Narrative Theories Research Task

Narrative is a work of speech such as a writing, speech or a film, Narrative describes a fictional or non-fictional events. An example of a start of a narrative is "once". This invites us into the narrative world which is set in the past. Most narratives are recounted in the past tense.


Another example of a narrative speech is "Once upon a time" which puts us in a world because the word 'once' is past tense in which takes us to a different time, also 'upon a time' is putting us in a world which is different from ours. Narratives are recounted in the past tense in which this occurs the same with 'once upon a time' as this narrative speech is used in a fair tale or a myth, in a fairy tale or a myth it has an effect on the reader as the narrative speech gives meaning such as upon a time in which stimulates or puts us in a world different to ours which previously i have explained.

Narratives are important as it's a way of communicating through films or books. If narrative speech was not in a book or film then a would be less interesting to read or watch in which audience wouldn't be interested as it's a way of communicating, an example of narrative is 'Once upon a time' this narrative creates a few things which is different time as 'once' is past tense, 'upon a time' is a different world. Without this example a book based of myths would be very boring which would put of a reader in which this is why narratives are important.

Their are three different types of narrative theories such as equilibrium, disequilibrium and . Many narratives theories were people who came up with these theories such as Tzvetan Todorov who suggests three narrative theory's have a three part structure which are equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium.

Tzvetan Todorov

Tzvetan Todorov  was a Bulgarian theorist, Tzvetan Todorov said that their were five stages structured in a narrative. He suggested that all narratives start with a state of equilibrium, the equilibrium is then disputed by an action or an event, from this their is an attempt to repair the disruption as of which from here their is a reinstatement of a new equilibrium. This narrative structure are found in many film narratives such as finding nemo.

Equilibrium > Dis-equilibrium  > New Equilibrium

A film example of Tzvetan Todorov theory is

Vladimir Propp

Vladimir Propp was also a  theorist, he suggests that in a narrative are 8 characters and 31 roles, he also proposed that his suggestion classify's the characters and their actions into clearly defined roles and functions. 
Vladimir Propps 8 characters and 31 roles
The hero - Leads the narrative and is usually looking to solve something (a quest)
The Villain - Conflicts with the hero. 
The Heroine - Usually a 'reward' for the hero triamphing.
The Father - An authority figure who offers a reward for the hero to complete his or her quest 
The Helper - Assists the hero in completing his quest. 
The Donor - Gives the hero something such as a special power to help him defeat the villain and win the reward. 
The Mentor  The master/tutor towards the hero, teaches him the tricks of the trade along the way.


To give a film example of Vladmir Propp theory would be Shrek, the hero of the film Shrek would be Shrek himself as he rescues Fiona. The Villain in Shrek is the evil lord, the heroine is Fiona, the father is the evil lord, the helper is donkey, the donor is fair godmother and the mentor is the cat within the film Shrek.


Binary Oppositions

Binary oppositions was an idea created by Claude Levi-Strauss, the idea or theory if you like was in the  twenth century, this theory looks at narrative structure as each character could be opposite such as a good character vs bad character. Binary oppositions is concepts that are opposite in meaning. An example of this would be men vs women, powerful vs weak and good vs evil. Within film narrative's binary opposition is used to show good vs bad in a film. A film example of this would be star wars as the hero would be Luke Skywalker, the villian would be Dark Vador, this is what the audience relates to as of good and evil within films. Binary opposition helps the audience as in a film you can tell from the concepts such as costumes as to what character is the evil and the good, the bad character would be wearing a dark or grey costume where as the good character would be wearing the opposite shade of colour to white. Binary oppositions helps the audience distinguish each character within a film.

I think the theory that is effective opening for our film is Tzvetan Todorov equilibrium theory. I think this as the equilibrium theory fits in to our story of our film opening. A short brief of our story is that matt and his friends are leading a new life but something changes which is the direction they head in and the new equilibrium is Matts life is changed in which you don't see that as it's part of a cliff hanger for our film opening.

AS Media Animatic Movie : Wrong Direction

This is our animatic film opening which is called Wrong Direction. This film was made from the drawings and crayons we did on a flexible learning day, these pictures was on a storyboard so we had each shot on a different sqaure piece of paper, underneath it was the camera angle and shot, we had put the type of angle of each shot so we can interprate this in our animatic film opening. Other than camera angles we also put the dialogue of each shot, this is so that we know what is being said by each character in the shot, the camera movement was also included on each shot.

Here is an image of what we had written on the story which consist of the picture of that shot, dialogue, camera movement and also camera angles. The picture has been half cut out of where we had written about the exachange of dialogue in each shot and camera angles and movements ect.

When we had drawed the pictures and coloured them we had then scanned them and then crop the images using paint, some of the images we had edited in paint to make more better quality and to add props and scenary such as a path with grass.

(picture below showing this)

When we had finshed cropping and editing the images i then made sure that every image was the same size (470x320) because when the images went from shot to shot their was a black gap between the video player and the edge of the image, I did this because i felt it may disorentate the viewer so i made the images the same size.

Making the animatic film we edited it all in a software called windows movie maker. In windows movie maker we added a video transition between each shot such as a fade, at the last shot which is the disfigured man with a unique weapon we faded that shot as that was the end of the animatic film. In our animatic film we also included video effects such as ease in or ease out which was zooming in on a shot or zooming out of a shot.