Technique & Theory: Time-based...

Technique & Theory:Time-based NarrativePerrin StamatisKelli Evans

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Narrative Theory

- Joseph Campbell via Chris Vogler

- Tristan Todorov

- Vladimir Propp

- Claude Levi-Strauss


Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell (1904 – 1987) was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. ["Joseph Campbell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."

8/30/2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell>.]

In 1949, Campbell made a big splash in the field of mythology with his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces. This book built on the pioneering work of German anthropologist, Adolph Bastian (1826-1905), who first proposed the idea that myths from all over the world seem to be built from the same “elementary ideas.” Swiss psychiatrist. Carl Jung (1875-1961), named these elementary ideas “archetypes,” which he believed to be the building blocks not only of the unconscious mind, but of a collective unconscious. ["Star Wars Origins -

Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey." 8/30/2009 <http://

www.moongadget.com/origins/myth.html>.]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythologist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythologist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecturer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecturer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_mythology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_mythology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_religion




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell

http://www.moongadget.com/origins/myth.html




Chris Vogler

Christopher Vogler, a Hollywood film producer and writer, created a now-famous seven page company memo, A Practical Guide to The Hero With a Thousand Faces, based on Joseph Campbell's work which inspired films such as Disney's 1994 film, The Lion King. Vogler's memo was later developed into the book, The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers published in late 1990s. This story structure is evident in a vast number of successful Hollywood films including the Matrix series. ["Monomyth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."

8/30/2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth#Chris_Vogler.

2C_The_Writer.27s_Journey.2C_and_Hollywood_films>.]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Vogler

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Vogler

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Pictures

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Pictures

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_King

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_King

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Writer%27s_Journey:_Mythic_Structure_For_Writers




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix_series

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix_series

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth#Chris_Vogler.2C_The_Writer.27s_Journey.2C_and_Hollywood_films




The Hero’s Journey (or Monomyth)Chris Vogler, based on the work of Joseph Campbell


The Archetypes

- Hero

- Mentor

- Threshold Guardian

- Herald

- Shapeshifter

- Shadow

- Trickster


Chris Vogler: The Hero’s Journey

1. The Hero is introduced in his ordinary world

2. The Hero receives the call to adventure

3. The Hero is reluctant at first

4. The Hero is encouraged by a mentor

5. The Hero crosses the first threshold

6. The Hero encounters tests and finds allies

7. The Hero reaches the innermost cave

8. The Hero endures the supreme ordeal

9. The Hero seizes the sword

10. The road back

11. Resurrection

12. Return with the Elixir

“A Practical Guide to THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES by Joseph Campbell.” <http://www.skepticfiles.org/atheist2/hero.htm>.


http://www.skepticfiles.org/atheist2/hero.htm

http://www.skepticfiles.org/atheist2/hero.htm

Tzvetan Todorov

Tzvetan Todorov (1939 -) is a Franco-Bulgarian philosopher. He writes books and essays about literary theory, thought history and culture theory. "Tzvetan Todorov

- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." 8/30/2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzvetan_Todorov>.

- Stories begin with equilibrium or status quo (Ordinary World)

- Equilibrium is disrupted by some event (Call to Adventure)

- This sets in motion a chain of events (The Hero’s Journey)

- Problems are solved (Hero Seizes the Sword, The Road Back, Resurrection)

- Order is restored (Return with the Elixir)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgaria

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgaria

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ideas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ideas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzvetan_Todorov

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzvetan_Todorov

Vladimir Propp

Vladimir Propp (1895 – 1970) was a Russian Formalist scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements. "Vladimir Propp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."

8/30/2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp>.

After studying hundreds of fairy tales, he identified eight character roles and 31 narrative functions.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_%28literature%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_%28literature%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_tale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_tale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp

Propp’s Eight Character Roles

- The Villain

- The Hero

- The Donor

- The Helper (aids the Hero)

- The Princess (reward for Hero & object of Villain’s schemes)

- The Princess’s Father (rewards Hero)

- The Dispatcher

- The False Hero

Propp’s Character Roles align to a great degree with Monomyth archetypes.


Claude Lévi-Strauss

Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-) is a French anthropologist.

Like Joseph Campbell, Lévi-Strauss proposed that universal laws must govern mythical thought.

According to Lévi-Strauss, “mythical thought always progresses from the awareness of oppositions toward their resolution.”

In other words, myths consist of:

1. elements that oppose or contradict each other

2. other elements that “mediate,” or resolve, those oppositions

“Claude Lévi-Strauss - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi-strauss#The_structuralist_approach_to_myth>.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropologist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropologist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi-strauss#The_structuralist_approach_to_myth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi-strauss#The_structuralist_approach_to_myth

Lévi-Strauss: Binary Oppositions

He looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. Here are some examples from science fiction films:

- Earth/Space

- Good/Evil

- Humans/Aliens

- Past/Present

- Normal/Strange

- Known/Unknown


Narrative: Time & Space

- Narrative Modes

- Using Narrative to Build Suspense

- Narrative Meaning

- Story vs. Plot

- David Bordwell’s Principles of Film Narration

- Time: An Extended Explanation

- Manipulating Time

- Space


Narrative Modes

The narrative of events

A hero shoots an enemy agent, dives into a lake, triggers a remote control device which will destroy the enemy submarine.

