadness. This is exactly what juxtaposition is all about; contrast between two different genres, ideas, and images. Tryon, in regard to videos like this, explains that "these videos allow users to find a new language informed by popular culture with which they can comment on current events," (Tryon 173). Using this particular example of juxtaposition, the contrast of Eric and Grimsby's emotions is like searching for that new language, while also containing a form of popular culture (The Titanic phenomenon) in the background. By putting this clip into the trailer, the viewers are able to have insight on how Eric is truly feeling and what others around him are opposing.
Tryon, C. (2009). from Reinventing cinema: Movies in the age of digital convergence. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. pp. 161 – 173. [PDF]
This still shows a great amount of distress from the creatures in Ursula’s lair, who once were either people or mermaids. The most important part about this section of the trailer is the soundtrack. The creator of the mashup trailer decided to incorporate the movie Titanic in, and both the score from the movie and dialogue are both used here. This creates both an intense and frightening look into how these creatures are struggling. The music and dialogue chosen are from a scene when the ship is sinking, and some passengers are listening to a preacher read from the bible one last time. This adds such a huge amount of tension, while the orchestra music builds in the background. As the music gets louder, the trailer gets more and more stressful and overwhelming. Kevin Kelly states that "as moving images become easier to create, easier to store, easier to annotate and easier to combine into complex narratives, they also become easier to be remanipulated by the audience," (Kelly 1). This whole trailer was remanipulated, and putting in the music from Titanic truly added to the 'complex narrative' that Kelly mentions, because the soundtrack continuously builds up. Choosing to add in these sounds provided a great soundtrack for the overall feeling of the trailer, which is somber.
Kelly, Kevin. (2008, November 21). Becoming screen literate. The New York Times. [Printable version.]
"The Little Mermaid"
Remix Analysis
Hope Oberwanowicz / 23 Sept 2014
Reflection
The Remix
The Original
"Titanic Trailer (Little Mermaid Mash-Up"
"The Little Mermaid" trailer, 1989
" http://youtu.be/Oz0H4UHd2J4"
" http://youtu.be/NSKbbDsWX2k"
Feb 22, 2013
Made by: Missilere
Directors:
Ron Clements
John Musker