Narrative

Esposition

• ·       This is the films narrative that will introduce setting and characters.
• ·       Usually presents the viewer with a situation, calm, safe or at least predictable for the characters involved.
• ·       It will identify not only the information given, but how it is presented to the viewer.
• ·       The film might present a setting which appears tranquil. It may create positive mood through mise-en-scene and may show characters involved in the day to day workings of normal life.
• ·       It will establish equilibrium (safe, calm, predictable situation) of your exposition scene, created through dialogue? Setting? Mise-en-scene? And sound elements?

Good exposition = subtle hints – films

Bad exposition = obvious, often spoken introduction of character and their story – soaps

Development

• ·       Story line is developed, new characters are introduced.
• ·       Consider why? How? Characters are presented. What is the impact of new information given in section?
• ·       Character introduced conflicting with main character, (example - argument) characters may present disruptive force within remainder of film.
• ·       Problematic info given in section regarding main protagonist, may introduce flaw in central character and/or impact later actions.
• ·       Story develops in relation to circumstances –may add, change, existing tension.

Complication

• ·       Presented with complicating event, affecting the lives of main characters.
• ·       Identify how your central character responds to complication, role of any disruptive characters within complication; response viewer might have to complicating elements.
• ·       Consider how complication factor is shown, whether it’s parallel in a scene showing the planning of the disruptive character or introduced to the audience via a point of view shot, let us experience the complication as if we were the main character.
• ·       Don’t forget that camera work and editing; along with mise-en-scene and sound contribute to our understanding of narrative factors within the film.

Climax

• ·       Dramatic tension is at its height and we uncover the mystery of the story or have our questions about the film’s story answered.
• ·       Identify the means by which the answers to the film’s narrative questions are given.
• ·       Protagonist has a revelatory conversation with another character?
• ·       Character that has previously been given a position within the film as trustworthy.
• ·       Answers given in action sequence, protagonist eventually kills the character who has provided the threat and complication within the story?
• ·       Narrative ‘answers’ do not have to come in the form of information, they may be events which halt the complication factors within a film.

Resolution

• ·       End of a film hold its resolution: the sequence where stability is re-established and a form of calm has been restored.
• ·       Resolution part of a film provides a new situation of calm for both characters and audience. Presents situations where chaos and drama which existed throughout much of the film are gone, what is left is not the same situation, but a new clam.
• ·       May present calm through mise-en-scene, colours and setting associated with peace and safety
• ·       Discuss evidence expectations of resolved endings. If viewers are given resolution, with a sense of expectations being met.

Vladimir Propp

Vladimir Propp added to the Russian formalist approach, the study of narrative structure. Broke down the structures of Russian fairtayles, and concluded that all the characters where/could be based on only seven character types, in the 100 tales he analysed.

1.     Villain

2.     Donor-prepare vilian or hero

3.     (Magical) Helper

4.     Princess or/and Father – give task to hero

5.     Dispatcher –highlights problem, sends hero off

6.     Hero

7.     False Hero – tries to take credit off hero

Our Trailer Narrative structure

  

      The narrative of a film is the plot in its five basic stages, exposition development, complication, climax and resolution. Following this format when creating your film will help keep continuity.

      As we are creating a film trailer, not a whole film, our exposition is brief and only shows short clips of the narrative structure, giving the basic idea of the plot. Whilst enticing viewers but not giving away the whole story.

Firstly we combined the exposition and development due to a limited time frame for our trailer, introducing are characters and setting in just one clip of them loading the car which develops into a close up of a text showing a message about an illegal rave that night. This does not give away too much information but a basic theory, for viewers to go on. The clips are neutral in terms of events (a day to day stetting for the characters), this is created through natural lighting and mise-en-scene, for example everyday clothing, without any raised tones or unusual topics of speech, and day-to-day music, diegetic from a radio in the background.

     


As we are filming the trailer we have held back much of the development information, for example through representation of characters and their impact. In addition we have avioded showing the main character, as well as gives clues that something may disrupt the calm, or add to the upcoming complication. 

      

The clip of two of the characters briefly insinuates the 
complication, affecting the lives of the characters, but does not show if it is affecting the main antagonist. However we have shown this as disruptive for the characters, using tone, language, body language and expression, as well as complimenting music. As we are producing only the trailer we do not show how the main character responds to the complication, only how they react. We have not shown this scene parallel to any others as the complication is not caused by anyone, but is the cause of the following events.

Dramatic tension is important to show in our trailer, without showing too much of the climax, we do not want to show the answers to the narrative story. However we do insinuate the presence of a killer through the filming of trap a small house and camera angles from the view of what could be the antagonist. We use still images to create a sense of psychologically disturbance and confusion at the location. Dramatic tension is at its height and we uncover the mystery of the story or have our questions about the film’s story answered to an adequate degree to keep the audience inerested. 

    
As we are creating a trailer we do not want to include the resolution (ending of the film) re-establishing equilibrium and restoring the calm, but want to leave a cliff-hanger.  Normally the film would be left in a new calm instead of the chaos and drama that has existed throughout, this would be shown by music and mise-en-scene, associated with peace and safety.

Redone Storyboard

After creating our first storyboard and then going on to produce an animatic we realised we had to make some changes to our plot and its scenes in order to create a better piece, we decided to create a second developed and more accurate storyboard.

Represenation

There are four areas of production to understand for our analysis:

Camera:

Shots, Angle, Movement, Composition

Editing:

Cutting, Other transitions

Sound:

Non musical, Musical

 Mise-en-scene:

Production Design, Lighting and Colour Design

After watching this presentation by Stuart Hall, I started to understand these higher level theories of representation; the way in which meaning is given to things depicted and/or the different ways the same image can be represented through angles, lighting etc.

http://longroadproductionevaluation.blogspot.com/2010/05/represenation.html

He also suggests that there are three different positions that the reader of a text can occupy when trying to interpret a text.

Preferred Reading – the reader fully accepts the text codes.

Negotiated Reading – partly shares the texts code and broadly accepts the preferred reading.

Oppositional Reading – reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation.

Roland Barthes theories concentrated on a discussion of how myth operates in society and he discussed this in the context of denotation and connotation.

Denotation – the literal, ‘obvious’ or ‘commonsense’ meaning of an image.

Connotation – is used to refer the social-cultural and ‘personal’ associations (ideological, emotional etc.) of the image. These are typically related to the interpreter’s class, age, gender, ethnicity and and so on> Images are more open to interpretation – in their connotations than their denotations.

Example: a character wearing a Manchester united shirt.

Denotation – what the character is wearing

Connotation – the character is a fan of Manchester United football team.

Semiotics is from the Greek word’ Semion’ meaning ‘sign’. Semiotics or ‘Semiology’, is the study of signs and meanings. For the purposes of such study a sign is any physical object with a meaning.

The three areas of study are:

-the sign, picture, object or sound e.g the Christian Cross

-the system auto which signs are organised e.g Christianity

-the culture within which these signs operate e.g the Western Culture

Saussure was a structuralist and his work developed many ideas associated with semiotic. According to this view, the place of a sign with the overall system gives meaning. Others such as Pierce believe that the creation of meaning from signs is a continual process and is subject to change. From this perspective humans interpret signs and act accordingly.

For Saussure signs have two parts:

Signifier – the actual image, physical, appearance or sound.

Signified – the idea or ideas the sign refers to.