RESEARCH -Narrative

WHAT IS NARRATIVE?
Narrative means a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious. A story is taken as a synonym of narrative.

Film trailers are an engaging way of teaching fiction genres and narrative structure.  It is important that genre is established in a trailer as it grabs the attention of audiences that studios know will want to see the film.

Typical narrative structure is often broken down in this way:

1. Opening: establishes setting and introduces character
2. Build up: Relationships established. Development of characters and their world
3. Problem: a dilemma or series of complications.  Characters are faced with an obstacle to overcome a mystery to solve, or often more than one
4. Events: a series of events/action as characters try to overcome obstacle, solve problem, discover truth and so on.  Further complications may arise in the process
5. Resolution: the protagonists are victorious, problems are solved, truth revealed
6. Ending: characters reflect on events, reinstate relationships and look forward.

What are the conventions of narratives in each of the following genres?:

COMEDY:   The narrative of comedy is that it is funny and witty, encouraging to make the audience laugh and to enjoy themselves whilst watching it. An example of a comedy would be 'The Inbetweeners'. This film throughout start to finish expresses humor in different manners but each time works successfully. Moreover, the genre -comedy isn't a serious genre of film. You don't have to really focus in order to understand the film.

HORROR: The narrative of Horror is that it is scary and sinister, also overly realistic for the audience to watch as they feel that they are made to feel that ghosts etc. are real. An example of a Horror movie would be 'Women in Black' which encourages the audience to feel freaked out as it is very dark and gloomy. Also the story told throughout the film makes out that the 'Women in black' could in fact be real, therefore scaring the audience after the film has been watched to make them feel that she is actually real. This is what horrors are for, they are made to make the audience feel scared.

ACTION: The narrative of an Action film is that they are very up beat and fast. This will lead the audiences adrenaline to rush as they are exciting and interesting as you never know what will happen next.  An example of an action film could be 'Skyfall - James Bond'. This film encourages the audience to want to know what is going to happen next as there are continuously knew things occurring that you want to find out more about.

DRAMA: The narrative of a drama film could be any emotion, because when the problem occurs during the middle of the film, it could end happily, or sad. It could leave any emotion. For example, with 'Toy Story' everything is all going well until Andy buys a new toy (Buzz Lightyear) and Andy doesn't like him because he is jealous, causing the audience to possibly feel sorry for Andy.

ROMANCE: The narrative for a romance film it to share feelings and emotions between the couple. The problem in a romance film could involve the couple breaking up or having an argument. This would cause the audience to feel upset or sorry for the characters which creates emotion. An example of a romance film could be 'The Fault in Our Stars' which is a sad film as the problem is where both of them have cancer. This is the dilemma which may or may not be solved but it is romantic because the couple are both very loved up.


NARRATIVE THEORY:

• Propp: Vladimir Propp broke up fairy tales into sections. Through these sections he was able to define the tale into a series of sequences that occurred within the Russian fairytale. Usually there is an initial situation, after which the tale usually takes the following 31 functions.
• Todorov: Tzvetan Todorov is a Bulgarian-French historian, philosopher, structuralist literary critic, sociologist and essayist. He is the author of many books and essays, which have had a significant influence in anthropology, sociology, semiotics, literary theory, thought history and culture theory
• Barthes: Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, linguist, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, social theory, design theory, anthropology and post-structuralism.
• Levi-straus: Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theory of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair of Social Anthropology at the Collège de France between 1959 and 1982 and was elected a member of the Académie française in 1973. He received numerous honors from universities and institutions throughout the world and has been called, alongside James George Frazer and Franz Boas, the "father of modern anthropology".

Key Terms

KEY TERMS:
Mise-en-scene:   Mise-en-scene is an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story"—both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction.
Narrative:  Narrative means a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious. A story is taken as a synonym of narrative. A narrative or story is told by a narrator who may be a direct part of that experience and he or she often shares the experience as a first-person narrator. Sometimes he or she may only observe the events as a third-person narrator and gives his or her verdict.
Genre:  Genre is a style or category of art, music, or literature. Therefore in media, it would be a genre of film, for example: horror, romance, comedy, thriller etc.
Originality: Originality means the ability to think independently and creatively. Therefore in media, this would encourage students to work independently and come up with creative ideas for their film making etc. and not to rely on others.
Creativity: Creativity is the idea that the use of imagination or original ideas are used to create something; inventiveness. This will lead to creating a great video in order to impress the audience by using a variety of different ideas and camera angles.
Representation: Representation is the idea that the action of speaking or acting on behalf of someone or the state of being so represented.
Media Ownership: Concentration of media ownership (also known as media consolidation or media convergence) is a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media.
Synergy: Synergy is when the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.

