Narrative

Theories of narrative are an interesting way to read trailers and, we considered the narrative structure in our genre when we were planning and scripting our production for our G324 portfolio.

Narrative in media refers to storytelling, by organising the different elements of a story to make it meaningful for example facts in a documentary or actions in a drama. Additionally, Narrative and genre work simultaneously in telling the audience about the context of the media.

Our trailer follows a liner structure due it being in chronological order, the effect of having a liner structure keeps the audience emotionally invested and interested. Theorist Todorova suggests that there are five key stages to the narrative structure: Equilibrium, Disruption, Recognition, and Attempt to repair and Resolution stage. In our production “One Day” we adhered to the narrative theory by using establishing shot to show the equilibrium phase of the two characters at the park bench watching the sunset, which symbolises them looking into the future. At the development stage we composed different montages of the three characters spending time together; to illustrate the past we adjusted the scene to bulish-ish grey tone, as it’s conventional in drama. The complication stage lies in the scene after the development stage it can be recognised in the scene where Belle and Rose are seen fighting, we removed the audio and replaced it with non-diegetic soundtrack to intensify the scene. Our trailer concludes with an open ending where Belle is seen standing at the edge of a roof top, which leaves the audience unsure about her faith. Barthes defines enigmas, as any elements of the story that is not fully explored, hence becomes a mystery to the audience. It teases the audience leaving them with unanswered question for example Will she jump?

Propp’s studied folk tales and founded the idea that certain types of character were found in every narrative structure: villain, hero, dispatcher, helper, princess, donor hero, false hero. In our trailer Belle conforms to the villain in the aspect that she isn’t able unable to ease Rose when she needed it most. On the other hand Rose conforms to the princess because she is helpless and confides in others to relive her feelings of despair- effect .

Another theorist our trailer conforms to is Levi Strauss, Binary opposition, stated that world is arranged in terms of oppositional forces and values. He was not so interested with exploring the order in which things happen but more focused on the arrangement of these oppositional themes in media text e.g. good vs evil. We purposely, decided not use his theory, as it’s not conventional in drama – conformed to his theory last year we wanted to challenge our self and our audience by not providing these very obvious binary opposition.