DAILY NEWS ONLINE


OTHER EDITIONS

Budusarana On-line Edition
Silumina  on-line Edition
Sunday Observer

OTHER LINKS

Marriage Proposals
Classified Ads
Government - Gazette
Tsunami Focus Point - Tsunami information at One PointMihintalava - The Birthplace of Sri Lankan Buddhist Civilization
 

Films for children: Some viewpoints

[Second Thoughts] A SEMINAR for the creation of local films for children was held recently in Colombo. This columnist had the chance to be an observer. These are some of the views held by the participants.

"I cannot understand why the veteran film makers are more and more interested in making films for adults and films with a tag 'more suitable for adults only' and undermine the fact that there are children who are interested in seeing themselves portrayed from various points of view like their adventures, investigations, aspirations and innovations," is the view held by a certain primary school teacher of a rural school, who came all the way to Colombo to participate in the seminar organised to discuss matters relating to the making of good children's films.

She added 'Please don't misunderstand me as we have been given the chance to take some of our school children to see some local films which are labelled as suitable for children, but to be honest some of us teachers were put to shame by what we saw on the screen when we accompanied them to cinema halls.

"Undoubtedly, there were children acting in most of these films, but they were not in reality films meant for children."

This viewpoint gave way to many more diverse ideas pertaining to the making of films for children. First of all many participants wanted a clear cut definition as to what a children's film means.

A veteran filmmaker aired his views saying "there is no such clear cut definition of what a children's film is, but I am sure there are certain guidelines laid down in terms of visuals.

"A film may consist of adult actors and adult experiences but ultimately it should centre round an ideology suited for a child, enabling the child to know his surroundings imaginatively and sensitively.

But the care has to be taken to make the visuals look more suitable for children and not strictly to the adults.

"This is indeed a difficult task and could overcome with the study of examples like 'some birds can't fly' where there were two central characters where one is a child and the other is an adult, a grandfather and the story setting is the very nature with animals and birds which the child loves."

This point of view gave way to many more resourceful discussions like the creative communication forms for children where factors like parental love, family patterns, the affection towards animals and inculcating aspects of loving kindness, and changing aspects of life. Quite a number of examples were cited from the books written for children over the years.

The educationists of the world have given way for children's books as an important classification as a clear demarcation from the works meant for adults. But this classification is subject to change in keeping with other changes in the social order.

The well known writers who have written books for adults also have contributed in many ways to the moulding of a children's literature.

Names of such writers as Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoi, Maxim Gorky, Oscar Wilde, Rabindranath Tagore and Rudyard Kipling were cited as examples.

Down the centuries the patterns of writing for children have changed and the appearance of works by Blyton's (famous five and secret Seven) and Rawlings (of Harry Potter fame) have dominated the scene.

Numbers of genres have appeared in the form of fantasies and romances with superhuman elements fused giving way to mere make belief planes resulting in Supermen and Incredible Hulks.

The writers cited above created their works not for a particular cultural milieu of the Orient and the Occident but transcended the barriers by elevating the creative thinking from parochial limits of culture. Most films made for children have been based over the years on the works of some of these writers.

It was also observed that the literature that is deemed as suitable for children, like the age old fairy tales and adventure stories, had not been rediscovered by filmmakers as suitable cinematic creative source material for contemporary children living in many parts of the world.

This was due to the grave misunderstanding on the part of the filmmakers who believe that literature is one thing and the film making is yet another.

Some participants disagreed commenting that quite a number of children's films have been made on such tales like Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood.

The consensus of opinion was that these fairytales have not been proved as good visual material, instead as good storylines which may have kindled a certain degree of interest in a make believe world.

This difference of opinion was a healthy starting point of discussion as to the direction of the creative process of the modern day children's film. True enough, they are two media forms where one is inspired and influenced by the other.

A writer of a good screen play though changes his creative thinking from that of a mere story teller is still seen as a creator of another genre in terms of visuals, which is nothing but a literary work that goes as the basis for a good film 'Walt Disney tried his best to overcome this barrier through his works both in the literary form writing stories and retelling old stories and transforming them into the cinematic forms, like animation and realism', said another film maker who also analysed further that 'The local film maker of children's films could gain resourceful inspiration from creative literary writers and film makers like Disney and perhaps go beyond Disney with the new creative communication means and the technology tapping our own folklore sources'.

At this point several examples of children's films made in such countries as Japan, China, Russia and Czechoslovakia were given in order to show that each country has its own creative identity in children's films.

A sociologist pointed out that the films meant for children branded as 'children' s films' should not be mere fantasies and a world of illusion as they are popularly perceived, for that will hinder the child from growing up and thinking of certain contemporary global issues like poverty, exploitation, cross cultural understandings, human rights and modern technology etc.

'We need creative screen writers for children's films , where we could support financially', commented the representative from the State Film Corporation.

FEEDBACK | PRINT

 

| News | Editorial | Business | Features | Political | Security | Sports | World | Letters | Obituaries |

 

Produced by Lake House Copyright © 2003 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.

Comments and suggestions to : Web Manager