Narrative question
"Media texts rely on cultural
experiences in order for audiences to easily make sense of
narratives".
Explain how you used conventional and/ or experimental approaches in one
of your coursework productions (25 marks)
At AS level my production group and I created an
opening of a film around five minutes long. To do this we had to take into
consideration how we were going to construct a plot (storyline). Our film
opening was called ‘Delusion’ and fit into the genre of Sci-fi drama. The film
opening consists of two characters, male and female finding a female who is
dead and the female who is dead releasing she is dead. A strong argument could
be made that media text relies on cultural experience for the audience to
easily make sense of the narrative as it is dependent on who you are as a
person to what you understand from the narrative.
Levi Strauss believed in a theory of that in a
media text there are binary opposites that help to convey a narrative. This
theory can be applied to my film opening ‘Delusion’ as there is a binary
opposite between our main character being dead and alive. This opposition
between living and dead implies that us as humans may not understand death and
how we can be caught between the two resulting in a range of various emotions
such as anger, grief, upset. By filming something relatable to audience allows
synthetic personalisation and connection to be made to want them to carry on
watching. A real-life media text example of this can be seen in the music video
‘The day I died’ by Just Jack which my production group researched greatly when
developing ideas for our film opening. Another example of a binary
opposite which we choose to highlight in our film opening was male and female.
We had a female (damsel) in distress and a male (hero) taking control of the
situation. We chose to conform to the stereotype of a male hero and it could be
argued that the situation could have only been resolved because he was male and
took the dominating role. These roles as stereotypical characters could reflect
to the audience that this not the case always the case as we live in a modern
equal society.
Todorov, is the second theorist which we considered
when creating our film opening. This was because his theory is centred around
an equilibrium. His theory is that a film starts with an equilibrium, then
there is an disruption which causes a new equilibrium to occur at the end of
the production. My production group disregarded his theory for our film opening
as we decided to start our film on a disruption with the first scene to have
sirens and the main character having blood down her face. The effect of
constant disruption shows the film to not only be realistic but also how in
life serious obstacles can occur which they might not be able to handle- this
can be relatable for some of the audience. By starting on a disruption this
results in a new equilibrium at the of the opening of the main character going
on a mission to find out how she died. This applies to most drama films for
example 12 years a slave and Hacksawridge as they both start on a disruption
but then go onto a new equilibrium.
My group and I also researched the theorist Propp
and his approach to narrative. In his study, he argued that there typical
character in a film devise the narrative. These typical characters consist of a hero, villain, damsel in distress, side
kick, dispatcher and many others. In my production ‘delusion’ we conformed to
the damsel in distress character, a hero and heroine roles as our main
character ‘Molly’ has died in an accident and the two other characters’ female
and male help try and save her. By having a heroine, we challenge the
stereotype of only males being hero’s. As our genre was a sci-fi drama we
disregarded Propp’s theory as it is typical of Disney films, for example ‘Lion
King ', but not necessarily relevant for Sci-fi dramas that are more realistic
than a cartoon film like this.
The last theory which my group and I researched
when devising our film ‘delusion’ was Barthes theory of focusing on the code,
actions, symbols and enigma that creates the narrative. Throughout we focused
on exploring that way that institutions embed questions into film opening and
films. In relation to our groups film opening we insured many questions are
raised by the audience, for example why does Molly have blood down her face?
Why is there ambulance sirens going off? Why can she see herself dead? In the
monologue why is she asking so many questions about why she has died? … surely,
she should know? These questions engage the
audience to want to continue watching the film, and possible by the sequel.
For example, the film ‘Hunger games’ as viewers we
question the relationship between the two main characters and engage in wanting
to continue on watching to find out more, so when ‘Hunger games: catching fire’
came out the same audience were interested in the story line. Drama films also raise serious issues, for
example my production ‘delusion’ raises the issue of how people handle death.
My production group wanted to emphasis that there is not enough structure and
support in place for families when someone dies.
In conclusion the narrative had a major part to
play when considering how to construct our production. The most influential theorist for my production group
was Barthes, as we found it to be true in many films especially dramas that
questions are raised, more than the other theorist named above. We thought that
it was a more realistic theory and complex theory to follow - but complexity
makes for more interesting stories.
