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Clip description
The opening titles introduce the Petals and their world, a ramshackle garden that they call home.
Curator’s notes
The opening titles set up the premise of the series as we are introduced to the Petals, their ideal world and the other creatures who live there too. These include the enormous Cicada and even bigger Jeffrey the cat. The scale of the tiny Petal characters means that they inhabit a land of huge flower pots, garden implements and a variety of other mysterious human-created objects.
With appeal to many young children’s fascination with imaginary and miniature fairy worlds, this play on concepts of size and space also encourages the audience to look at familiar objects in a new way. In this case most of the audience will recognise the boot and feel empowered by this knowledge as they watch the Petals try and understand what it may be.
Beautifully illustrated, this clip invites children to go on the journey of exploration through a garden finding surprising real and imaginary creatures. This connects with young girls where it is common to imagine beings at the bottom of a garden. The adventures experienced in Petals is a nice antidote to the high action, high energy shows geared more towards boys.
This sequence also demonstrates the rich soundtrack for the series which included a musical score created by multi-instrumentalist Justin McCoy who won the 1998 Australian Guild of Screen Composers award for Best Original Music for a Children’s Television Series for Petals.
