this is narrative in a short film and some theorists

1. NARRATIVE
Maisie Bloor

2. What is narrative in media?
This is a media term for ‘story telling’. This takes different
elements in a story and organises them to make a
meaningful story. For example elements that are used can
be facts for a documentary. If we look closer at narrative we
can see that different stories all share certain
characteristics. This can link them to a specific genre.

3. Narrative structure
A narrative structure is how the story unfolds. Some
structures can be open where there is no final conclusion
to the story. For example, a TV soap can have no final
ending just small little endings. There can also be closed
structures these the story ends satisfactorily like most films.
There can also multi-strand structures these have several
narratives running at the same time. In addition, there can
also be point of view POV structures which are often used
in documentary's. The most popular narrative structure that
is used is the enigma. This is when a plot constructs itself
like a puzzle that the audience is asked to solve whilst the
characters act out the story.

4. Theorists
• Vladimir Propp- Propp’s theory studied folk tales and he proposed ways
of grouping characters and their actions into eight broad character types
or ‘spheres of action’. There is the Villain, the hero, the Donor, the Helper,
the Princess, her Father, the Dispatcher, the False Hero.
• Tzventan Todorov- Todorov’s theory has three main parts which says that
a text begins with an equilibrium. At some point it must have a disruption
to the equilibrium. Then it must end with a new equilibrium by solving the
disruption. He also says that there are five stages to show how the
narrative progresses. The equilibrium, disruption, recognition, repair and
new equilibrium.
• Levi-Strauss- This man introduced the notion of binary oppositions as a
useful way to consider the production of meaning within narratives. For
example, Good .Vs. Evil, Male .Vs. Female, Humanity .Vs. Technology,
Nature .Vs. Industrialism, Etc.
• Roland Barthes- He suggested that in narrative there are five codes; the
Hermeneutic code (the enigma), the Proairetic code (the action), the
Semic code (the images), the Symbolic code (the subtext) and the
Referential code (the cultural influence).

5. How this works in our movie
Our short film follows a closed structure as it comes to a full end
with the foster child and foster parent both happy with the
outcome. Looking at the theorists our film does follow Vladimir
Propp’s theory of having certain groups of different characters.
Our movie has the Villain which is the bullies, it has the hero
which is Sam, it has the Helper which is the foster dad, the
princess is not a person but it is what Sam wants which is to
meet her real father. Finally, we have the False Hero which is her
biological dad because he ends up not being the nice guy that
Sam had always believed in but instead was a bad guy in her
eyes by the end of the movie. As for Tzventan Todorov our
movie does have an equilibrium as it has a happy almost calm
feel but the happiness and normality stops when the disruption
of Sam’s real dad not showing up happens. There is then a
chunk of the movie which is finding a resolution to the disruption
and then the new equilibrium where Sam is happy living with her
foster dad.