Narrative theory (Miss Georgiou)

Narrative Theory

 

 

Theory 1 : Tzvetan Todorov (Equilibrium and Disequilibrium)

Tzvetan Todorov simplified the idea of narrative theory whilst also allowing a more complex interpretation of film texts with his theory of Equilibrium and Disequilibrium. This theory is used when the fictional environment begins with a state of equilibrium which is when everything is as it should be. It then suffers some disruptions which is disequilibrium and then finally the new equilibrium is produced at the end of the narrative.

There are 5 stages the narrative can progress through:
- A state of equilibrium

- A disruption of that order by an event

- A recognition that the order has occurred

- An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption

- A return or restoration of a new equilibrium

Here a narrative isn't seen as a linear structure because it is seen as a circular one. The narrative is driven by an attempts to restore the equilibrium. However, the equilibrium attained at the end of the story is not identical to the initial equilibrium. Todorov argued that the narrative involves a transformation. The characters or the situations are transformed through the progress of the disruption and the disruption itself usually takes place outside the normal social framework.

Theory 2 : Aristotle

Aristotle had a theory that there were certain themes that would happen within a film. The theorys that Aristotle thought was important were : -

- Inciting Incident
- Dramatic Question
- Character Goal

- Antagonist/Protagonist

- Stake
- Resolutions 

Theory 3 : Vladimir Propp
Propp was essentially interested in the narrative of folk tales. He noticed

Folk tales were similar in many areas. They were about the same basic struggles and they appeared to have stock characters. He identified a theory about characters and actions as narrative functions. Characters, according to Propp, have a narrative function; they provide a structure for the text.

- The Hero– a character that seeks something

- The Villain – who opposes or actively blocks the hero’s quest

- The Donor – who provides an object with magical properties

- The Dispatcher – who sends the hero on his/her quest via a message

- The False Hero – who disrupts the hero’s success by making false claims

- The Helper – who aids the hero

- The Princess – acts as the reward for the hero and the object of the villans plots

- Her Father – who acts to reward the hero for his effort

 

My group Narrative Theory

The narrative theory that applies to my group is Aristotle's theory. This is because some of the features in Aristotles theory applies to some of the features me and my group will be using in out thriller opening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Planning the mise-en-scene (Miss Georgiou)

Mise-en-scene

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Settings & iconography

 

Small dark room - For the stalker to have pictures up of the girl and to do things like burning the victims  photo and cutting his hand etc. We also chose a dark room to have low key lighting and to create a shadow seeing as we are going to keep the stalkers identity hidden. This is conventional to a thriller movie because its dark and small and it makes the scene look more intense. Also because we will use low key lighting it creates a shadow which makes the scene look more effective because you can see the stalkers shadow on the wall.
Dark abandoned room - For the victim to wake up in so it makes the audience think that she doesn't know where she is, so it creates suspense. Also to create a shadow of the stalker behind her to build tension. This is conventional because the audience will see its an abandoned room and that would build more tension for the audience.

Forest - For the victim to walk through when she gets stalked and captured. This is a very good location to use for a thriller because its a very isolated and dark area where not many people go so it always creates enigma for the audience. This is conventional because its isolated and dark and the audience all know that in a forest if something happened no one would know. So its a conventional location.

Mobile phone - So the victim can recieve random text messages from the stalker to emphasize the fact that she is getting stalked. This foreshadows that something bad will happen later in the thriller opening.

Books - For the girl to pick up from her friends house while she is getting stalked.


Rope & Duct tape - To tie the victim up when she is captured and to restrict her movement when she is in the abandoned room. This is conventional to a thriller because it is used to restrict the victim from any movement and from her ot be heard by anyone.


Knife - For the stalker to cut himself in the first scene to show the audience how crazy this man is and to make the audience thinking about what is going on. This is conventional to a thriller because a knife is a very dangerous and sharp object which could kill someone and is used more then guns in thriller films.

 

Lighting & colour

 

In our thriller opening we will be using low key lighting for most of our scenes. The only time we will not be using low key lighting and will be using high key lighting instead is when the victim is walking to her friends house to pick up some books. because at that moment everything seems pretty normal.
We decided to use low key lighting in our thriller opening because it makes everything seem more scarier when its in the dark and its also a better way to create shadow seeing as we will be hiding the stalkers identity through out. Low key lighting would also helps us to keep the stalkers identity a mystery.

Facial expressions & body language 

 

We will be using a variety of facial expressions through out our whole thriller opening. The facial expressions we will be using are :

• Anger - When the stalker is in the forest staring at the victim walking
• Shock - When the girl turns around and see's the stalker behind her
• Fear - When the victim wakes up totally unaware of where she is after she has been kidnapped
• Confusion - When the girl recieves the text message from the unknown number
• Panic - When the victim is running away from the stalker in th forest

The body language of both the stalker and victim varies during the opening. Whenever the stalker and victim are in a scene together the body language of both actors always shows that the stalker has much more power over the victim. For example when the victim is hiding behind the tree and the stalker comes behind her to grab her, he is higher up then her.

Costumes & hair & make-up

 

The costumes we use are conventional to a thriller because we had the victim dress up in white seeing as it symbolises purity and innocence and the stalker dress up in all black because black symbolises death and murder. We had the stalker wearing a black hoody so he can keep his hood up to keep his identity hidden and to prevent the audience building a relationship with him.