RESEARCH- 3 existing student made film openings & 3 existing film openings

3 existing student made film openings

AS Level Media Studies Opening Sequence (A Grade)  

This student made film opening is very detailed and the research to make it before planning has all paid off because of how successful the camera shots and angles have succeeded. However, the plot to me is confusing and doesn't really add up. This is because the accident where there is an explosion on the street doesn't really influence the boy walking around, getting ready in the morning. That could encourage the audience to want to carry on watching it. The film shots and angles really emphasize the two minute film opening because it insinuates on how darks or sad the film is going to be because of the dark, cloudy effect over the filming. I do like the cinematography and how they captured the process of him getting ready whilst doing the credits and the different locations of London are captured very nice as well.

CAPTIVE - AS Media Film Opening

Here is another student made film which was graded with full marks. In my opinion the opening scene was very overpowering which can put people off wanting to watch the rest. But it can also encourage people to want to continue watching it. The camera angles were impressive and the props used were very accurate to the plot. The costumes linked in well with the scene and the actors were really good and focussed on the seriousness of the video. I could say there was too much going on for the first opening scene of the film encouraging the audience to loose focus, however it was overly intriguing and could make other audiences feel differently. I do like the cinematography and how they captured the process of the boy getting lost whilst tasking photographs and how the girl is following him.

Hemlock- AS Media Film Opening  

This is my favourite student made two minute opening to a film because it is so focused and simplistic. There is not much going on which makes it even more intriguing for the audience to watch because you would want to find out why the boy is burying the girl and what he has done or who has told him to do that. The actors are playing such serious roles as the girl is being covered in mud to look like she is being buried and it looks so real as if she is actually dead, and the boy is looking really guilty therefore the actors were very well chosen because they were getting into the right mood for the scene. The first minute of him just pushing the wheelbarrow with the body in it is so moving because it shows a sense of regret with the linking in of the sad, deep music.

3 existing already made film openings

Saving private Ryan:

This opening scene is very moving and powerful. It starts off with a great amount of detail in order to inform the audience on how the war was in that certain era which the film was based in. This opening scene would encourage the audience to continue watching the film because they would want to understand why they are at the beach and what happens to the survivors etc. What I like about this opening scene is how in depth and graphic it is because it portrays such a sense of capture in the audiences case. When I even watch this opening scene it made me want to continue watching it throughout.


THE REVENANT:

This opening scene could be seen as being a little confusing because you don't really understand who the people are and why they are being show. You can clearly identify that they are important characters within the film, moreover the older male because you get a close up of him breathing, which could be an implication to a disaster. I like this opening scene because there is no dialogue and it is overly tense and mysterious, causing the audience to not know what is going on. This will also lead the audience to want to carry on watching the film.

DIAMOND 9

Practise 2 minute film opening

Character ideas?

Originally we were going to use two young children (most likely some younger relatives) and two elderly adults (most likely to be elderly relatives) to show the idea of the elderly people looking back on their child hood and showing that they miss it. But due to our disaster of the camera losing battery (which we have learnt from), we had to change our actors. The only character who ended up playing a role in our practise 2 minute film opening was me. I played the character of the teenage girl who hated Halloween.
The reason I offered to play the character and to act in my own 2 minute opening of a movie as well as produce it was because we had a disaster with finding the right character in a short amount of time. As we had a mistake with the first production, we were pushed up against time therefore almost had to rush our second try. But I feel we did the best we could and are proud with our outcome.

Practise 2 minute film opening

Plot ideas?

Our given elements of Mise-en-scene were:

• A fancy dress costume - Costume
• An elderly couple - Characters
• A seaside pier - Venue/ Location
• Pitch darkness - Lighting
• An apple - Prop

When we were given these elements of Mise-en-scene, me and my group were coming up with a variety of different, creative ideas. We had a disaster! We went to film our two minute opening at the beach on the pier not realising that our video recorder wasn't fully charged. It was a complete disappointment as we had planned it perfectly and organised it well. We didn't think to use our phones either which would have probably made the most sense. Our next step now is to rethink what to film and make it easier for ourselves as it is difficult to travel. We thought, as we had to involve fancy dress costume and it was Halloween coming up, it would make sense to add Halloween costume to our Mis-en-scene task,  so we have completely rethought our plot. We came up with the idea to film a teenage girl walking through the city with her headphones in trying to block out Halloween as she hates it, but then everything becomes really scary with people wearing masks all looking at her as if she is strange by not liking Halloween. We also tried to end the 2 minute film opening on a cliff hanger to engage the audience into wanting to watch it more. As it was one of the first 2 minute film opening tasks we were given, I was pleased that our group worked well together to come up with a successful short video. It wasn't the best, due to filming techniques but it was in the idea that the plot was interesting etc.