Hw 20/01/2015

Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions

In my first year of media in my group we decided to make a horror film opening called Scarlett with a sub genre of slasher. In our film opening we had a group of friends whom were in a park drinking, and their night turns sour when a killer doll begins to kill everyone off.

in our film opening we tried to follow the narrative theories of both Todorov and Propps. Todorovs theory entitles that there are 5 stages to create a narrative structure; an equilibrium, a disruption of the equilibrium, recognition of the disruption, an attempt to repair the disruption and a new equilibrium. We followed Todorovs theory by using a flash forward within our opening which allowed the audience to see the killer doll and only one friend left, this then showing the disruption of the equilibrium. By using the flash forward and showing the disruption of the equilibrium, we were also able to show the equilibrium when the flash forward ends and restores to the original time, as it shows everything in a normal manner and this is made obvious as all the friends are back again. Propps theory suggests that certain character types with certain actions create a narrative. Propps theory of character is derived from fairytales, therefore he says there is a hero, a villain, a princess, a princesses father, etc. We followed Propps theory by again using a flash forward, in our flash forward the audience were able to see the doll, and due to the mise en scene of her which involved her having freaky make up on her face and the use of sound which made it available for the audience to hear her scary rhyme and laugh, she is easily connoted to be the villain. Also in the flash forward, our main character riley was seen to be alone, with all of her friends gone, this connotes to mean that the rest of her friends are dead and that she is the only survivor at that point. This could possibly mean in the future that she could become the hero as more often than not good rides over evil.

Despite the fact that Scarlett followed certain conventions between both narrative theories, our film opening also challenged them. Due to our production being a film opening we were not able to show all stages of Todorovs narrative structure, which means it did not completely follow the structure, this however is down to timing restrictions. Also, concerning Propps theory, we challenged the theory as we only actually had 2 of the characters from his theory, and the supposed hero was not certain. I don't think we were as successful in following Propps theory, personally I think that our film opening was more related to Levi-Strauss' theory which suggests that binary opposites create narrative. Within Scarlett the binary opposites that we delivered was good vs evil, this is shown through the flash forward  when it is Scarlett and Riley, Scarlett is shown to be evil through her make up and speech, and Riley is shown to be good through her vulnerability and her crying at Scarlett.

Overall I think our film opening followed the theories of Todorov and Levi-Strauss as opposed to the theory of Propps as i don't think we showed his theory successfully. I think if we had created a whole film as opposed to just a film opening we could of showed Propps theory a lot better.