Narrative theory

We have also looked at narrative theory; this is basically looking at how most plots for films and story form.

We started with Tzvetan Todrov, a Bulgarian literary theorist reduced the concept of narrative down you a simple recurring formula:

Equilibrium           Disequilibrium               New Equilibrium

This says that a narrative starts with a state of equilibrium or life being normal. An outside force then disrupts this sense of normality; the character/s must then adapt and overcome this disruption and then come to a new sense of normality not quite the same as the first sense of normality

Our second theory was that of Vladimir prop a Russian critic and literary theorist. He studied over 100 Russian fairy tales and proposed that it was possible to classify the characters and their actions his typical character roles were:

.The hero (seeks something)

.The villain (opposes the hero)

.The donor (helps the hero by providing a magic object)

.The dispatcher (sends the hero onto his mission)

.The false hero (falsely assuming the role of the hero)

.The helper (gives the hero support)

.The princess (the hero’s reward but may also need protection from the villain)

This theory actually be found in many feature films such as star wars harry potter and james bond

We finally looked at Claude Levi-Strauss, a social anthropologist. He examined how stories unconsciously reflect the values, beliefs and myths of a culture. He was also interested in how much of the worlds were described in binary opposites. Binary opposites means two conflicting qualities or terms, e.g. light/dark, good/ bad  etc.

Learning about both narrative and audience theory has really helped give us a grasp on our own thriller and in truth we probably do have  afew examplles of the theories within our thriller however hopefully they are not ver conventional and predictable

Audience Theory

In  media we have been looking audience and narrative theory to help us develop our thriller.

 Audience theories are theories on ways for film makers to classify their target audience usually based on the viewers’ age gender and income bracket we have looked at the income bracket status theory. This is basically a way to classify audiences based on their class which is normally judged on the kind o job the main wage earner of the household has. It goes from A-E, A being upper middle class such as top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors and i.e.  And E being people at lowest level of income. E.g. unemployed.

We also looked Young and Rubicam’s theory, the theory has four consumers.

Mainstreamers: they like being part of the crowd go for the safe Hollywood type films

Aspirers: they seek the status and glory of succeders and like anything which shows of this status

Succeeders: they already have status and control and so go for things which prove this status

Reformers: they seek self-fulfilment and don’t care what others think. They go for films which show off this independence and also something they really enjoy

We then looked at the values, attitudes and lifestyles theory. This is much like Young and Rubicam’s theory but more in depth.

Innovators: they are successful, sophisticated take charge people who   look for new ideas and are change leaders to others. Image means everything to them so the look for films which assert this sense independence, personality and self-expression

Thinkers: they are people who are mature and satisfied with their lives. They are very well educated and therefore look for a sense of realism and maturity within their films

Achievers: they are people who live very goal orientated lives which are routed around family, work and worship. They seek films which are short and sweet yet show their success

Experiencers: they are young enthusiastic people who are very quick to jump onto a new hype yet are quick to jump off as well. They look fool the cool, risky new stuff and this is reflected in thfilms they watch.

Believers: much like Thinkers are very conventional and conservative. They are very traditional and their lives revolve around family, religion, community and nation. They are very predicted in their film choice as they go for the familiar and established brand.

Strivers: They are trendy and fun loving. Money defines success for them. They usually go for films which boast and brag this sense of success

Makers: much like experience, they are motivated by self expression. They have very constructive skills and value self sufficiency. They seek traditional films which are also a little out there

Survivors: they live very narrowly focused lives with few resources. They seek films which are very familiar to them and believe the world is changing too quickly.

