A Monster Calls by Irene, Ainoa, Andrea C. & Sergio B.

A Monster Calls

Ainoa, Andrea, Irene and Sergio

Table of Contents

Introduction

3

The film

4

Film, director and cast

4

Synopsis

6

Story

6

Structure

6

Point of view

7

Tone

7

Setting

8

Sound

8

Genre

8

Characters

9

Connor

9

Lizzie Clayton, mother.

10

Grandmother

11

Monster

12

Poster

14

Trailer

15

Dialogue

15

Conclusion

16

Bibliography

17

1.Introduction In this project we are going to talk about cinema. We chose the film “A monster calls” because for all of us is a great movie with a beautiful message and an emotive story. In this project we are going to analyse the poster, the trailer, the characters and the resources of the film. At the end of the project we are going to represent a scene of the film and write a new dialogue.

2.The film Film, director and cast A monster calls is a film based on the novel “A monster calls” by Patrick Ness.

Patrick is an american writer and journalist, his literary genres are youthful and children, he has a lot of awards, among them “Booktrust Teenage Prize” in 2008, “Costa Book Award” in 2009 and “Arthur C. clarke award” in 2011

The film was directed by Juan Antonio Bayona a spanish director, his most populars films are “​The orphanage​” “​A monster calls​” and “​The impossible​”. He has one Goya award for “A monster calls”, ​ ​one for “The impossible” and other three awards for the best director.

The cast of the film is:

● Lewis McDougall is Connor O'Malley ● Felicity Jones​ is Elizabeth Clayton ● Toby Kebbell​ is Liam O'Malley ● Sigourney Weaver​ as Mrs. Clayton ● Liam Neeson​ is the "Monster" (Voice)

The official language of the film is English, it was filmed in Spain and England, the producers are Focus Features, Universal Pictures and Summit entertainment, the film lasts around 148 the premiere date was 7 October 2016 (in Spain), the film collected​ ​46 530 613$.

Synopsis A. Story The theme of this film is to accept the reality and face your concerns, even if it is hard and painful. It is a drama film. The protagonist is a boy called Connor, whose mother is ill with cancer. His parents are divorced and his father lives far. He hates his controlling and strict grandmother and he has to live with her when his mother is in the hospital. Connor has to face the boys of his school that bully him and he is always alone. Her mother is getting worse. The monster from his imagination appears every day and he tells Connor three stories with a moral related to his family and his situation. He requests Connor that he tells him his truth, but he can’t do it because he feels guilty. During the film, Connor will learn to face up his problems and conscience.

B. Structure ​In this movie, the story proceeds chronologically, without flashbacks. The film talks

about an only story. The high point of the story is in the last minutes. There are a tension and dramatic moment before the film ends. The tension is between situations and characters.At the end of the story, unexpected secrets are discovered and the film takes other point of view. The end of this movie is a closed end, it has a clear end.

C. Point of view The film begins with the monster introducing the story, but in the rest of the film there is an extern narrator that doesn’t participate in the story. The narrator is in third person and is very objective. There is one perspective in the story.

We think the narrator doesn’t disclose anything about himself we didn’t know because he doesn’t appear so much and he doesn’t give much information about himself. We think there isn’t any authorial voice.

We can only see Connor’s interior life. For the rest of the characters, we rely on their actions and dialogues to understand them. There is a voice over at the beginning, but the rest of the film we have to understand the story through the characters’ actions and dialogues. We think the point of view allows the spectator interpretation, because it is objective.

D. Tone We think there isn’t any humour because it is a very serious theme and it’s a drama film.

The characters come across us through their actions and their dialogues.

The mother is the victim, she is ill and weak. She reveals her attitude through her aspect, her soft voice and her fineness.

The monster is the boy’s supporter, he is strong and brave. He reveals his attitude through his actions and his stories.

The grandmother is very strict and serious but ultimately she is very nice and loving.

We like so much the evolution of this character and her relationship with Connor during the film.

The boy is very reserved and distrustful. He lives a hard period of his life, so he is sad and melancholic. We know his feelings through his actions and imagination.

We don’t like the father because the boy thinks he is a cool father and he loves him and actually the father left his family and he doesn’t care his son. He is egoist.

