apply theories of narrative to one of your productions

There are four theories of narrative that we used when created our AS film opening, ‘Luna’. We had to create a realistic opening of a film which was 2 minutes long including titles. We had a list of shots that we had to include, for example wide shot, establishing shot etc. We all pitched ideas to our group and together decided on the most realistic, original and fun idea. Luna is an indie romantic drama told from the point of view of Brody, a heartbroken teenager whose girlfriend, Luna, has passed away. The four theorists that we studied and applied are Todorov, Propp, Barthes and Levi-Strauss.

Todorov’s theory of equilibrium suggests that there are five stages of every narrative: equilibrium, disequilibrium, acknowledgement, solving and equilibrium. This suggests that all is as it should be before an event occurs which disrupts order and causes a problem – the problem is acknowledged and an attempt is made to solve it, resulting in a brand new equilibrium. We conformed to this narrative when creating our film opening. The beginning equilibrium is Brody and Luna as a happy couple who have fallen helplessly in love. The obstacle to overcome is Luna’s death. Brody acknowledges this obstacle and attempts to overcome his grief. Eventually he meets another girl and has come to terms and peace with Luna’s death by moving on.

               

Propp’s character theory suggests that there are five staple characters in every movie which are as follows: hero, villain, dispatcher, princess and donor. We both conformed and subverted to this theory. Our hero was Brody, the teenage male, and the princess was Luna, his love interest. The dispatcher wasn't seen in the opening scene of the movie, but was a mutual friend who set the couple up. The donor was the girl that he met in order to overcome his grief over Luna’s death. The villain is unconventional as it isn’t actually a character, but Luna’s death.

                

Barthes’ theory is based around codes, particularly three codes: action, symbolic and enigma.  Action codes refers to superficial things; things that are done and said onscreen. Symbolic codes refer to the mise en scene; the understated things such as the colours used, costumes worn, props and locations chosen. Enigma codes cause tension and questions to be asked: what happened? What will happen next? etc.

                

The codes we played upon the most were enigma codes as right from the beginning, questions were being asked. The film begins with moody piano music and a wide shot panning to a boy sitting alone with his back to the camera. Immediately, questions are asked. Why is he alone? Why is the music sad? Why can't we see his face? Enigma codes continue throughout. Why is he sad? Who is the girl he is with in the montage? Where is she now? What has happened to her/their relationship? We used a lot of symbolic codes to set tone and character personalities. For example, as the film begins, the colours are all muted and dull and Brody wears black, however when the couple are together and happy, the colours are bright and bold. Luna wears bright yellow shoes and colourful tops and the locations – e.g. the arcade – are very colourful and warm places.

                

Finally, we looked at Levi-Strauss’ theory of binary oppositions. This suggests that what we understand of a word, for example ‘villain’, depends a lot on our understanding of the opposite of that word, for example ‘hero’. These exist in almost all films – binary opposites are prominent in horror films. These include good and evil, rational and irrational, sane and insane etc. Teen movies can include binary oppositions such as the big, popular jock and the preppy nerd.

In our film opening we did subvert from this theory a little as the opposites aren’t quite as obvious as the above examples, but there are some underlying, subtle oppositions such as happy and sad – the clothes worn when the couple are happy are very different to the clothes worn by Brody when he is overcome with grief. Even the colours of the screen are different, as stated when explaining Barthes’ theory. The scene where Brody is melancholic reflects his mood through muted blue tones, whereas the montage of happiness uses warmer tones and brighter hues. The music is a more obvious opposition. The montage is overlapped by a happy, upbeat acoustic song beginning with lyrics ‘Baby, I love you, I never wanna let you go’ whereas the song playing during Brody’s isolated solitary scene is a sad, slow piano tune.

The narrative of my film opening was to evoke sympathy, both happiness and sadness (relating to different sections of the opening; the montage evokes happiness) and intruige in our audience. I predominantly applied Barthes' theory of codes and Todorov's theory of equilibrium to my film opening. Using them in combination was a technique to make the audience ask lots of questions about the film and interest them enough to make them watch the rest.