PJ, Tiny Planet Explorer is a short film by PJ Liguori about a boy who decides to travel to new planets. The film is light-hearted in tone and very low-budget, often used for comical effect - for example the "space" scene which is the actor in front of a black wall adorned with small lights. The mildly surreal humour coupled with the settings and locations of the film can be linked easily to British identity - the film is very much centred around student life and youth and the style of humour is something often associated with British tastes. The short film is focused around a particular camera trick, shown above, which makes the ground curve into a circle - using this the film explores the idea of "visiting planets" and the characters adventures on them.
The narrative is told linearly through the main character's monologue, speaking to the audience about his travels, over a series of montages. During the opening sequence we are shown a monologue of his "preparations" for the journey, such as cancelling his bank account and ordering pizza, the passage of time shown through slowly panning shots and the crossfading of visuals and audio - the two aspects overlap each other to show the events as being close together and spontaneous. We are also shown a montage of still shots showing what he brings with him - as each object appears on screen he briefly describes it. In keeping with the film's tone, the objects are kept silly or with unusual descriptions - for example, the ocarina, or the diary for "keeping girl crushes". The final object, the "rucksack jetpack", is also emphasised with titles that appear synchronous to the narrator, possibly to emphasise the ridiculousness of the description and to lend the object importance for later in the film. Once on the "planets", the film montages again, this time between each location, to show the character travelling and exploring each location. Over the course of this montage, however, the character appears to become increasingly lost and desperate, less exploring and acting more frantically, until the narrator finally declares himself lost and "without fuel", at which point the film ends. The films story plays on the ideas of imagination and creativity,
The music in this film is one continuous score, so as to connect the scenes of the montages as one complete narrative event and not several separate ones.The only sounds are from the score and the speech of the main character, either through narration or diegetically. Titles in the film all follow a similar style. Any main titles, such as the film's title and the credits, are over black, but made to look as if they are being played over old film reels. The title that appears when describing the backpack is the same font as the other titles of the film, however appears over the picture in white font and without any effects. The production of the film adds to the light-hearted nature of the film - camera shots are static or very slow moving, lighting is natural and colourful, and editing is done minimally to focus on the video. The only visual effects in the film are during the object descriptions when a film filter is applied, possibly to seperate that particular sequence from the rest of events as a non-diegetic sequence.
This film was produced for Virgin Media's Short Film awards and as such was most likely made with the intention of winning an award. As such, the film would also have to be entertaining. Due to the length only being 2 minutes the film would have to be simple and easy to understand, and as such not much more could be done. Finally, the film experiments with effects, using the concave viewpoint as a "planet" to further the narrative.
The narrative is told linearly through the main character's monologue, speaking to the audience about his travels, over a series of montages. During the opening sequence we are shown a monologue of his "preparations" for the journey, such as cancelling his bank account and ordering pizza, the passage of time shown through slowly panning shots and the crossfading of visuals and audio - the two aspects overlap each other to show the events as being close together and spontaneous. We are also shown a montage of still shots showing what he brings with him - as each object appears on screen he briefly describes it. In keeping with the film's tone, the objects are kept silly or with unusual descriptions - for example, the ocarina, or the diary for "keeping girl crushes". The final object, the "rucksack jetpack", is also emphasised with titles that appear synchronous to the narrator, possibly to emphasise the ridiculousness of the description and to lend the object importance for later in the film. Once on the "planets", the film montages again, this time between each location, to show the character travelling and exploring each location. Over the course of this montage, however, the character appears to become increasingly lost and desperate, less exploring and acting more frantically, until the narrator finally declares himself lost and "without fuel", at which point the film ends. The films story plays on the ideas of imagination and creativity,
The music in this film is one continuous score, so as to connect the scenes of the montages as one complete narrative event and not several separate ones.The only sounds are from the score and the speech of the main character, either through narration or diegetically. Titles in the film all follow a similar style. Any main titles, such as the film's title and the credits, are over black, but made to look as if they are being played over old film reels. The title that appears when describing the backpack is the same font as the other titles of the film, however appears over the picture in white font and without any effects. The production of the film adds to the light-hearted nature of the film - camera shots are static or very slow moving, lighting is natural and colourful, and editing is done minimally to focus on the video. The only visual effects in the film are during the object descriptions when a film filter is applied, possibly to seperate that particular sequence from the rest of events as a non-diegetic sequence.
This film was produced for Virgin Media's Short Film awards and as such was most likely made with the intention of winning an award. As such, the film would also have to be entertaining. Due to the length only being 2 minutes the film would have to be simple and easy to understand, and as such not much more could be done. Finally, the film experiments with effects, using the concave viewpoint as a "planet" to further the narrative.
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