The original narrative of ‘Little red riding hood’

The original story of ‘Little red riding hood’ can be broken down as:• A little girl, wearing a red cape (symbolism for the blood of menstruation, braving the "dark forest" of womanhood.) is sent by

her mother to deliver food to her sick grandmother. Mother specifically warns her not to stop on the way.

• A wolf sees the girl walking through the woods and makes a plan to eat her. The wolf politely asks the girl where she is going. The girl answers him, because he seems friendly. The wolf tells the girl to pick some flowers for her grandmother. While she is picking flowers, the wolf goes to grandmother's house and eats her. He puts on the grandmother's night-cap and gets into her bed. When the girl goes into grandmother's house the wolf eats the girl too. A woodcutter (lumberjack) comes and cuts opens the wolf's body. He saves the grandmother and the girl who are still alive. Then, stones are put in the wolf's body to kill the wolf.

• In almost all versions of the narrative, the familiar dialogue between the wolf and girl is used:

Red Riding Hood says: "Oh Granny, what big eyes you've got!“ Wolf replies: "All the better to see you with, my dear!" Red Riding Hood says: "Oh Granny, what big ears you've got!" Wolf replies: "All the better to hear you with, my dear!" Red Riding Hood says: "Oh Granny, what big teeth you've got!" Wolf replies: "All the better to eat you with, my dear!“

My group have decided to base our short film on ‘Little red riding hood’. This is because we liked the symbolism used, for example –the colour red signifying the idea of puberty, we hope to incorporate this into our work, with the intention to give our film a deeper meaning. We also would like to include the traditional dialogue (as stated above) used in ‘Little red riding hood’, which would make it clear to the audience what fairy tale we have adapted, due to it being such well known dialogue. My group have changed thegenre from fairy tale to drama. We thought this decision was best fitted, as it would attract an audience closer to our ages (mid teenage/young adult) and allow us to deliver a suitable content, as we can relate with them due to similar interests and we are experiencing the same things.

Original vsadaptation

The original ‘Little Red riding hood’ story, takes the genre of – fairytale. It is a conventional narrative, due to its episodic structure of: setup, confrontation and resolution. The storyline and dialogue is simplistic due to the young age of the target audience it is aimed at. Characters used are mythical, such as the personified wolf, this again is used due to the target audience and the specific genre.

Our short film, ‘The little red bandanna’ takes the genre of drama. It will break conventions as we wish to open it with a flashback, to create the audience to be instantly engaged and to hopefully sustain their attention. The content will cover real issues such as gang culture and drugs, and the characters will be realistic people, to allow our target audience (teenage/young adult) to identify with the content and characters etc.