Group narrative - Miss Georgiou

The purpose of a narrative is to set the atmosphere of the genre and to engage the audience into the film to carry on watching. For example within a thriller film, the narrative would be frightening and involve a lot of mystery and suspense. In our group we discussed all of our ideas within a media lesson, debating on advantages and disadvantages of each one.

Narrative one- Scott:
This narrative involves, a paranoid child who can see a ghost however his parents do not believe him and neglect his suspicion of the ghost being the reason of behind the strange happenings going on inside the house. The ghost then returns and kills the boy. Advantages to this narrative is that it would create a lot of suspense and involves a lot of shock, using a young boy as the victim is also an advantage as it relates to the audience. Disadvantages are that we do not have the skills and equipment to include a ghost within our opening sequence and we would find it difficult to find parents that would be willing to act for us.

Narrative two- Tom:
The narrative is about a couple staying in a house in the mountains, the first night there are noises from upstairs so she goes to find out what is making the noises, she finds a locked room which the house owner doesn't want her to see. This happens for a few nights and then one night the male goes missing, she then goes onto find that her husband has been taken and murdered in the room even though the husband didn't believe that the room existed, as she tries to rescue him she is trapped in the room herself. Advantages to this narrative is that it is quite simple therefore it will be easy to film. However it is a very long opening sequences therefore we could not film it all.

Narrative three- Devon:
The narrative is that a male and female are walking late at night through a forest and they hear noises, the man goes to check for danger and leaves the woman alone. She waits for his return yet he does not come back for a while, she feels as if she is being watched so she decides to head out of the forest. As she is walking the noises return and she starts to run, as she is being chased she trips over a figure on the floor. It is her boyfriends dead corpse. Advantages to this narrative is that it would be easy excess to the location and the storyline is very simple. However it will be hard to film during dark hours as the lighting will not be very clear.

Narrative Theories 

Vladimir Propp- Vladimir's theory consisted of 9 different characters always being in films, they are:

• The hero
• The villain
• The donor
• The dispatcher
• The false hero
• The helper
• The princess
• Her father

Tzvetan Todorov- Todorov's theory was that films are not defined by the characters but the narrative.

He believed every film has five stages, which are:

• A state of equilibrium 
• Disruption occurs
• Recognition of the disturbance
• Attempt to repair the disruption
• Return to a new equilibrium 

Aristotle- Aristotle believed films were not consistent on characters or narrative, but included at least one of these 7 themes:

• Character goal
• Stakes
• Resolution
• Dramatic question
• Inciting incident
• Sympathy
• Antagonist/Protagonist

Within our opening sequence we will be using the theory of Aristotle, as we will be using the theme of an antagonist, which is the killer we use. The killer is the antagonist, he is consistent throughout our opening sequence and he is the main focus of the opening sequence. I also believe that Artistotle's theory has a very good logic as it seems to fall into my narrative.