3

Narrative Theory
"Media texts need an audience
to be able to engage with them
without too much effort"

Narrative is about how stories are told. Applying different models of

narrative structure to your work may reveal unconscious things that you
did in the way you have constructed it
.
Again a familiarity with some of these models or theories will be helpful
in the exam.

Think about how these trailers tell the story

and how much of the story they tell.

Story & Narrative: The Difference

Story is exactly that: a story (A meets B, something happens etc),
Plot is everything that happens in the film, i.e. the things that we see
From the plot you would be able to give a blow-by-blow account of what happened
Narrative is the way the story is related and told (Once upon a time there was a princess...)
When we look at narrative we look at more than just the story, we can break it up to include:

Structure
Characters
Time
Setting

It is only because we are used to reading

narratives from an early age (fairy tales etc),
and are able to compare texts with others,
that we understand these conventions.

Story
Presumed &
inferred events

Explicitly presented

Added nondiegetic

events

material

Plot

Charlie Booker's 7 Basic Plots

Overcoming the Monster
Hero learns of a great evil threatening the land, and sets out to destroy it.
Rags to Riches
Surrounded by dark forces who suppress and ridicule him, the Hero slowly
blossoms into a mature figure who ultimately gets riches, a kingdom, and the
perfect mate.
The Quest
Hero learns of a great MacGuffin that he desperately wants to find, and sets out
to find it, often with companions.
Voyage and Return
Hero heads off into a magic land with crazy rules, ultimately triumphs over the
madness and returns home far more mature than when he set out.
Comedy
Hero and Heroine are destined to get together, but a dark force is preventing
them from doing so; the story conspires to make the dark force repent, and
suddenly the Hero and Heroine are free to get together. This is part of a cascade
of effects that shows everyone for who they really are, and allows two or more
other relationships to correctly form.
Tragedy
The flip side of the Overcoming the Monster plot. Our protagonist character is the
Villain, but we get to watch him slowly spiral down into darkness before he's
finally defeated, freeing the land from his evil influence.
Rebirth
As with the Tragedy plot, but our protagonist manages to realize his error before
it's too late, and does a Heel Face Turn to avoid inevitable defeat.

Narrative Structure?
In media terms, narrative is the organisation given to a series of events
.
The human mind needs a narrative to make sense. We understand narratives using
our experience of reality and of previous 'real' media texts
.
In everything we seek a beginning, a middle and an end (closure)

"Narrative analysis is concerned with

the extent to which those things that we
see make sense. It involves the viewer
making sense of what is seen, asking
questions of what we see and
anticipating the answers. In particular
narrative invites us to ask what is going
to happen next and how it will all end. It
operates on the tension between our
anticipation of likely outcomes drawn
from genre conventions, our own
experiences and the capacity to surprise
or frustrate our expectations"
Allen Rowe, Film & Narrative

cultural experiences
other media texts

linear non lin

open closure

Pulp Fiction

Two narrative structures?

1: Trailer Narrative
Fractured/out of order
Restricted by time
Purpose: to entertain, summarise

2: Film Narrative
Linear/non-linear?
Beginning/middle/end?
Closure?
Purpose: to make sense

Tzvetan Todorov:
Equilibrium & Disequilibrium
Todorov looked at the way narra0ves are structured . He suggested
how in most narra0ves there is some sort of change that then has to
be resolved.
The narra(ve begins with the equilibrium (balance/normality etc),
At some point in the story the equilibrium is disrupted by change.
This brings disequilibrium
!
For the characters and the audience to feel that all is well again, the equilibrium must be
new peaceful equilibrium created
.

restored or a

Think of a film you have seen where this

narrative pattern is evident...

Equilibrium - Marty in 1985

Change - Marty goes back in time

Disequilibrium - Marty now trapped in 1955

Restoration of equilibrium - Marty

has to try and travel back to 1985
(which he does)

Use this diagram to explain Todorov's theory

and relate it to your own production:

Characters in Media Texts

Characters drive the narrative forward, and establish a link with the audience!
CHARACTER ARCS:
Successful stories require actions which change the lives of
the characters in the story. They also contain some sort
of resolution , where change occurs, and creates
a new equilibrium for the characters involved
(Todorov & Propp).

Vladimir Propp
Narrative & Character Theory

Oz (1939)

Propp's 8 Character functions:

Wizard of Oz is one of many popular films to use

these character roles

Time
Very few films take place in real time. For example whole life
stories can be dealt with in the 90 minutes of a film.
There are many editing techniques that show the concept of time.

Transitions (fade, dissolve, wipe, cuts, jump cuts)

flashbacks (e.g. black & white, slo-mo?)
flash forwards
different characters' POV
dream sequences

 Claude LeviStrauss - Binary oppositions

:
Constant creation of conflict/
opposition drives the narrative.
Opposites can be visual
(light/darkness, young/old) or
conceptual (love/hate, good/evil).
How can you apply his theories
on narrative to your own work?

Edward Branigan - Narrative Schema

Introduction of setting and characters
Explanation of a state of affairs
Initiating event(s)
An emotional response or statement of
intent by the protagonist
Complicating actions
Outcome
Relation to outcome

NARRATIVE LANGUAGE TO USE:

Diegesis
The internal world created by the story that the characters themselves experience and encounter.
Plot and Story (Bordwell & Thompson)
Story - the set of all events in a narrative both explicit and those inferred.
Plot - the arrangement and presentation of the story in the text.
Narrative Range
Unrestricted the audience knows more, sees more, hears, more than all the characters.
Restricted the characters and the audience learn story information at the same time.
Narrative Depth
Objective - the plot confines us to external behavior of its characters.
Subjective seeing things from the characters point of view such as when we see images from the characters
mind: dreams, fantasies, memories.
Narrative Time
Diegectic the passage of time that occurs within the world of the text.
Real time the time it takes to for the narrative to unfold.
For example Harry Potter is set over a whole academic year at Hogwarts so the diegectic time is 9 months, the
real time is 2hrs 30 mins
.
The relationship between the real and diegetic time is influenced in the following ways.
Summary e.g. passage of time shown in a montage of changing seasons
Ellipsis where intervening time between scenes is cut out
Scene - where a scene is played out in real time
Stretch - where diegetic time is stretched out in real time like in slow motion sequence
Pause - where diegetic time stops as in a voice-over commenting on the action

Watch these trailers, discuss and apply

a theory of narrative to them

Allan Cameron -
Modular Narra0ves in Contemporary Cinema

In this book, Cameron iden(ed 4 types dierent types of

narra(ve that reect (me based on how they have been
manipulated (cut/edited).
1. Anachronic Narra0ve:
This is the most suitable for your work (A2 teaser trailer)
Anachronic modular narra(ves involve ashbacks & ashforwards
providing uncertainty between the chronological order of events
and the order in which they are related in a plot.

Examples of this in mainstream cinema would be: Pulp Fic)on &

. Memento

Q: How did you manipulate time within your production's

narrative?

"Media texts rely on cultural experiences in

order for audiences to make sense of
narratives"
Explain how you used
conventional/experimental narrative
approaches in one of your productions
Explanation/analysis/argument (10)
Use of examples (10)
Use of terminology (5)

Essay Question (25 Marks)

Apply theories of Narrative to one of your
coursework productions
Spend 30minutes completing the above
question.
Remember to include genre theory and make
good use of Media Language.