See any James Bond film for reference.


Narrative Modes

The narrative of drama

The heroine has a tense argument with the hero and decides he was never her type and she is going to leave. Nothing has really happened in terms of events but a lot has happened dramatically.


Narrative ModesThe narrative of drama

French Kiss (1995) Directed by Lawrence Kadan


Using Narrative to Build Suspense

Restricted narrative

When a character does not know what is waiting around the corner and neither does the audience.


Using Narrative to Build SuspenseRestricted narrative

Star Wars (1977) Directed by George Lucas


Using Narrative to Build Suspense

Unrestricted narrative

The audience is anticipating the events to come, of which the character has no knowledge.


Narrative Meaning

Cause and Effect

Narrative can be defined as “a chain of events in cause-effect relationships in time and space.”

It typically begins with one situation & then a series of changes occur according to a pattern of cause and effect. Finally, a new situation arises that brings the end of the narrative.

When we are watching a film we try to connect the events to make sense of what is happening, to see a line of cause and effect. Even if there is no obvious connection, we still try to make one.


Narrative Meaning

How does the director manipulate cause and effect?

The director can create a mood or atmosphere by choosing certain shots in a certain order, to build a picture in our minds.

We automatically link what is happening in one shot with what happens in those either side of it, as this is what happens in real life.

Montage can be used effectively in propaganda, where the filmmaker wants the audience to believe in a certain idea or concept.


Story vs. Plot

When discussing film narrative, we can make a distinction between the story and the plot (the plot is sometimes called the discourse).

The term plot is used to describe the events on screen and how they are organized/presented.

The term story is used to describe the whole set of events in a narrative that we bring to the plot in order to make sense of it. This will include not only the plot elements, which we have seen, but also the events we have inferred, which wehave assumed have happened.


David Bordwell’sPrinciples of Film Narration

Bordwell defines story thus:

Presented with two narrative events, we look for causal or spatial or temporal links. The imaginary construct we create, progressively and retroactively, was termedby Formalists the fabula (sometimes translated as “story”).

The fabula is thus a pattern which perceivers of narratives create through assumptions and inferences . It is the developing result of picking up narrative cues, applying schemata, framing and testing hypotheses.



The viewer builds the fabula on the basis of:

prototype schemata – identifiable types of persons, actions, locales, etc.

template schemata – principally the “canonic” story

procedural schemata – a search for appropriate motivations and relations of causality, time, and space

A film’s fabula is never materially present on the screen or soundtrack.



The fabula can only be guessed at, but it is not a given.

What is given? What sorts of phenomenally present materials and forms do we encounter?

1. syuzhet – the actual arrangement & presentation of the fabula in the film.

The syuzhet is a system that arranges components — the story events and states of affairs — according to specific principles.

It is how the fabula is presented.

2. style – style also constitutes a system in that it too mobilizes components – particular instantiations of film techniques – according to principles of organization. Style, silmply names the film’s systematic use of cinematic devices



Syuzhet is what is shown. The syuzhet embodies the film as a “dramaturgical” process.

Style is how it is shown. Style embodies the film as a “technical” process.

Film technique is customarily used to perform syuzhet tasks – providing information, cueing hypotheses, and so forth. In the “normal” film, the syuzhet system controls the stylistic system.

In the fiction film, narration is the process whereby the film’s syuzhet and style interact in the course of cueing and channeling the spectator’s construction the fabula. Thus it is not only when the syuzhet arranges fabula information that the film narrates. Narration also includes stylistic processes.



Three sorts of principles relate the syuzhet to the fabula:

1. Narrative logic – In constructing a fabula, the perceiver defines some phenomena as events while constructing relations among them.

2. Time –

a. order

b. duration

c. frequency

3. Time – Fabula events must be represented as occurring in a spatial frame of reference, however vague or abstract. The syuzhet can facilitate construction of fabula space by informing us of the relevant surroundings and the positions and paths assumed by the story’s agents.


Time: An Extended Explanation

Temporal Order

The plot does not always show us events in strict chronological order, i.e. the order in which they would have happened in real life.

As with all narrative choices the filmmaker makes, we must look at why they have chosen to present events in a certain way and the effect it has upon us as an audience.



Temporal Duration

There are 3 distinctions of time within a film:

Screen duration: the time the film takes to show

Plot duration: the length of time the plot covers

Story duration: the length of time the story covers, this includes all the inferred events we bring to it



Temporal Frequency

The plot of a film may show us an event which happens once in the film but we know to have happened many times in the story.

