Narrative - research task
02:47WHAT IS NARRATIVE?
Narrative is seen as the art of storytelling. Narrative is the structure of a story line of a film. It's how the film contains a start, middle and end and how they link together. Also the different ways of structure, for example: having the ending at the start then going back in time before that point for the rest of the film until you finally get back to that point and carry on. There are many other ways to structure a film as well. As a result of there is so many films that have been produced, many directors have to come up with new, original ideas so that its makes their work unique and stand out to the target audience from the rest. Here is a typical narrative structure:- Opening: establishes setting and introduces character
- Build up: Relationships established. Development of characters and their world
- Problem: a dilemma or series of complications. Characters are faced with an obstacle to overcome a mystery to solve, or often more than one
- 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
- Resolution: the protagonists are victorious, problems are solved, truth revealed
- Ending: characters reflect on events, reinstate relationships and look forward.
WHAT ARE THE CONVENTIONS OF NARRATIVES IN EACH OF THE GENRES:
COMEDY...
The narrative of comedy is that it is trying to engage the audience by making them amused and laugh. It is trying to entertain the audience to keep them watching. An example of a comedy would be 'The Hangover'. Throughout The Hangover, there is humour from start to finish. This is done in many different way from jokes to funny props. You don't have to really focus in order to understand the film and the change from start, middle and end is very smooth. Typically comedies are known by starting in the middle of the film plot then starting at the start to explain how they got to that stage then working to the end of the story.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 in the characters position and can feel heir emotion first hand. An example of a Horror movie would be Paranormal activity' which encourages the audience to feel freaked out as it is very dark and has a realistic plot. This film is an account of a friend and goes from start to end creating tension, giving no hints of what's going to happen or any indication of the future which make the audience use their imaginations and think about what will happen next. A way of doing this is by including cliff-hangers. Horrors are also made to get the audience involved through fear factor and tension. Horrors typically begin at the start or can begin as something 'scary' happens to engage the audience straight away.ACTION...
The narrative of an Action film is that they are fast and packed with lots of different bits of action. This engages the audience by giving them the adrenaline from the action and the tenseness from the 'what will happen next' scenes. An example of an action film could be 'Die Hard'. This film keeps the audience on edge throughout, wanting to know what will happen next. The audience can become really engaged with this film as there is a lot of heart racing scenes such as fighting, explosions and near death experiences. Action films can either begin at the start then the audience sees where the plot has started, or they can also go straight into the action. For example, in Skyfall we are introduced to a character dying and James Bond trying to find and chase the people responsible. Then throughout the first half of the film, we find out everything that has lead up to that point.DRAMA...
The narrative of a drama film is to spread the characters emotion. During the start and middle of the film, Dramas can have any different types of emotion shown from love to hate, but typically at the end, dramas aim to make the audience feel either happy or sad. For example, in 'Toy Story' everything is all going well until Andy gets Buzz, a new, (controversially) better toy. Woody gets jealous immediately of Buzz and he is no longer the favourite toy so the audience feel for Woody. however, at the end Woody and Buzz are friends and it is a happy ending as they made it back home together after Woody was accidently left at Planet Pizza. In Dramas, the film typically starts at the beginning of the plot leading to the end therefore the audience know the build up and can use their imaginations to think about what may happen in the future. Additionally, Toy Story's target audience is mainly younger people, therefore the simpler narrative structure of start to end is easiest for them to understand and therefore makes the film more enjoyable.ROMANCE...
The narrative for a romance film it to share feelings and emotions between the couple. An aim for a Romance is to make the audience capture the moments of love, hate and heart break etc. A usual romance narrative structure would have the start at the beginning, an introduction to the characters emotions such as love towards another, then further on there is typically a change in emotion such as love to heartbreak and it finally ends with a 'happily ever after' or an emotional moment for a character and even the audience if they were engaged. An example of a romance film could be 'Titanic'. During the Titanic the audience is introduced to many emotions such as love, lust and hate during the middle and it finally ending with heart break.. This rollercoaster of emotions can captivate and audience very easily in my opinion and the ending stays in peoples minds for a while which means they are still thinking about the film even after watching.NARRATIVE THEORY - PROPP, TODOROV, BARTHES AND LEVI-STRAUSS.
- 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 fairy-tale. Usually there is an initial situation, after which the tale usually takes the 31 functions -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp (Under the sub heading: Functions)
- Todorov: Tzvetan Todorov is a Bulgarian-French historian, philosopher, structuralist literary critic, sociologist and essayist. Tzvetan Todorov's narrative theory suggests that all narratives follow a three part structure where they begin with equilibrium, where everything is balanced, progress as something comes along to disrupt that equilibrium, and finally reach a resolution, when equilibrium is restored.http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/equilibrium%20film (equilibrium meaning)These are the steps for all traditional stories:1. Equilibrium (everything is as it should be)2. Disruption (by an event)3. Recognition of disruption4. Attempts to repair disruption5. Return to equilibrium
- 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. Barthes theory was that any narrative can be narrowed down into 5 codes. 1. The hermeneutic code (HER.) 2. The proairetic code (ACT.) 3.The semantic code (SEM.) 4. The symbolic code (SYM.) 5.The cultural code (REF.). https://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/narratology/modules/barthescodes.html (what each code means and how they link together)
- 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 and many other things. His theory was that all narratives could be reduced down to binary opposites. Examples: weak vs strong, boy vs girl and good vs evil.
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