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Essay 2 - Narrative theory

The media trailer that my group and I, created is called 'Never sleep again' which is within the horror subgenre of supernatural. According to Theorist Bordwell and Thompson, Narrative is defined as " A chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time"Narrative can be organised in a chronological order, as it allows the audience to understand the film.

Todorov claims that narrative always has a structure of Equilibrium, Disequilibrium and Resolution. this is so the audience can have a full understanding of the product that they are viewing. However due to the fact that my product is a trailer, it has broken the rules, as it only includes the Equilibrium and Disequilibrium. if all of the three were included in the trailer, it would reveal too much about the the horror trailer. Also normally in horror trailers the scariest parts are normally shown, as that is what will get the audience to watch the movie, because the audience only want to watch a movie that scares them.

Levi-Straus claims that the human cultural understanding is based on the system of Binary opposites. E.g Good vs Evil, Black and white, Female vs Male, Adult vs Child, and so on. They have taken this concept and based it in narrative, showing that in order for the narrative to progress, binary opposition is needed, and it forms a fundamental way of understanding the way narrative works. This is not well shown in my media trailer, as it is only the victim that is shown. The only binary opposites shown is Good vs Evil, as it shows the protagonists and antagonist. However the antagonist is not properly shown in the trailer. 

Barthes identifies the 5 narrative theories used to decode text. These are :Action code, Enigma code, Semantic Code, Cultural code and Symbolic code. However when referring to the horror genre the enigma code is one of the most important codes. The Enigma code refers to any element in the story that is not explained, which therefore leaves the audience confused, and makes them want to figure out the meaning. However in my trailer there are not many enigma codes used, as majority of the codes used are clear to the audience.

Propp argues that a narrative always includes a certain character type to perform certain actions. He says "Characters are agents in action". The characters are The villain, the hero, the donor, the helper, the princess, the dispatcher and the false hero. My trailer doesn't include all of them. It only includes the villain and the hero. This is because those characters are mainly in featured fairy tales, we wanted the trailer to be more realistic, so it would have a be scary and spook the audience. 

In conclusion the Narrative theories have not been properly applied to the trailer. The trailer goes against, Bordwell and Thompson's point, as the trailer is not in chronological order, it is in an non linear order because it is an trailer, so only the scariest parts are shown. However i believe that the Narrative theory is not really important in trailers, as it manly speaks about structures, and the characters.However it is really vital in an movie.  










Comments

  1. "However due to the fact that my product is a trailer, it has broken the rules, as it only includes the Equilibrium and Disequilibrium. i" (E) WHAT is on screen during both of these stages and how have you EDITED them differently to make this apparent?

    "The only binary opposites shown is Good vs Evil, as it shows the protagonists and antagonist. However the antagonist is not properly shown in the trailer. " (E) HOW, elaborate on this - HOW is it clear they are opposite, how is the MES or CAM shots reversed when filming them?

    "However in my trailer there are not many enigma codes used, as majority of the codes used are clear to the audience." - )E) WHAT evidence is there on screen of this, HOW have you EDITED it to make this clear? HOW is the MONTAGE structure of a Trailer designed to give this effect? (A) WHY is your trailer not successful as a consequence? WHAT did your symbolic codes means - ere they merely genre signifiers/conventions or did they have some symbolic meaning such a s Phallic?

    "My trailer doesn't include all of them. It only includes the villain and the hero. This is because those characters are mainly in featured fairy tales, we wanted the trailer to be more realistic, so it would have a be scary and spook the audience. " (E) WHAT evidence is there on screen that these are the ARCHETYPES - HOW is 1 pure evil and the other Good - what does their Evilness connote - SUBTEXT?

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