We think there aren't any ironies, because it is a serious theme, but there is metaphors and morals in the stories of the monster, surprise in the end of the film with the boy’s feelings.

E. Setting The film is in England, we think that it happens currently, all the scenes have a sad atmosphere, for example the sky is always cloudy and the scenes inside, the house, the hospital have got little light.

F. Sound The sound in the film creates a sad atmosphere, to call our attention and provoke us sad feelings. The characters’ voices sound normal but, the monster´s voice is special because it is very grave.

G. Genre This film is a drama for the way it tells the story and we perceive it.

Characters Connor My favourite character is Connor, this character is ​interpreted by Lewis McDougall. Connor is the protagonist of the film, he is 13 years old and he has a difficult and hard life because he has a lot of problems...but I like this character because I think that he is very strong to confront his problems, this character is round because he has a complex personality.

We can learn with this character a lot of things, for example to get over all the problems.

I think to at the director tries to transmit through the child, how we feel when a dear person dies.

Lizzie Clayton, mother.

She is a young woman that suffers from cancer.

She has a serene

personality. Lizzie is a sweet, nice person. In the movie, she never wants to preocupate his family with her sickness, but it is impossible.

Her character is realist, very consistent and with a lot of credibility.

At the beginning of the movie, she has a positive attitude but at the end, her sickness changes her, in a bad way.

Along the movie she suffers a change of attitude that creates a more interesting, sad ​ambient, obviously.

Lizzie is a fundamental character, because she gives a dramatic effect to the movie, apart from Connor.

Grandmother I am going to describe the main character’s grandmother, she is a 50 year-old woman, interpreted by the actress “Sigourney Weaver”.

In the film she is presented as the typical grandma in the 70s, she is strict and with a very bad temper, apart from this she usually goes well dressed, with a sweater or a dress. In this film it doesn't exist any antagonist, but if it existed she would be the antagonist because ​at ​the beginning of the movie her relationship with the child was bad.

Through this character you can learn that she is suffering a lot because her daughter is going to die but she can't show this feeling because she needs to be strong to look after her grandchild.

In the movie you can see that this character is very strong because she has to be with her daughter in the hospital and look after the child and she doesn't cry , this is something that only a strong woman can do. I think that this character represents all the things that are necessary that a mother does for her son/daughter and support him until the end.

I think that his character describes herself as the person that commands the rest of the people and she is always right but apart from this I think that she is a good person, I think that all this is important because this is the reason why people think that character is bad. This character does many good and bad actions, but I think that she is not conscious of that because she thinks that everything she does is right and this is not true.

Monster The monster’s behaviour is very special, because he has an abrupt aspect and voice but he is the supporter of the boy and his conscience. He helps the boy to face his problems. In his gestures, he always extends his hand to the boy. We think he feels sympathy towards Connor.

The monster is little lit, but sometimes he is lit and he is like a brightness in the night.

The monster is a big tree. Only the boy has a relationship with the monster because he is a product of his imagination. The mother also imagined and draw the monster when she was younger and she transmitted it to her son.

But the monster influences all the characters because he influences the boy’s behaviour and the story develops around him.

Physically he is a normal tree next to an old church near the boy’s house, but he is animated in the boy’s imagination. He always appears at a determined hour of the day and when the boy calls him.

We learn about the character through his actions. He impulses the boy to tell him the truth, to be more brave and to face his problems. The actions are very impulsive and aggressive and he destroys many things to unleash his rage. Through what he says, we can know his personality, he tells Connor three stories that are related to a person in Connor’s life. The stories teach a moral that Connor applies to his real life. The visual clues help us relate the monster to the boy and his mother, but his aspect doesn’t coincide with his personality.

The monster expresses his ideas by the stories he tells. I think the most important in the monster is what it represents and what he says.

The actions that bring out important traits of the character are the advices he gives to Connor to take decisions, like through the stories.

I think the monster represents an idea: the courage. He gives Connor a different way to see his problems, to accept the reality and he also represents his nightmares and scares.

The monster is described as brave and strong. Physically, he is a tree monster. I think his aspect doesn’t coincide with his personality, because he is a monster but he is a good one and he helps Connor. I think it is important because in this movie the monster is the hero.

