Narrative Essay 1B
arrative is very important as it makes all of the different parts of a production flow together coherently. My group ensured that narrative was quite liberally applied to our clips as the fast pace of our action/comedy film opening would have been quite confusing otherwise.
"Not So Die Hard" was marketed as a comedy heist film, and so we had to keep the chronology of the footage we shot for it relatively simple in order to keep the audiences' attention. Todorov's theory about narrative's having a beginning, disruption, equilibrium and ending had some importance to our film opening, but instead of following the whole narrative through, we decided to only include the beginning of the heist -the preparation of the getaway van- and the disruption -the bank door being locked- as we felt that having this cliffhanger ending to our film opening would entice more audience members to watch the whole film rather than see the whole plot within the short clip.
Levi Strauss proposed the theory of binary opposites, which we found was a good approach to take in our production. We accomplished this by having a female lead alongside male characters as well as a mixture of dimly-lit and overexposed shots to add to the juxtaposition. Our group found this theory quite effective in adding a good amount of variance within the opening and it gave us a chance to explore creative options that we would have otherwise not considered with our work.
Another theorist we studied was Propp around the subject of "stock" characters (such as a hero, villain and a damsel in distress). We did not want to have a lot, if any, common characters in our production so we conciously tried to avoid fitting in with this particular theory. On the most part we were successful in having different characters with our strong female lead and absence of heroes to "save the day". We did however have two male characters that were quite stereotypical of a low-level criminal, but that was the only instance where our production conformed to Propp's theory.
To complete our production, we also focused on Barthes and his theory about codes within media. We particularly on his enigma code theory, where he states how an audience should be left guessing as to what is going to happen next, or why the characters are doing certain things. This is prevelant in our production with the audience asking questions such as "why is the woman in charge? what power does she have?" which portrays her as more mysterious than first thought. The question "why are they planning a heist?" is not overtly answered in the opening, and so audience members have an incentive to watch the rest of the film as well.
In conclusion, the theorist we found that was most important to our group's work was Propp and his idea of stereotypical characters as it was a good foundation for us to wor koff of to ensure that our production was not conforming to the majority of films, and provided a unique aspect to audience members.
"Not So Die Hard" was marketed as a comedy heist film, and so we had to keep the chronology of the footage we shot for it relatively simple in order to keep the audiences' attention. Todorov's theory about narrative's having a beginning, disruption, equilibrium and ending had some importance to our film opening, but instead of following the whole narrative through, we decided to only include the beginning of the heist -the preparation of the getaway van- and the disruption -the bank door being locked- as we felt that having this cliffhanger ending to our film opening would entice more audience members to watch the whole film rather than see the whole plot within the short clip.
Levi Strauss proposed the theory of binary opposites, which we found was a good approach to take in our production. We accomplished this by having a female lead alongside male characters as well as a mixture of dimly-lit and overexposed shots to add to the juxtaposition. Our group found this theory quite effective in adding a good amount of variance within the opening and it gave us a chance to explore creative options that we would have otherwise not considered with our work.
Another theorist we studied was Propp around the subject of "stock" characters (such as a hero, villain and a damsel in distress). We did not want to have a lot, if any, common characters in our production so we conciously tried to avoid fitting in with this particular theory. On the most part we were successful in having different characters with our strong female lead and absence of heroes to "save the day". We did however have two male characters that were quite stereotypical of a low-level criminal, but that was the only instance where our production conformed to Propp's theory.
To complete our production, we also focused on Barthes and his theory about codes within media. We particularly on his enigma code theory, where he states how an audience should be left guessing as to what is going to happen next, or why the characters are doing certain things. This is prevelant in our production with the audience asking questions such as "why is the woman in charge? what power does she have?" which portrays her as more mysterious than first thought. The question "why are they planning a heist?" is not overtly answered in the opening, and so audience members have an incentive to watch the rest of the film as well.
In conclusion, the theorist we found that was most important to our group's work was Propp and his idea of stereotypical characters as it was a good foundation for us to wor koff of to ensure that our production was not conforming to the majority of films, and provided a unique aspect to audience members.
First state the narrative of the film opening, you need to explain your characters, settings etc as the examiner will have no clue what your film is about. What makes it an action comedy and how would you develop the narrative. Use sentences like we applied Barthes theory by...don't ssay Levi Strauss proposed. Todorov said a stable beginning is established so describe how you did this in your scenes.
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