20th Jan Homework

Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions. 

In the first year of the course, me and my group created a media text of a horror film opening. This was called Scarlett, the basic storyline of our film opening was a group of five teenagers drinking alcohol in a park, things turn badly when a doll comes and kills them one by one. 

In our film opening we incorporated the narrative theory of Todorov, this is an equilibrium, a disruption of that equilibrium, a recognition of the disruption, the attempt to repair the disruption and the new equilibrium. In our film opening we had the equilibrium of the group of teenagers having a good time and laughing, we then used a flash forward to show the disruption of the equilibrium and the events that were going to follow. As this was only a film opening we couldn't reveal the whole narrative and therefore didn't show every stage of Todorov's theory. The flash forward showed the last teenager who was the only one alive, the audience connoted from this that the rest of her group of friends had been killed off. The film opening then returned to the present time, and all the teenagers are shown back when there are in the park having a good time.

We also used Propps narrative theory of characters having roles to play which he had been influenced by fairytales, These characters are to have a role of a villain, a hero, a heroine and so on, we included a villian who was the main character, Scarlett, the doll that kills off the teenagers one by one and the last teenager who is shown in the flash forward could be the hero, however this is not something we could show in the film opening as we had to keep the audience guessing in order for them to want to watch the rest of the film.

In our film opening I think we used Todorov's theory well by incorporating the flash forward, as we showed the equilibrium, the disruption of the equilibrium and then returning to the equilibrium, although we did not follow all the stages this was due to the type of media text we was creating. Propps theory was not as apparent in out film opening, apart from the villain who was easily connoted as this from the creepy visuals, the audio and the acts she had done in relation to killing the teenagers apart from one. However, for a film opening to work we had to keep some parts of the narrative away from the audience, if we was to make a full film, I think we would have been able to show both, Todorov's and Propps theory well.