We also looked at the life matrix theory. It is the latest one from the field of market research. It defines ten audience categories based on values, attitudes and beliefs

1.         tribe wired : these are free spirited young singles always looking for new technology

2.        Fun/atics: they are fun seeking young couple who always aspire for achievement

3.        Dynamic duos: these are high involvement couples who are usually very hard working

4.        Priority parents: these are parents who are strongly dominated by the media  and place family values very high

5.        Home soldiers: These are materially ambitious people who are very family orientated and home related

6.        Renaissance women: These are influential mums who are very caring  and active

7.        Rugged tradionalists: These are men with very traditional male values who love the outdoors

8.        Struggling singles: these are people with high aspirations yet  have low economic status

     

video from filming day 2

videos on the the filming day 1

Day 3

On Friday 23rd March we had to trek up to Victoria to film the last scene in our thriller opening we left school at 12:20 as we had no lessons and took a 217 all the way to turnpike lane, we had to wait a while for Michael who we met at the station once we got there we too the the Piccadilly line to Finsbury park and changed to the Victoria line  straight to the Victoria the journey took a while and we got lost on the way to Michael's friends house but once we got there everything was sorted however Michael had the forgotten the fake blood for the death scene this was at first annoying however when we actually got the location i saw it benefited us as the floor aaron would die on was carpet and fake blood would be really hard to get out without the help of vanish oxi action, so i guess every cloud has a silver lining. Michael's friends were very kind they offered us food and entertainment and tried to help with the video so it was all cool. the location wasn't exactly what i had in mind but it was not so far away that we couldn't work with it. we got to michael's friends house at around 2:30 but dint start filming till 4:00 as we were distracted with entertainment (fifa 12). when we did start there was mainly problems with lighting and being able to see the date and time upon the phone as this was a key asset we needed to add to our opening after we fixed the problem it was then down to my shabby camera skills but once i got the hang of it we were on our way the filming went up until the point in which the camera ran out of battery but thank God I was too lazy to give the charger back to Mrs tatham we charged the battery and got on our way again but we then met with a different problem as the memory card kept running out of space so we deleted unnecessary pictures and clips and continued, we then ran out of batteries again and had to charge it we finally had to hurry the last bit of filming as I had to go home and look after my little brother but in the end we got it done and were happy with what we got despite the troubles we had come up against while filming, we done what we'd came to do and headed home. it was not the best day of filming but taught a great listen which is PREPARATION IS KEY and don't fifa 12 while filming .

Day 2

Day 2
on Thursday 22nd March we needed to film the detectives office scene this was difficult as we couldn't use an actual detective office however I remembered that my mums work place had a boardroom that would look perfect for the scene, so we decided to trek up to stratford we left school straight after school and caughtdthe 4:10 from brimsdown to tottenham hale and then the 4:27 to startford.I was the actor for this shoot again while Michael and Aaron co-directed and Aaron fixed the lighting. We got to straford pretty late and then my mum gave us two different rooms to use. one with a lack of natural light and another with windows and natural lighting , we went with the the second one because on the technical side it allows better lighting and a clearer clarity and also we wanted a modern looking room that contrasted with the death scene. the set up took a while as we had to put all the pictures and writing up on the board plus i had to change my shirt for the part. once we finished that it was about six so we had to work fats before it got really dark. the filming went well we had problems with the memory card space and the camera battery. we also had people looking through so we had to be aware of them  als we had problems with lighting but it all worked out in the end

Day 1

On Wednesday 21st of march we decided to film our first scene we did during the end of period 2 and the beginning of period 3 as we all had a free period and decided it would be a perfect to go to hertford road while it was relatively quiet , the time ranged from 10:30 to 11:30. we didn't really have a particular outlook on how the weather should reflect the scene. it could either be gloomy and raining to give the scene a dark and menacing feel however it could be nice and warm and mean filming could be done quicker and in a better manner . Luckily it was the second one we decided that to give it that dark feel we wanted,we would do the scene in black and white. we decided our roles for filming the we week, for this shoot I would be the actor, Aaron would be props and Michael would be director/cameraman. We decided to keep it only as us three doing all the roles because the more people we had the more we had to change around the schedule and have to deal with unreliability. we thought that one of our problems would be people milling around however it was the fact that hearing through the hood was very difficult so we had to do many retakes. \however at the end of the day we got the film done and pretty much flawless