Narrative Theories

Applying Narrative Theories To Various Films

Todorov

Equilibrium- The first part of the story will display a happy beginning where the majority of characters are content with each other.

Disruption- The second part will feature a problem or something that will disrupt the happiness

Realisation- This part is when everyone realises the problem and the chaos its causing

Repair- When the characters attempt to repair the damage caused and restore the problem

Restoration- The final part where the problem is resolved and everything returns to a state of equilibrium.

The Simpsons Movie

Equilibrum- In the beginning everything is normal and homer is just doing chores.

Disruption- It begins when Homer saves a pig

Realisation- The Simpsons are forced to move to Alaska due to the pigs behaviour.

Repair- They go back to save their home town Springfield.

Restoration- In the movie it is the ed of the film and the dome gets blown up and Springfield is finally free.

27 Dresses

Equilibrium- One of the protagonist characters is a lonely wedding planner looking for 'Mr. Right'.

Disruption- She manages to fall in love with a journalist who wants to write a bad article about her, therefore putting her in a difficult situation.

Resolution- The guy screws the article and they fall in love, a a result unexpectedly getting married

Vladimir Propp

The Hero- Restores to narrative equilibrium and is the central character 

Hunger Games- For example Katniss acts as both the seeker hero and the victim hero. She aids the victims to safety in order for the villain to go after her instead.

The Villain- Is the character that creates the disruption in the narrative equilibrium causing the hero to restore things. 

Hunger Games- President Snow acts as the villain/antagonist however there are a whole          'Government' of people who act as villains at certain points in the trilogy.

The Donor- gives the hero something to aid them on their quest to restore disruption this can be physical or not.

Hunger Games- The donor (Haymitch) provides Katniss with physical items to help her. This is emphasized in the film which is interesting and helps show the importance of this character.

The helper- Aids the hero on their journey to restore equilibrium. They are normally known as the side- kick.

Hunger Games- Peter acts as the helper joining Katniss in her challenges and eventualy leading her to victory.

The Princess- Normally female, is normally the prime victim of the villain and has to be saved as the climax of the film.

Hunger Games- The Hunger Games slightly subverts this character role. The princess could be seen as Katniss' sister Prim whom she saves taking her place in the hunger games. 

The Dispatcher- The dispatcher is the person that sends the hero on the journey to restore their equilibrium.

Hunger Games- You could say that president snow is the dispatcher as he controls the hunger games.

Star Wars

The Hero- Luke Skywalker

The Villain/ False Hero- Darthvader

The Donor- Obi Wan

The Helper- Obi Wan

The Dispathcer- Obi wan

The Princess- Leia

Audience Theory- The Hunger Games (2012)

The Hunger Games

Different theories of describing audiences-

Groups

Demographic Groups

• Age
• Gender
• Class
• Ethnicity
• Nationality
• Sexuality
• Ability/Disability
• Relationship

Young and Rubicam's Theory

The theory that all audiences come under one of these categories when watching films and why they watch them.

Uses and Gratifications Theory

Blumer and Katz theory suggests that we watch a certain film because it satisfies our needs

The Hunger Games

From watching this trailer, i will relate these theories and say which audiences would watch this film.

Socio-economic groups- I believe the group status would be groups C1, C2, D and E due to the fictional element and it being an action genre. Also, the audiences demographic would be mainly single, working class men and women aged 12 -25.  There interests would be along the lines of action with elements of romance involved. They also must admire qualities such as independence, dominance and power.

Young and Rubicams-  In my opinion the film reflects qualities of the audience category 'The struggler'. The main characters seek escape and they seen as being at the hierarchical society, which the audience may relate to. Also, the audience would display characteristics such as an interest to try out new ideas and experiences like 'The Explorer'. Due to the action based scenes and images, 'The succeeder' could relate to the film as well.

Uses and Gratifications Theory- i feel that the trailer fits into the category of 'Escape'. This is signified by the interpretation of the future world where an individual must fight for their beliefs in a hegemonic society.

Final Setting

Setting Recee #2

Today we sat down as a group and had a thorough chat on what we needed to amend in regards to our opening sequence. As a result we have decided to change the beginning setting and scene so it therefore has more relevance to our piece as a whole. It also doesn't give away too much narrative any more and i feel much more confident when it comes down to the minor changes we have added to our piece.

