Peter and the Wolf- Extra Credit

We talked at the very beginning on the animation segment how dumbed-down children’s media has become and how many of the styles are unoriginal. Sand Peter and the Wolf by Caroline Leaf is a story that has been told many times, but I’ve never seen it like this before. Not only was the medium original but the way she told the story through the motion of the sand and the metamorphosis of the characters was brilliant. Because they were made out of sand the characters could transform into pretty much anything. Also, it was completely in black in white. Everything was in silhouette form and Caroline played it off in a beautiful way. Anyone could watch this movie and understand what is going on. It may have been a little dark according to our modern society’s standards, but the story is classic and this was by far not too scary for children. I think exposing kids to different kinds of mediums and stories that don’t always have a happy ending are good things. Adults shield their children, and with good reason, but branching out and watching something besides Disney and Pixar is probably a healthy thing.

Caroline Leaf

Disney

Breakthru stop-motion

Sand Peter and the Wolf is a great example of something that a family could watch together. It’s not too frightening for children and it’s a little out of the box.  It makes your mind work a little harder to follow the story instead of the characters just coming out and singing about how they feel. And it’s these original ideas and mediums that inspire the great stories we see coming from companies like Pixar.