Toy Story Opening Sequence Analysis

Toy Story is one of the most iconic children’s animation films of all time, setting a benchmark for all brilliant Children’s Animations.

Toy Story opens with a scene that establishes that this is a children's film from the opening shot. The wallpaper with fluffy clouds and crisp blue sky is classic of a happy, positive children's wallpaper. Followed by the tracking shot of the boxes constructed by a child’s hands, with rough crayon drawings it is clear that the film is not going to be aimed at the mature demographic of viewers. Further conventions displayed in the initial opening sequence are the Toys that Andy uses to recreate a scene from a western. He uses toys that do not properly represent the characters that would be in a western, he mixes Bo-Peep, Aliens, a Dog and a Dinosaur into the scene, truly representative of a child’s mind and the greyness in their mind of what is possible and what is not. Another characteristic of his Toys is Woody, Andy’s hero. It is typical of children to have a favourite toy and for the child to idolise this toy and a bond is created, that can be seen in the rest of the sequence, between Andy and Woody that is not evident between Andy and his other toys.

The second part of the opening sequence is credits with a theme song overlaid. This is typical of credits, and the song “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” is a happy song that also relates to the visual at the same time, highlighting Andy and Woody’s friendship.

However, from this we establish that the film is only a children's film. It isn’t until the end of the sequence that we find out the secret hiding from everyone in the story, other than the toys. After Andy leaves the room Woody gets up and starts talking and moving, as he does other toys begin to move and talk, and at this point we can clearly distinguish that this is a children's fantasy film.

My analysis is based around the first four minutes of this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5df-XAW3QE