This is our setting for the birthday party scene. I feel this fits in well with our new storyline and adds a sense of normality to confuse the audience about the characters true personality.Similarly, the kitchen being a normal place can also show the average family life of every household. Also, the size allows us to film from various different angles as well. On the other hand, another useful aspect is both sets of lights can be dimmed and brightened depending on what shot we are filming so no matter about the outside weather,we can still change the time of day just by using the lights.

I took pictures from various different views and heights to give you an insight into what types of shots are going to be used in the opening sequence.

This is the door we are going to use as within our montage we are going to have shots of people leaving the party.

This is the house from the outside in case we want to shoot a clip of people leaving from the outside.

Setting Recee #1

Setting Recee

This is the Alleyway where the murder is going to occur. I though this was a perfect place to situate a crime scene as the one spotlight allows us to still see what's going on whilst the darkness surrounding can add to the eerie atmosphere and create more narrative enigma of what is happening.

This is the girls bedroom. We thought this setting is a perfect contrast to the girls true personality so really fits in well with the storyline and the title 'Two-Faced'. The panoramic shot of the room shows you the surrounding setting and we can clearly see this is a girls teenage bedroom once again fitting perfectly with the characters.

The main area of the bedroom that we are going to use is this corner here. It has the perfect lighting needed as the light is situated right next to the bed allowing us to film much easier. Also the desk is in a perfect position as we have a small scene where the girl gets off her bed and starts cutting her bithday cake so this fits in with are storyline as well.

Props and Costumes

Props

Red Velvet Cake- We are using this for the characters birthday cake is the red symbolises danger and blood whereas the white icing represents the purity that is covering up the inner evil of the girl. This also helps illustrate the title 'Two-Faced' as it shows the girl as having 2 personalities. We are also going to be using candles as the characters 'Birthday Wish' is a key element in our opening sequence.

Knife- This object is an easy household item which makes more sense to the storyline as it is an object which the main character can easily use.

Fake Blood- This is going to be used on the victim creating a knife wound, whilst also dripping onto the floor.

Costumes

Ophelia-  In the party scene she will be wearing everyday clothing with an element of white to symbolise the purity hidden within the darkness. This is to help contribute to the natural feeling that is being portrayed from the situation. On the other hand, in the murder scene she is wearing all black to connote she wants so be hidden and not found out.

The murder scene costume:

The party scene:

Ensemble- Wearing formal dinner party clothes to make the situation more realistic

Coral (Ophelia's best friend) - wearing normal clothes to symbolise an everyday teenage girl who was unexpectedly murdered by her best friend (however, the audience do not know that)

Finalized Storyboard

Our Storyoard

After much deliberating we finally came to a decision on our storyline and as a result all feel much more confident in going off and working on it. By including a family scene this will represent ur storyline clearer and make the murder scene have more impact for audiences as the scenes are so different.

Key Ideas To Our Opening Sequence

Key ideas

Today we had another talk in our media class and came to a final conclusion on a solid storyline. We are now at the stage where we are finalizing our storyboard, writing a new script and researching the music and sound effects we would like to use.

 Key parts to our Storyline

Music:  This song is perfect for our piece as I feel it has a great climax which can add to the piece and create suspense towards the key part of the opening sequence. Also, it has an eerie element to it which sets a tense atmosphere for the audience and fits in well with our montage of both contrasting scenes therefore being contrapuntal sound.

http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1400004




Storyboard: After various discussions we came to a decision on our storyline and we all feel very confident that this will work. We have taken out some of the main bulk of the story to create more enigma and produce a much more effective opening sequence.

Script Overall

Script 2

In the end we decided not to have a planned script and make it more spontaneous on our filming day and i feel this will benefit and make the situation more natural and realistic. We do have key lines to create the conversation but apart from that we just wanted to see if it worked.

Shooting Schedule

Shooting Schedule

This is our shooting schedule for the next few weeks as we begin to rough cut our opening sequence

Day/ Time	Location	Shot Description	People Needed
Tuesday 8thDecember	Isla’s house – Alleyway for the murder scene	Close ups of dead body extreme close ups of specific parts of the body	All crew + Lily Chapman (our actor)
Saturday 12th December	Isla’s House – Party Scene	Various shots for the montage of the party medium shots/ long shots and medium close ups	Devyani and Isla filming on the day

Script 2

Script

After researching more into our script and changing our storyboard slightly we finally came to a conclusion on precisely what we want to happen in our opening sequence and we broke it down bit by bit. This allows us to have something to go back to if we forget a key element or we want to double check something and i feel a script is a vital part to creating a successful opening sequence even if you don't have much dialogue (like ours).

