Narrative question

Apply theorists of narrative into your coursework.

For my coursework that I constructed in my first year me and my group created a film opening. We as a production group decided to choose the genre horror. This is because the genre horror has a lot of sub genres which made our film opening easier to create as the ideas are endless. We also chose this genre as we had a clear narrative that we could use to fit in with the horror film openings that already exist. The narrative behind our horror film opening was a flash back to a nightmare.
Furthermore to make sure that I engage my target audience and make the film opening very interesting we decided to follow the narrative theorist 'Todorov'.We done this by showing the three stages which are: equilibrium, a disruption and a new equilibrium however if we would of made the rest of the film this narrative would have been shown much clearer and easier. To begin with we showed the equilibrium through a number of long shots and medium shots of the teenagers 'hanging out' in the park drinking and smoking which is conforming to the teenage stereotype this was a very chilled atmosphere which allowed the disruption to be exaggerated and made clearer to the audience. This was because the disruption was shown in the flash back. This was filmed in the late evening therefore having to use the night vision option on the digital video camera this made the effect of the clips very sinister and highlighted the fact that the disruption was being shown. The disruption included the audio of screaming and the nursery rhyme sang by Scarlet the doll. The aim of the disruption was to take away the innocence of the park and create an atmosphere that is showing the doll haunting the vulnerable teenager. Lastly the new equilibrium was a flash forward back to the teenagers hanging out in the park comforting each other that the park was not haunted. These clips were very unsettled showing the situation not yet fixed.

To make sure that the narrative was correctly followed we as a production group followed specific conventions they were: fade to blacks, a innocent location surrounded by woods, vulnerable children/females, dark lighting, fast cuts and an unsettled atmosphere.

Furthermore expanding on the point above about using the characters of 'teenagers' to conform to their stereotype allowed the narrative to be shown even clearer. However we also challenged stereotypes as we made a female woman the main character this is not following the conventions of the characters in horror films. This is because women are normally the victims as they are seen to be vulnerable and weak. By challenging the stereotype allowed our narrative to stand out and show a twist in the story line.We also developed the narrative by using a flash back. This made the narrative very tense and exciting as it gave short flash backs on the evil in the doll 'Scarlett' and showing reaction shots of the teenagers which make the audience want to carry on watching which was our aim.

Lastly even though the narrative theorist's 'Todorov' was our main influence in our film opening we also applied the theorist 'Propp' to the film opening. This is because the theorist Propp created the idea of having character types when he was analyzing a fairy tale. Therefore in our film opening we followed the structure of a Hero and  Villain shown in the flash back between Scarlet the doll and the teenager Riley.