Alternatively, but less frequently, a story event may be shown more than one time during the plot — we see an event occur from another angle which may lead us to view characters or events in a different light.


Manipulating Time

Screen time

A period of time represented by events within a film (e.g. a day, a week).


Manipulating Time

Subjective time

The time experienced or felt by a character in a film, as revealed through camera movement and editing (e.g. when a frightened person's flight from danger is prolonged).

Compressed time

The compression of time between sequences or scenes, and within scenes. In a dramatic narrative, if climbing a staircase is not a significant part of the plot, a shot of a character starting up the stairs may then cut to him entering a room.


Manipulating TimeSubjective time Compressed time

Trainspotting (1996) Directed by Danny Boyle


Manipulating Time

Long take

A single shot (or take, or run of the camera) which lasts for a relatively lengthy period of time. The long take has an “authentic” feel since it is not inherently dramatic.


Manipulating TimeLong take

A Touch of Evil (1958) Directed by Orson Welles


Manipulating Time

Simultaneous time

Events in different places can be presented as occurring at the same moment, by parallel editing or cross-cutting, by multiple images or split-screen.


Manipulating TimeSimultaneous time

The Conversation (1974) Directed by Francis Ford Coppola


Manipulating Time

Slow motion

Action which takes place on the screen at a slower rate than the rate at which the action took place before the camera.

This is used: a) to make a fast action visibleb) to make a familiar action strangec) to emphasise a dramatic moment.

It can have a lyric and romantic quality or it can amplify violence.


Manipulating TimeSlow motion

Buffalo 66 (1998) Directed by Vincent Gallo


Manipulating Time

Accelerated motion (under-cranking)

This is used: a) to make a slow action visibleb) to make a familiar action funnyc) to increase the thrill of speed.


Manipulating TimeAccelerated motion (under-cranking)

a) to make a slow action visible


Manipulating TimeAccelerated motion (under-cranking)

b) to make a familiar action funny

A Clockwork Orange (1972) Directed by Stanley Kubrick


Manipulating Time

Reverse motion

Reproducing action backwards, for comic, magical or explanatory effect.


Manipulating TimeReverse motion

Mary Poppins (1964) Robert Stevenson


Manipulating Time

Replay

An action sequence repeated, often in slow motion, commonly featured in the filming of sport to review a significant event.


Manipulating TimeReplay

Groundhog Day (1993) Directed by Harold Ramis


Manipulating Time

Freeze-frame

This gives the image the appearance of a still photograph. Clearly not a naturalistic device.


Manipulating TimeFreeze-frame

The World According to Garp (1982) Directed by George Roy Hill


Manipulating TimeFreeze-frame


Manipulating Time

Flashback

A break in the chronology of a narrative in which events from the past are disclosed to the viewer. Formerly indicated conventionally with defocus or ripple dissolves.


Manipulating TimeFlashback

Casablanca (1943) Directed by Michael Curtiz


Manipulating Time

Flashforward

Much less common than the flashback. Not normally associated with a particular character. Associated with objective treatments.


Manipulating TimeFlashforward

American Beauty (1999) Directed by Sam Mendes


Manipulating Time

Extended or expanded time/overlapping action

The expansion of time can be accomplished by intercutting a series of shots, or by filming the action from different angles and editing them together.

Part of an action may be repeated from another viewpoint, e.g. a character is shown from the inside of a building opening a door and the next shot, from the outside, shows him opening it again.

Used nakedly, this device disrupts the audience’s sense of real time.

The technique may be used unobtrusively to stretch time or to exaggerate for dramatic effect, the time taken to walk down a corridor.

Sometimes combined with slow motion.


Manipulating TimeExtended or expanded time/overlapping action

The Untouchables (1987) Directed by Brian de Palma


Manipulating Time

Ambiguous time

Within the context of a well-defined time scheme, sequences may occur which are ambiguous in time. This is most frequently communicated through dissolves and superimpositions.


Manipulating Time

Universal Time

This is deliberately created to suggest universal relevance.

Ideas rather than examples are emphasised.

Context may be disrupted by frequent cuts and by the extensive use of close-ups and other shots which do not reveal a specific background.


Manipulating TimeUniversal Time

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Directed by Stanley Kubrick


Space: The Final Frontier

Space is important in a film because the location is usually quite important.

The plot sometimes leads us to infer “other” story space, which we may never see. For example, we know a character has gone off on holiday, but we do not see this “space.”

Screen space selects portions of plot space to show us, just as it selects certain time events and leaves others out. The decisions that are made in terms of film space need to be examined in conjunction with close study of the visual elements of film language.


Space: The Final Frontier

The Big Kahuna (2000) Directed by John Swanbeck


Thank you.


Technique & Theory: Time-based...

Documents

Transcript of Technique & Theory: Time-based...