The Use Of Modernized Techniques In The Great Escape And Chicken Run

A composer manipulates a story into an impactful film for the ages by modernizing and appropriating it, making it appealing to their target audience and thus transforming it into something new. John Sturges’ 1963 film The Great Escape depicts in a modernized fashion the experience of POW’s based on true events during WWII to commemorate these lost heroes. Whilst Nick Park and Peter Lord’s 2000 release comedy-drama animation Chicken Run appropriates from The Great Escape’s events to educate young audiences. Within these texts, the composers appeal their work to a younger audience, creating something new.

The film uses effective and modernized techniques to engage viewers. Audiences remain engaged in that The Great Escape keeps close to original events, despite that it is a heavily altered version of the true events in order to appeal to. In the opening scene you see a low-angle shot of a gun tower with a guard tapping on his gun, this shows that they have more authority and that they are more superior and aren’t afraid to shoot you. In Germany they had uniforms with many traditional features Germany’s army uniforms were a field grey cloth, marching boots and had a swastika to show that they were representing Hitler and that he was their leader, other countries wore different colors depending on whom they supported or the history behind the country. The director of The Great Escape keeps close to the original event as they got many factors of the story right including the uniform colors and the actions they did such as the way they talked and how they watched the prisoners. Appropriations can be used positively or negatively depending on the way it is displayed.

Chicken Run is a more positive film and has a better out outcome than The Great Escape, Nick Park and Peter Lord made Chicken Run a more family-friendly film by not having any deaths in it and making the protagonist win which appeals more to younger children, as in The Great Escape they had an equal outcome with some people escaping and some people losing their lives. Mr. Tweedy and the dogs in Chicken Run were portrayed as the bad guys who were always watching the chicken making sure that they weren't trying to escape just like the guards did in The Great Escape who were always watching. The dogs and Mr. Tweedy would walk around at night making sure all the chickens were asleep, every time that a chicken would try to escape and didn't get back into the coop Mr. Tweedy would put them in Confinement to isolate them from the other chickens. Chicken Run successfully and positively appropriates The Great Escape making it more presentable to a younger audience. The experiences people have can make stories to express how they feel.

During WWII many people had bad experiences and won’t forget them especially the people that were in The Great Escape, John Sturges wanted to let people know what was going on during WWII so he made that movie to help teach them about the history and what really happened during The Great Escape. The escape attempts were extremely dangerous and a lot of people died when they tried to escape showing how hard it was to escape and how imprisoned they were to a point where they would be killed. Hilts tried to escape multiple times never succeeding, the last time he tried he was being chased by hundreds of Germans while riding on a motorbike and he went on a dirt patch to try to go over the border wire which didn’t work and got shot. The experiences people had in WWII during The Great Escape made a great story which may have changed the way some people look at WWII or The Great Escape. Appropriations can teach younger children a lot as they are more engaged. Chicken run teaches a younger audience about The Great Escape making it more engaging so they are interested and learn about history easier without knowing it.

The escapes in The Great Escape and Chicken Run are very similar to the camera angles and the attempts being almost the same, one of those scenes is a bike scene when Rocky comes back to the chicken coop and jumps over a dirt patch to save Ginger and all of her friends from being eaten in a chicken pie, in The Great Escape Hilts does the same when trying to escape to get away from the guards he drives around on his motorbike and jumps over a fence using a dirt patch but ends up getting stuck in barb wires. In Chicken Run younger children learn a lot about how being kept in a place where they don’t want to stay and how that isn’t right and people should never be kept where they don’t want to be. Therefore, it can be seen that within the films The Great Escape and Chicken Run, a modernized and appropriated approach to audiences are made. This is showcased from how they use modernized techniques to engage their audience, how both positive and negative appropriations are presented; as well as how the experiences of the POW’s are reflected through the stories told by film, and how the appropriations can teach the youth of these experiences by engaging them. This, through the combination of these creates something new.