                      

                      

Script 1

Our Script

After having our chat we felt confident in starting to write a rough script for our piece so we could have an idea on how many characters are needed for each scene. Also, we wanted to point out that in scene 1 we are not going to stick to the script exactly as we want the scene to look as normal as possible showing no element of horror or psychotic behaviour (apart from slight hints such as the slow motion and facial expressions)

First Storyboard

Our Storyboard

This is the first draught of our storyline for our piece so we can begin trying to film scenes to make sure it all works. We haven't gone into too much depth as it is likely to change in the next few lessons However we did include pictures for every separate shot.

Engaging The Audience

Engaging Our Audience

Although our sub-genre is 'psycho' we will still use typical horror conventions to keep our audience engaged throughout our film opening sequence.

• We will use very fast paced scenes keeping the audience engaged along with a variety of camera shots to show Ophelia's mind as well as making the audience have to focus on what is happening.
• We will use Roland Barthe's enigma codes to create an unexplained opening sequence to engage the audience.
• We will also use semantic codes, the blood and the red velvet cake, specifically to imply a meaning behind what is going on
• Use a combination of slow motion and fast paced shots to build up and release tension for the audience.
• The use of the heartbeat increasing suggests danger and will keep the audience engaged.
• Use a very tense song to convey our genre as well as correlating well with our piece. It should also have moments of breathing or some sort of ambient sound to confuse the audience and create a sinister atmosphere.
• We hope to use various editing transitions to either fade to black or straight into the next clip to once again add distortion.
• Both of our scenes will be filmed in dark which is a clear convention of a horror film, however for the party scene we may need to saturate the clips creating a more sinister feel.
• Our locations are going to contrast completely to show the vast difference between Ophelia's behaviour and will also represent the title 'Two-Faced'. This will also keep the audience engaged as they will have to focus on what is going on. 
• We haven't decided whether to have dialogue or not as having a small amount may make it more scary.
• As Blumer and Katz theory suggests we want our audiences to escape from their everyday lives as well as also being entertained and so by keeping our audience engaged should allow this to happen.

Narrative in our opening sequence

Narrative

Todorov's Narrative Theory: I feel our narrative structure will be challenging Todorov's structure as we are beginning with the end of the film instead of an equilibrium. You could say there is a disruption in it which would be the murder, however the happiness has already been disrupted. You could say that the film is the  equilibrium as it is a flashback before the opening sequence so it would start off normal and happy whereas the opening sequence is the disruption.

Vladimir Propps Characters: 

• There is no protagonist in our film because it is a dark psychotic storyline based on Ophelia killing her best friend and so everything goes wrong in the film.
• Antagonist would be Ophelia because she has murdered her best friend and we do not know why
• There is no dispatcher as Ophelia is independent and choses to go on this 'Quest' of psychotic  behaviour by herself
• There is no princess/prize however Ophelia's boyfriend may count

So once again our film idea is challenging props theory as this sub-genre of 'Psycho' may create difficulties following these theories as it focuses on just the main character and not many other people are involved. Also, we don't have a protagonist as the film is so dark and sinister and so we felt it best to have no one which could help Ophelia.

Our Audience Questionnaire And Analysis

Our Audience Research

We decided to make an on-line survey to help us research more about what people look for in films in the horror genre. This was beneficial because everyone was anonymous and certain people who did it we may not have known them and they may not have known what it was for so therfore it wuld be more reliable. However, unfortunately some people did not take it seriously and so replied with inappropriate answers which therefore creates invalid opinions which we will not take into account when improving our piece.

This enabled us to confirm that females are more likely to watch horror films instead of men which actually went against my prediction however we can now focus on having a female lead character ato appeal more to this gender.

This has given our group an average of the age which are most likely to watch horror movies (12-16 year olds) therefore supporting our target audience range

This is to help us minimise the respondents who watch horror films regularly and to focus on them

These are the responses for question 4 and the ones blacked out are the inappropriate responses. This will help us understand what the audience like so we can incorporate that into our own piece.

Question 5 helps us understand the demographics of our target audience

 

This will be used when I edit my final piece as it proves the audience want less gore but more of a psycho feel to it.

Question 7 was 'What kind of sounds do you expect to hear in a horror movie?'

The question 7 responses

This helps me to see what elements our opening sequence should be based around

Our audience will mainly watch our film to be entertained and to escape their daily lives so we will create an opening sequence which will attract these people

Our audience mainly want to be resigned or seek a challenge so using this audience theory we will target these types of people