3.Poster In the poster we can see the main characters, the child and the monster. The child is sleeping under the tree and it represents one of the most important scenes of the film, it’s the most tense moment. Also we can see the relationship between the boy and the monster. In the foreground there is a boy and the tree roots at the bottom and the monster’s hand is at the top. In the background there is an old cemetery, we think this cemetery represents the death and the illness, the sky is cloudy and is a sunset, that represents a new life.

The tree has this form to help frame the title in the middle of the poster, the name of the actors are above the title and the slogan is under it the credits of the film are at the bottom of the poster.

The poster has muted colors that express sad feelings and nature connection.

4.Trailer We think the trailer has these scenes because they are the most important and summarize all the film, the pace is irregular because there are slow scenes and fast scenes and it's this way to give more emphasis when you see the trailer. The pace and the trailer’s scenes help us understand that the its style is intense and dramatic.

The film has sad and inquietant music and there is a narrator with the monster’s voice. All the resources are to attract the attention and the curiosity of the public and to convince them to go and see the film.

5.Dialogue Andrea - Narrator Irene - Child Ainoa - Mum Sergio - Monster tree

Andrea: We are going to represent a scene of the film. At the beginning the child and the mum are in hospital. The mum is going to die because she has a cancer and they want to stay together in her last hours.

Irene: Hello mum.

Ainoa: Hello Connor…

Irene: How are you?

Ainoa: I am not very well but there is always hope.

Irene: Soon, we will be back home.

Ainoa: Ouch Connor… I wish I had a hundred years, a hundred years I could give to you.

Andrea: Connor is very sad, because he thinks that his mother is going to die, he talks with the monster in the hospital garden…

Irene: Help me! My mother is going to die.

Sergio: I can’t do anything Connor.

Irene: What will happen now? I think everything is going to finish very badly.

Sergio: You do not write your life with words... You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do.

Irene: I don’t understand what you mean.

Sergio: You will understand…

Andrea: Connor helps her mother every day while she is in hospital, thanks to Connor’s help and love and the new medicament this story has a different end…

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JyzAqH1_SVM2VTJUltXpy-9WjwT1WjNt/view?usp=sharing_ eil&ts=5b129ef7

6.Conclusion

In this project we learned a lot of things, for example how to analyse movies and look at more details in the films: music, sound, setting, actor’s voices… For us this project is one of the most interesting that we did because we like cinema and it is present in our lives. The project was very inspirational and we used a lot our imagination. Our favourite part was to record the dialogue because it was very funny and different.

7.Bibliography ●

Bruno Mars (Music) ‘​THE LAZY SONG’ ​<​https://youtu.be/fLexgOxsZu0​> [15/04/2011]

● Imbd “​ A MONSTER CALLS” < ​ ​https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3416532/​> [03/05/2018] ● Imbd “​ FELICITY JONES”​ <​https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0428065/​> [03/05/2018] ● Imbd “​ LEWIS MACDOUGALL”​ < ​ h ​ ttps://www.imdb.com/name/nm6484968/​> [03/05/2018] ● Imbd “​ LIAM NEESON”​ < ​ h ​ ttps://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000553/​> ● Imbd “​ SIGOURNEY WEAVER” < ​ ​https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000244/​> [03/05/2018] ● Lago, Loly “​MOVIE CUOTES” ​Virtual Classroom <​https://bit.ly/2LdFCYo​> [02/06/2018] ● Lago, Loly “​PROJECT ON MOVIES” ​Virtual Classroom <​https://bit.ly/2Hds90e​> [02/06/2018] ● Lago, Loly “​WORKING AS A SCRIPT WRITER. GROUP WORK” ​Virtual Classroom <​https://bit.ly/2LbGUTq​> [02/06/2018] ● Lago, Loly “​WORKING AS A SCRIPT WRITER. INDIVIDUAL WORK”, Virtual Classroom <​https://bit.ly/2sppqfw​> [02/06/2018] ● Wikipedia “​A MONSTER CALLS” <​https://bit.ly/2srenCB​> [​ 02/06/2018] ● Wikipedia “​JUAN ANTONIO BAYONA” <​https://bit.ly/2J31dGh​> [02/06/2018] ● Yiruma(Music) ‘​RIVERS FLOWS IN YOU’ ​<h ​ ttps://youtu.be/7maJOI3QMu0​> [9/08/2012]