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Pirate Story, Jake T. Powell

Honors Capstone Projects - All

What is children’s cinema? This thesis explores this question by identifying three codes of children’s film and illuminating them through a short film entitled “Pirate Story.” The film is about a boy and his grandfather, and the pirates that inhabit a bedtime story. The pirates compete with the grandfather to have narrative authority over their own existence. This film examines the role of the narrator, use of animation, and absence of the parental figures as elements that are signifiers of children’s cinema. It was shot on HD video, with animation created in After Effects. Production also involved creation of a …