MCC Screens in Bend, Oregon this Saturday

~March 20th, Bend, Oregon USA - Mad City Chickens Public Screening presented by Celebrate the Seasons: Your Backyard Farm Center - Doors open 5:30pm Second Street Theater.

"Chickens" in Storey Publishing Film Fest Today

Mad City Chickens screens today at the Farm Film Feast in Williamstown, MA. Sponsored by Storey Publishing, it plays at 11:30 am at Images Cinema. Admission $5.

Mad City Chickens Screens Tonight in Calgary!

Mad City Chickens screens tonight in Calgary as part of the efforts by CLUCK: Calgary Liberated Urban Chicken Klub to get the city's ordinances updated to allow for backyard poultry. Come to the viewing and see live baby chicks. Now you can't beat that!

7:00 pm at the Plaza Theatre, 1133 Kensington Road NW in Calgary.

Mad City Chickens Returns to Baraboo Today!

Our Mad City Chickens documentary plays in Baraboo, Wisconsin today at the UW's Campus Theatre. The screening, sponsored by the Wisconsin Humanities Council, is part of a larger event called Wisconsin: Making It Home. The focus is to get folks thinking about their food supply and to consider the idea of keeping chickens in the backyard.

There will be a post-film discussion with the audience lead by two teenage girls, Maia and Lydia. They are the two who spearheaded the movement last year in Baraboo to make backyard chickens legal. Their efforts were successful!

See the previous posts on Maia and Lydia's efforts in Baraboo:

5.29.09 Baraboo Screening a Success: Girls Moving City Closer to Allowing Chickens
6.04.09 Baraboo Girls Stand Up to City Council in Support of Chickens
7.15.09 Chickens Come Home to Roost in Baraboo

Closing Credits: Emperor vs. Enchanted - Part II

In regards to closing credits sequence, Enchanted. excelled where Emperor's New Groove failed--in both the visual animations (Emperor really had none) and in the choice of music.

After the climax of Enchanted where Giselle (Amy Adams) has rescued her true love, Robert (Patrick Dempsey), from the clutches of the evil Queen Narissa (in dragon form), the final shot is of Giselle, Robert and his young daughter Morgan in their NYC apartment dancing together, having fun and living happily ever after--a fairytale ending.

Image courtesy Walt Disney Pictures via IMDB

To maintain this happily ever after flavor, an amazing visual sequence was created by yU+co, a three-time Emmy nominated creative design studio. The film ends with the closing of a (fairytale) book, and with a quick zoom in on the cover, the yU+co animated sequence kicks in. We see a swimming mermaid, a Cinderella carriage, a Thumbelina fairy and other recognizable fairytale imagery. All of the animations are in silhouette with colorful backgrounds, reminiscent of the superb work once done with cut-out figures by filmmaker Lotte Reiniger.

 

All images copyright Walt Disney Pictures

Accompanying the the silhouette animations is a musical reprise medley of all the songs that appeared in the film. This insures the same emotional ambiance that the audience would have felt at the end of the story and thus prolongs the time they will bask in the glow of the fairytale ending. A well thought out and artistically executed closing credit sequence on all levels.

View the animated sequence on the yU+co site...without the original Disney copyrighted music. (Click on work, film, title, and then enchanted.)

See a 2008 millimeter write up on Enchanted closing sequence and it's creators.

Closing Credits: Emperor vs. Enchanted - Part I

Let's compare the closing credits of two films from Walt Disney Pictures. The Emperor's New Groove (2000) and Enchanted (2007). Both have a solid story with well executed acting and good editing. Both go for the "wow them in the end" finale as well, but only one continues that feeling into the end credits.

In Emperor's New Groove, the movie ends on a high note with a humorous scene featuring Kronk, the lovable comedic relief character teaching a group of scouts (and Yzma, the villain who's been turned into a cat) how to speak "squirrel".

Image courtesy Walt Disney Pictures via IMDB

The scene gets a laugh and ends well, but this feeling quickly dissipates as the end credits appear accompanied by a most subdued musical number performed by Sting. We've seen the film a dozen times, but only once have we sat through the entire end credits, and that was because we had to for research for this blog post.

We think Sting and his music is world class, and so must Disney because they hired him to create the soundtrack for this film. The song in question, My Funny Friend and Me, was even nominated for an Academy Award. But the making of The Emperor's New Groove was not without its troubles. Director Roger Allers (The Lion King) quit the film half way through, and the story was completely rewritten with new director Mark Dindal in charge. Sting's songs, related to specific scenes that were now gone, all had to be dropped--except one. It seems to us that My Funny Friend and Me might have been created for a possible montage scene in the story. Instead, it was thrown over the credit roll. It unfortunately fails to maintain the jovial feeling created in Kronk's last scene and thus sends the audience from their seats to the exits sooner than it should have.

This is an example of how corporate dictates interfered with artistic ones, and as a result the closing credits leave you feeling flat and uninterested.

Tomorrow, we'll examine how the creators of Enchanted did things a bit differently.

Closing Credits Examination

In the 2002 film, Adaptation, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (played by Nicolas Cage) is struggling with his script, so he attends a writing seminar taught by well-known script master Robert McKee (Brian Cox).

 McKee to Kaufman:

I'll tell you a secret. The last act makes a film. Wow them in the end, and you got a hit. You can have flaws, problems, but wow them in the end, and you've got a hit. Find an ending, but don't cheat, and don't you dare bring in a deus ex machina. Your characters must change, and the change must come from them. Do that, and you'll be fine.

McKee is talking about the climax of the film. And he's right. But as a filmmaker, creating a solid story that ends strong involves not just creative writing, but proper casting and direction of actors, working with a knowledgeable crew and wardrobe and set design and a skilled editor...and on and on. All aspects of the film must come into some sort of collaborative synergy.

This includes the title sequence and closing credits. Closing credits? Good end credits obviously can't save a bad film. However, a well-made film with a solid story can certainly be enhanced with creative closing credits. They will extend the tone and mood of the film's finale and keep the audience basking in a feeling of satisfaction and completion from the story.

We're starting this new series of blog posts that will take a closer look at cinematic closing credits and how certain films are able to continue the "wow" through to the very end.

How is this done? In a variety of creative ways, from dynamic visuals and interesting story lines to humorous outtakes. But above all, appropriately chosen music is key--music that, again, extends the tone and mood of the film's finale. When people leave the theater, the closing credits should seal the emotional connection the audience had to the story, not disrupt it.

The Rules

Independent filmmaker Rule #1 - Make films! Don't just dream about it, do it.

Independent Filmmaker Rule #2 - Study films! See how others do it, what works, what doesn't.

Independent Filmmaker Rule #3 - There are no rules! So ignore the naysayers who claim you have to do it this way or that.