We made the victims hair quite messy seeing as she had been locked in a small abandoned room for about 12 hours and because before that she had been running through a forest etc we said that her hair wouldn't be neat so we styled it messy. The make up we used on the Victim is mostly mascara seeing as it is easier to make it run down her face. We used mascara to show that she had been crying and had been in fear


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Positioning of characters 

 

In the first scene we have decided to position the stalker in the middle of the screen seeing as he is the only actor in the scene and he is the main person the audience should be concentrating on at that moment. This is to show this character importance at this very moment.
In the next scene we show the victim waking up in the abandoned room and here we have positioned her in the middle of the screen yet again seeing as she there are no other actors in the scene and the audience attention should fully be on the victim at this point. This is to show this character importance at this very moment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filming Schedule (Miss Georgiou)

Film Schedule

 

The filming schedule above shows what everyone in the group will be doing and gives all the information that would help us make our thriller movie good and continuous. I think its important to have a film schedule because it helps the group to be more organised and this way they all know what there doing so the filming would run smoothly. The filming schedule shows what locations we will be using in each scene, what camera shots we will be using in the scenes, whats going on in each scene, what every character is doing in all the scenes and who is filming. This is useful because this way everything is previously planned out so everyone already knows what they have to do and when. It also helps the group to work better together seeing as there isn't any confusion inbetween.

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Me and my group didn't make any changes to our filming schedual and we all had done what we decided when creating the filming schedual.
This helped us complete the making of our thriller movie very easily, seeing as we all did what was written on the schedual which helped us comminicate better then we expected we would because we all knew what he were suppose to be doing before hand. Also there was no confusion about who was doing what and when.

 

 

Preliminary task (Miss Georgiou)

Preliminary Task

 

 

For our preliminary task we were put in to groups of threes. Me and my group decided that we would make our preliminary task of two girls (Ayesha and Me) having an argument in a corridor at school. We used a variety of camera shots while shooting our vidoe and when we completed making it we moved on to editing it to make it a continuous clip.

 

The camera shots we used were ...

• Close up - We used this at the begining of our preliminary task when Ayesha was coming down the stairs and we started off by showing a close up of her feet. Also when she was opening the door we done a close up of her face.

• Zooming out - We used this camera shot again when Ayesha was coming down the stairs and we were zooming out of her feet to show her whole body.

• Match on action - When Ayesha was walking from the staircase to the door and the camera was following her. Also when she was walking through the corridor.

• Point of view - When I was bending down to pick up my books the camera was behind me to show the audience my point of view of what i can see and how i can see it.

• Mid-Shot - When me and Ayesha were arguing about whos fault it was about the books dropping and it showed both of them in the corridor together.
  

One thing i thought went well in our preliminary task was the different use of camera shot and the variety of angles we used and how they went quite smooth and steady seeing as we used the tripod well, but one thing that i felt was a problem in our preliminary task was finding a good location to record our argument seeing as the corridors were too narrow to fit our tripod in but we managed it.

One big difficulty i thought me and my group faced was handling the tripod seeing as it was so big that it was hard to fit through the corridors whilst recording and it was difficult getting it through doors, but we managed by trying not to record much in the ally ways and through the doors.

I think that me and my groups stregnths are more with handling the camera, because we feel as if we can choose good shot to use at the right place and right times.

This task assisted us very well with planning our thriller because it helped us get a feel of how it was going to be and roughly how long it would all take us. We got a chance to see what it was like using the camera and gave us ideas on what are good shots to use for our thriller.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 



 



Planing editing styles (Miss Georgiou)

Editing

Why is editing important?

Editing is one of the vital aspects in the process of film production. In general, editing is done to provide coherence and continuity to a film. Through editing, shots are combined in accordance with the script to create finished movie. A shot must be short enough to fulfill the purpose. Editing also prevents miscommunication between scenes.

 

 

What type of editing styles will you include in your thriller? why? (3/4 styles)

(Jump cut, Fade, Straight cut, Kulveshov effect, Dissolve, Timing of shot, Montage)

We have decided to use a number of different editing styles in our thriller film to help prevent our opening having miscommunication between scenes and also to make it build suspence and tention for the audience.

 

In our thriller opening we will be using ...

• Fast editing - because our opening can only be 2 minutes long, and fast editing show alot of information and detail in a shot period of time. I also feel as if it is an effective way to start our opening seeing as our storyline is about a stalker and using fast editing we can keep the stalkers identity hidden and seeing as the stalker will be doing a variety of different things like burning a girls photo and cutting himself, it keeps the audience on edge building up tention.
• Dissolve / Fade - because in our opening we will be making a flashback at the beginning of it and in order to get into this flashback we will be using dissolve and fade seeing as its the most effective way to jump into the whole storyline.

How will your editing styles help to make your thriller conventional?

Our editing styles will help make our thriller opening conventional because we will be using fast editing as the first editing style. This will be when the stalker is at the desk in the very first scene doing various scary things like cutting his hand, lighting the victims picture on fire and writing in his notes what he is planning to do to the victim. Fast editing would make it conventional to a thriller because it will be going at a fast pace which would make the scene look more chaotic and it will build up suspense for the audience. So when we show the stalker doing things like cutting his hand  and burning a picture of the victim etc, the fast editing will make it look more effective and therefore it will grab the audiences attention straight away and make then want to watch on.

The dissolve and fade editing style would make our opening conventional to a thriller because it leads in to the flashback which shows the audience everything that happend before the victim got captured. We use the dissolve cut and fade effect inbetween most scenes. So after the first scene is completed, we will use a dissolve cut and fade effect to lead us into the second scene which is the victim walking to her friends house. After the whole scene of the victim walking to her friends house is complete and the forest bit is done, we will then use the dissolve cut and fade effect again to lead into the final clip in our thrille opening of the victim tied up in a small dark room. The dissolve cut and fade is a useful effect to use seeing as it allows the audience to focus more on the actors facial expressions.