MEDIA THEORIES: NARRATIVE & BLOODLINE

After sketching my storyboard, me and my group decided to look at our trailer’s narrative and decide on what story would emerge from our product, and theories we could base our trailer on. First of all…

What is narrative?

Narrative is the way that stories are told, how meaning is constructed to achieve the understanding of the audience. It organizes time and space in a compressed form. In film, narrative is constructed through elements like camerawork, lighting, sound, mise en scene and editing.

APPROACHES TO STUDYING NARRATIVE FOR OUR TRAILER BLOODLINE

 we used a five stage narrative structure to give us ideas on how to construct the storyboard:

·       Exposition: setting the scene and introducing characters

·         Development: the situation is developed; more characters are introduced

·         Complication: something happens to complicate the lives of the characters in some way.

Climax: a decisive moment is reached; matters come to a head

·         Resolution: matters are resolved and some sort of satisfactory end is reached

Using this approach, we relooked at the storyboard and used four out of the five stage narrative structure: due to our product being a trailer; it isn’t typical for the resolution to be shown, as we want to entice the viewers to watch it. I think this approach helped us a lot to structure our narrative and make it more believable and realistic. It leads us to a brilliant final storyboard.

ALSO…

We also looked at a range of media theories to build our narrative on. The two main ones were Barthes and Joseph Campbell.

The storyline of the girls on a quest or mission to find the memory stick in order to save their dad is part of Joseph Campbell situation archetype (Quest). We liked the idea of situations or symbols found in mythology, religion and stories of all cultures.

We used Barthes idea of texts being open and closed. We didn’t want to give to much of the narrative away but at the same time we wanted one obvious thread for the audience to pull onto.

                  

WHAT KIND OF STORY EMERGES FROM YOUR PRODUCT? 

I think that the story that emerges from our product is determination and family love. The girls come across many barriers, struggles but love gives them the strength they need to achieve their goal.

NARRATIVE CODESIn order, for our trailer to be successful I researched what crucial elements had to be included but still be under a minute long.

·         Technical codes: refers to all the aspects of narrative construction that involve technical decision making. Therefore anything to do with camera angles and movement, lighting, sound, props. Shot framing and composition, design and layout and editing. We must think of each technical aspect in terms of the audience point of view. For example, in our storyboard we may use a low angle of a character,  this will portray to the audience that this character has no superiority or power.

·         Verbal codes: The use of language - written and spoken - and signs contained in graphics. We decided that we would leave the audience to draw their own conclusions as all the best films of this genre and our 2 research models leave show possible outcomes and don’t tell.  E.g. In 4.3.2.1, the conclusion shows us that the girls may not have escaped the wrath of the villain but it doesn’t tell us for certain that they are in danger.

·         Symbolic code: These are the signs contained in the narrative that we decode as being significant and having meaning: for example, one of our characters(Amber) has many tattoos which may connate or suggest that she is a creative individual in her own right.  We thought of them as clues that have to be followed and different viewers/readers will follow clues in different ways.

·         Structure: Russian theorist, Tzvetan Todorov, suggests that all narratives follow a three part structure. 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. We used this to loosely base our plot of Bloodline as we wanted our audience to see the journey the characters grow through the narrative. For more information, please see our storyboards, mock up’s and plot summary.