2. Why it is useful to consider your work
in relation to narrative?
It is useful to consider narrative in work because for
example our trailer for our teen drama
'Young, Ruthless and Useless' follows an open linear
narrative structure and despite being in a montage
format, the events that occur in the trailer are in
chronological order with a lot of information being
missed out (ellipsis) this helps to tie in with the
purpose of our trailer because our trailer also ends on
a cliff hanger; the last shot shown is a close up of a
pregnancy test, so to find out the results of the
pregnancy test the audience must see the film.
3. The purpose of our trailer is to entice the audience to want to
see the film so they can find out what happens next, leaving
them asking questions like…..
Is she actually
pregnant?
Is there a love triangle going
on?
Why is she
crying?
4. Bordwell and Thompson
Bordwell and Thompson believe that ‘the term plot
is used to describe everything visibly and audibly
present in the film before us.’ and that ‘The set of all
events in a narrative, both the ones explicitly
presented and those the viewer infers, composes
the story’ The story of a film combines those things
explicitly shown and those that are inferred.
5. Barthes theory
Action Codes – Images or sequences which work as a
form of a visual shorthand making complex ideas
immediately apparent and carrying the story forward for
example, from our trailer the audience should get the
idea that there is romantic relationship going on
between the two main characters, so we show a short
clip of them kissing on the cheek to confirm this idea.
Enigma Codes – Images/sequences which control how
much we know in the story engaging and holding the
audiences interest, they present puzzles which demand
to be solved. Enigma codes can generally be described
as major or minor, so a major enigma code In our trailer
would be the extreme close up of the pregnancy test at
the end leaving the audience asking ‘Is the protagonist
6. Our trailer shows the basic plotline and key narrative/genre related
themes, the events unroll as follows, close ups of protagonist waking up
and putting on make up, travelling to college with her friend, arrives at
college, meets boy, goes to the pub, gets drunk, boy offers the girl
drugs, she goes out more with the boy, experiences a drug trip, has conflict
with friend, has a romantic relationship with the boy, becomes violent and
depressed, pushes away those she cares about, the final shot we see is a
shot of a pregnancy test and then the trailer ends. Most of the events that
happen are typical of that of a teen life e.g. going to college, going to pub
with friends, romantic relationships, experimenting with alcohol and
drugs, which have to be inferred rather than explicitly shown due to the age
12 certificate, within these conventional elements of a teen drama we were
hoping to attract a young audience aged 15-24 so that they can relate to
the characters because it's based on real life elements of a teenager in this
generation.
I think the use of narrative is very effective in our trailer as it helps to
achieve the purpose of enticing our target audience by leaving them
wanting to know what happens next. Furthermore by using genre signifiers
such as young characters aged 17-18, drugs/alcohol, college as a location
etc. etc. and an open narrative I think we have successfully achieved our
goal.
