Wednesday 27 March 2013

Analyse one of our products in relation to narrative.

Narrative is very important to films as it drives the story forward, " A narrative draws your audience into your story and keep them focused on your storyline until your final conclusion." At AS I produced a crime thriller  called "Mind Games" as part of my foundation portfolio. My thriller follows a linear narrative structure with a beginning, middle and end. However, I have veered away from a typical opening as, right at the start, we are thrown into the world of the antagonist; in other words,  a typical film following a linear narrative structure would start with something happy and cheerful, representing normality, and then build up to a disruption, in Todorovian terms, followed by attempts to repair that disruption, and in the end, it's all resolved - a new equilibrium is achieved. In my thriller, there is not a happy and cheerful start; we are instantly put into a totally opposite atmosphere which is malevolent and claustrophobic. We see this as a kind of equilibrium, although it is the normality of this psychotic villain's life and therefore unusual. Others might see it as a Todorovian disruption as the policeman's life is threatened by arriving at the antagonist's place withing the first 2 minutes of the film. An example of film that starts similiarly to mine is the "Machinist." This film also veers away from the typical structure by starting in the world of the antagonist. Therefore the audience's narrative expectations would be that the disruption will be repaired an an equilibrium is established.


Levi - Strauss suggested the idea of binary opposites i.e. hero vs villain, evil vs good etc. In my opening it is very clear who the the opposites are - protagonist and antagonist. The mise - en - scene i surrounding each character helps indentify the binary opposites. The antagonist is shot in dark poorly lit room and the protagonist is shot in bright lear daylight dressed as a n authority figure. The reason i chose to use binary opposites is that both characters rely each other. For example the villain feels thrilled that he has somebody to run away from and in turn the hero can not possibly be a hero without defeating the evil. The fact that the policeman is the protagonist and is an authority figure, the audience empathize with him and feel sympathy for him. I have used high angle shots of the policeman to make him feel minute and help build sympathy for him. The narrative expectations for the audience is that the protagonist defeats the antagonist and an equilibrium is reached. However, i did not really convey this as at the end i have made it seem like the policeman got killed by the villain or the policeman has knocked on the wrong door. Now the question has arised that is he the real protagonist. 


Roland Barthes talks about enigma codes and action codes. An enigma code is a question that is not immediately answered and thus draws an audience into a text, and action code is an event thats rives the story on. Above i mentioned that the audience are questioning whether or not the policeman is the real protagonist. The enigma code that i have used at the end creates this question. At the end of my thriller opening, i ended on a cliffhanger with the shot of the policeman outside a door and the sound of him knocking on that door. There are two possible outcomes which could have happended, these are that either the policeman has been killed or the policeman has knocked on another door not even coming to look for the villain. The evil laugh right at the end reinforces both cases. I feel as that i ahev surprised the audience bec

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