"A chain of events in a cause-effect relationship occurring in time."
Before looking at the theories, I will just give a brief overview about out trailer in regards to the narrative. Our storyline is offered though text and dialogue formats. Despite this, we don;t have such of a backstory. the reason for this is because we wanted to restrict our narrative range as we understood that it was a trailer and so we didn't want to give much information away. We knew that an unrestricted narration would be found more in a movie and thus was something that we would have used last year during out opening two minutes project.
We see our trailer as a subjective point of view as we give the audience a wide range of what the characters see or do as opposed to viewing the trailer at a specific characters point of view. We knew that either point of view would work for our trailer idea but we felt that having an objective point of view would be overcomplicated to produce and is very much rare to find in modern day media.
Propps Narrative Theory:-
Vladimir Propp produced his narrative theory after researching media texts and finding similarities. He suggested that characters took on the role of certain narrative functions. There are seven different types of character functions that Propp had come up with:-
1) The Hero- Is usually Male and the main character. Tends to embark on a mission to reinstate the equilibrium. The hero can be identified as trying to save the victim which is targeted by the villain.
In our trailer, the hero is Aran. It follows Propp's theory as he is on a male and is also on a quest. Despite this, our trailer doesn't start with an initial equilibrium and thus doesn't aim to reinstate the equilibrium but to create a new one. This can be shown in the trailer as he has most prevalence in regards to camera work and one word that can be associated with him by the audience after watching the trailer is his hard work which is the way that we are trying to tell the audience that Aran is attempting to produce a better equilibrium for himself.
2) The Villain- Is usually the one who creates the disruption and is the reason why the hero embarks on his journey.
In our trailer, you can see Damien as our villain as he is Aran's sparring partner but looks evil as he is beating down a helpless Aran at times. Although he was helping Aran, the audience could easily believe that he's Arans opponent and must beat him to succeed in his quest. Again this shows how helpful and relevant Propp's theory is as it applies to our trailer as well.
3) The Donor- Gives the Hero something to help him along his quest. This could be anything from a prop to some advice. This helps with the resolution of the narrative.
I am seen as the Donor in our trailer. I give Aran asn inspirational speech within the trailer which helps him along his mission to be the best boxer. This can be identified by the audience as this is the only bit of verbal dialogue throughout the entire trailer thus giving it extreme prevalence. Moreover, after that speech, Arans fortunes change and he is succeeding in comparison to the failures you could see against Damien before the speech.
4) The helper- Aids the hero in his quest and task of restoring the equilibrium.
Muhammed is the helper in our trailer and can be identified as this very easily. He plays the role as Arans trailer and can be identified as this through the costumes that he wears which is typical of a boxing trainer to wear.
There are three more criteria that Propp had included in this narrative theory but because our trailer has a restricted narration as we didn't want to give much away but we did include 4 of the most important criteria and we felt that this was suitable as we didn't want to over complicate anything. The three criteria that we decided not to include in our trailer are:-
1) The princess- usually captured by the villain and the reason why the hero goes on his quest.
2) The Dispatcher- Sends the Hero on his task.
3) The False hero- A character who looks as if he is a good character but gets revealed to have been bad.
Todorov's Narrative Theory:-
Todorov's theory suggests that all conventional movies follow the same 5 structures of narration. These 5 steps are:
1) A State of Equilibrium
2) Disruption of Equilibrium
3) Recognition of Disruption
4) Attempt to repair the disruption
5) Re-instatement of Equilibium
This was predominantly produced by Todorov for a movie piece of text but still can be applied to a trailer with the exception of the last step as that is giving too much away.
We wanted to make our trailer conventional but also wanted to differentiate it by not following all the steps. We felt that this would help the audience ask more questions which was one of the factors that we had identified to say whether the trailer was a success or not.
We followed steps 2,3 and 4 but left out 1 and 5. The reason we left out step number 1 was that is would get the audience asking about Aran's back story which is supported as he said "I've got nothing left." This tells the audience that the trailer starts off straight away with a disruption of the equilibrium where he is demotivated and needs help from his Donor. We still wanted to keep the trailer fairly conventional as we didn't want the audience to ask too many questions as it could be argued that we didn't include enough information and thus we followed the middle 3 steps. We don't know much about the mission Aran's on but we know its based around boxing which we felt was adequate information but still poses enough unanswered questions thus building interest in the movie.
Allan Cameron:- Modular Narratives in Contemporary Cinema::-
Allan Cameron defined his theory as “articulate a sense of time as divisible and subject to
manipulation”.
There are 4 different types of Mudular narrative Sub theories and the one that our trailer fits in with is Episodic narrative where everything takes place in chronological order. This is because we didn't want to over complicate the trailer and whilst doing our research, we noticed that a lot of trailers use this narrative type.
The two other narrative types can be seen below:-
1) Anachronic modular
narratives- This theory narrates a story using flashbacks and/or flash forwards where there is no clear dominance over any of the narrative threads. It also includes the use of repeat scenes in other peoples perspectives and this can be found used consistently in the crime genre.
2) Forking-path
narratives- This theory constantly juxtaposes to different scenarios thus posing different outcomes. It suggests that a small change in information can completely change the overall outcome and this narrative idea can be seen in movies such as Run Lola Run.
Binary oppositions- Claude Levi-Strauss :-
Levi Strauss's theory suggests that the relationship between conflict and opposition creates the narrative where the narrative can only end with the resolution of this conflict; whether it be positive or negative. Opposition can be visual or conceptional and to do with sound.
Our trailer has a conceptional opposition as it could be argued that Aran is boxing for his love and passion for it. This is supported when I state that there is nothing left for him within the trailer. The conflict is related to Aran's success but we try not to give too much information away and its very rare to fond a resolution of the conflict within the trailer as again this is giving too much away in the same way as Todorov's theory. We do use the sound to support Levi Strauss's theory as it does support that he is on a mission to resolve the conflict although we're not quite sure what that is.
Barthes Enigma Code:-
Barthes theory suggests that there certain elements of the story that are not explained on purpose. This can be done in three ways. These ways are:
1) Snares- Deliberately avoiding the truth
2) Equivocations: partial or
incomplete answers
3) Jammings:
openly acknowledge that there is no answer to a problem.
The purpose of the author in
this is typically to keep the audience guessing, arresting the enigma, until
the final scenes when all is revealed and all loose ends are tied off and
closure is achieved.
We used equivocations a lot throughout our trailer as there are a lot of partial answers which we didn't want to further elaborate on purpose. We also used snares in regards to making Damien look like the Villain in the trailer but in actual fact, he could be seen as the second helper for Aran. We didn't use Jammings because we wanted the message behind our trailer to be that you can get whatever you want if you put your mind to it and this Jammings concept contradicts this.
Overall, these narrative theories have been helpful when looking at how conventional out trailer is. I can conclude that our trailer can be classed as conventional with some deliberate unconventional aspects that differentiate our trailer to any other trailer available. For example, the fact that there is no equilibrium is very risky but I feel as is it was a successful risk to take and makes our trailer unique.
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