TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF AN EXISTING CHILDREN’S TV DRAMA TITLE

SEQUENCE

Wizards Vs. Aliens (CBBC/Fremantle Media)

by

Scott Cartwright

To begin, the title sequence opens with the shows logo, this obviously clarifies to the audience what the show is called.

Next we are presented with a graphics shot of the stars in a blue background,

we also get a graphic of the School in which the

two protagonist go to and where some of the series

situations happen.

Show runners are credited here, and put on an angle in order to fit in with the surroundings of the shot.

After, the shot zooms away from the school up towards a graphic of

the moon and the saturation/colour changes to a

more orange and black hue. The moon becomes grey to look more realistic. The association with the moon here is purely because the

antagonist of the series (The Nekross) hide on the Dark Side of

the Moon)

The shot then zooms away to show a silhouetted graphic of

the antagonist’s spaceship with an orange background

which can reflect the colour of the Nekross’s skin. (Which is

orange with segments of black)

Here the names of the actor and actress playing the antagonists are credited, also credited is the famous actor

Brian Blessed, who provides the voice for the main antagonist.

Here the names of the actors playing the two protagonists are credited, their names are actually curved to make it seem as

if they are moving across the moon.

We then go through a graphic of orange and black smoke (possibly flames, giving connotations that there’s war) It then reveals four silhouetted images of the four

protagonist characters that feature in almost every episode (The two protagonist teen boys, Tom and Benny, Tom’s Dad (Michael) and

Tom’s grandmother (Ursula)

Then special effects are used in the form of

teleport beams, which are actually used in the series itself by the antagonists.

So the audience will reckon this graphic after

watching the series.

Here the names of the actors playing the remaining protagonist are credited. They are formatted to be almost

italicised.

Finally, the teleporting effect moves the view quickly upwards to

repeat the opening shot of the sequence, once again establishing

what the show is called.

I think the colour of the fonts of ‘Wizards’ and ‘Aliens’ are

particularly interesting, the fiery orange of ‘Wizard’ connotes the magic they possess. Whilst the

metallic green of ‘Aliens’ connotes the coldness and also green

connotes a sly nature, referencing to the Antagonists perhaps?