AS Media Studies: November 2011

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Narrative Theories Research Task

Narrative is the way that the media text prestents the story/plot through the sequence of actions that happens in it. The example of narrative is "Once upon a time" which describes the opening of the plot. We allready know that the story is set in the past, because of the words "upon a time", while "Once" suggest that it may be some fictional world, not similar to our.

The narative is very important because it gives the idea of what is happening in the film. It gives simple clues that suggest that film may be specific genre or that some sort of action will happen.

There are three narrative theories. Todorov's Theorem about Equilibrium, Vladimir Propp's Theory about Characters and Binary Opposition.

The Equlibrium Theory breaks the plot the film/story into three:

Equilibrium - Things that happens in everyday life,
Diseuilibrium - Something happens that breaks everyday life,
New State of Equilibrium - The disequilibrium is repaired,

websites:

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narracja
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/narrative
http://www.longroadmedia.com/resources/Narrative%20Theory%20Hand-Out.pdf

Preliminary Research

The continuity editing is: ......

There are two different editing types. Temporal Cutting and Spatial Cutting.
* Temporal Cutting connects shots to support narrative development. It may be linear progression or not, establishes the progression of time.
* Spatial Cutting creates unified space through the editing shots from different angles and framing shot/reserve shot.

Spatial Editing follows several rules:

• 180 Degree Rule - Mostly used in conversation between two characters. This rule lets camera to change position anywhere, as long as it doest cross the second half of the scene (+180º). Also if the camera is moving, it needs to be moved more then 30º

• Shot/Reverse shot - is the shot showing two characters looking at each other, generally used in the conversations. The camera is showing person that is speaking, and we can see him speaking and the shoulder of person that listen him. If second character starts to speak the camera change the position but the rule is same. Also this shots are followed by the 180º rule.

• Match on Action Shot - Is the technique to edit well frames, so they are matching the action that happens. For example, there is one shot showing someone coming, another shot is when it touch the book, next shot shows opening the book, etc. This technique is helpful as it is the nice and interesting way to show some actions that characters do. For example in the action-adventure films, they use it to show the clue, secret or even the treasure.