Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

provided by

This clip shows Lauren (Jasmine Ellis) being woken up by the puppet 'nelf’ called Tina, who wants to help her sort out her life. Lauren resists. As they argue, Lauren is reminded of Horace, another nelf, and races downstairs to find him eating a string of sausages. A tug of war ensues as Lauren attempts to retrieve the sausages. Upstairs, her new stepbrother, Max (Jordan White), complains to his father (Matthew Parkinson) that Lauren is 'weird’. After encouraging his son to try harder to be nice to her, he and Max find an embarrassed Lauren entangled in the sausages.

Educational value points

• This clip is from the second episode of an imaginative 26-part children’s television series, Horace and Tina, that integrates animatronic creatures with live action to produce family-oriented comedy and fantasy. The fantasy element of the narrative centres on two animatronic 'puppets’ in the shape of uncontrollable 'nelfs’ – elf-like creatures, who, according to this story, are hundreds of years old and have escaped from Santa’s team.

• The humour in this clip is mainly driven by the generally unsuccessful efforts of Lauren, a 13-year-old girl from Canada, to maintain normality in front of her stepbrother and stepfather in her new Australian home, while at the same time trying to manage two unruly nelfs, who are invisible to everyone except her and the audience. Her embarrassed explanation for being on the floor with sausages round her head in this clip is an example of one such failed attempt.

• The clip provides a good example of exposition, a technique used by scriptwriters to provide information about characters or prior events within a conversation. Exposition is used with caution by writers as it can slow down a scene and hold up the action of the story. In this case Tina outlines Lauren’s problems in order to emphasise why Lauren needs Tina’s help.

• Music is an important component of the clip, adding to the humour and drama of the various scenes. A light and jaunty music track continues throughout the clip with the addition of discordant elements and an increase of tempo to support shifts in plot. At one point the music is interrupted by a short burst of dramatic-sounding violins as we see Lauren’s horrified face when reminded of the other nelf, Horace. A faster beat is then added to the music to accompany Lauren’s anxious search.

• The nelfs are 'animatronic’ puppets that are constructed and controlled electronically. Lee Adams pioneered animatronics when he created the giant squid for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). Remotely controlled or pre-programmed, the lifelike movements of animatronic puppets are achieved through techniques such as combining hydraulic systems for large movements, such as limbs, with pneumatic systems for more subtle movements, such as facial expressions.

• According to Australian Bureau of Statistics data for 2003, 4 per cent of families were stepfamilies – families with parents who have re-partnered following separation and that include at least one stepchild (0–17 years old) of either adult. Lauren’s family is one of these. A further 3 per cent were 'blended’ families – families that include both a stepchild and a natural-born child of both parents.

• This clip is from a series produced by Jonathan Shiff. Jonathan M Shiff Productions specialises in, and is acclaimed for creating, many children’s television series, such as Ocean Girl (1995); Thunderstone (1999); and Wicked Science (2003). Shiff started his career as a lawyer. After graduating as a director from the Swinburne Film and Television School, he established his film company in 1988.

• Composer Brett Rosenberg won an Australian Performing Rights Association (APRA) Screen Music Award (2001) and an APRA–Australian Guild of Screen Composer Award (2002) for Best Music for Children’s Television for this series. In 2006 Rosenberg also won the Best New Composer Award from the International Film Music Critics Association for his musical score for the romantic thriller Half Light (2006).