Narrative- A story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious.

Narrative has also been defined by Bordwell and Thompson (1991) as a chain of events in cause- which effect relationship occurring in time and space.

Brannigan E. Narrative Comprehension and film also defined narrative as…

“a way of organising spatial and temporal data into a cause and effect chain of events with a beginning, middle and end that embodies a judgement about the nature of the events as well as demonstrates how it is possible to know, and hence to narrate, the events.”

Cinematography:

Cinematography is derived from the Greek- “Kinema “movement” and “Graphein” to record.” Cinematography is about what makes a scene- this includes, lighting, actors, set, camera, camera angle and any special effects.

Mise en scene:

Mise en scene literally refers to everything that that the viewer sees, from props and actors to lighting. The Mise en Scene sets the scene and gives the viewer an idea of what might happen next.

Genre associations:

Genre associations are the codes and conventions of a genre, this is to allow the viewer to instantaneously know if a film is a romance, horror or action film. An example of this would be the colour red which is often associated with horror movies.

Todorov

Todorov uses the term book endings to establish a pace to the text… Where the start is calm, the middle is disrupted and the end is once again calm.

Lev Kuleshov was a Russian psychologist, he placed the same image (the image on the right) next to a different image, Kuleshov found that despite each picture being the same, the audience thought it was different, this proves that the viewer bring their own emotional feelings into a film to give it a meaning.

The Kuleshov Effect

Viewers thought that the man looking at the soup was hungry

Viewers thought that the man looking at the dead person was grieving

Viewers thought that the man looking at the woman was romantically intrigued

Levi Strauss

Levi Strauss looks at binary opposites, a few examples of binary opposites include the following;

Good Looking/ Ugly

Witty/ Humourless

Wealth/ Poverty

Male/ Female

Straight/ Gay

Young/ Old

Hot/ Cold

Binary opposites can help give the viewer greater understanding of what’s occurring, binary opposites can help alert the viewer to the ‘big picture’

Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes also looked at binary oppositions comparing them to psychological symbols that the audience decodes.

Barthes also looks at enigma codes- these are questions that are set up in order to be answered at a later date, an example of this is “Who is the Killer?” Enigma Codes are used as a hook to keep the viewer intrigued.

Vladimir Propp

Propp believes that characters have a narrative function and provide structure to a text.

The Hero This character seeks something

The Villain Actively opposes the heroes quest

The Donor Provides objects with magical powers

The Dispatcher Sends the hero on his/ her quest

The False Hero Makes false claims to disrupt the heroes success

The Helper Aids the hero

The Princess Is seen as the reward to the hero

The Princess’s Father

Rewards the hero for his efforts.