UNDERSTANDING HOW NARRATIVE IS

CONSTRUCTED CAN HELP YOU TO TELL A

STORY IN AN INTERESTING OR MORE

MEMORABLE WAY

Technical Codes (Topic Specific)• Camerawork• Lighting• Sound• Codes and Conventions• Editing and sound for audio-visual media and graphic design elements for print-based and interactive media• What work is being done by the sound track/commentary/language of the text? • Language use•Editing

Symbolic Codes• What are the denotative and connotative levels of meaning? • What is the significance of the text’s connotations? • What are the non-verbal structures of meaning in the text (e.g. gesture, facial expression, props etc)? •What is the significance of mise-en-scène/sets/settings? • Semiotics

Representations• Who is being represented? •Where is being represented?• In what way? • Mediation• The role of selection, construction and anchorage in creating representations• How the media uses representations • The points of view, messages and values underlying those representations. • The Reflective view , the Intentional way and the Constructionist view of representation•Stereotypes/Countertypes/architypes• Hegemony• Pluralism

Audience• To whom is the text addressed? What is the target audience? • What assumptions about the audience’s characteristics are implicit within the text? • What assumptions about the audience are implicit in the text’s scheduling or positioning? The ways in which audiences can be categorized (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity, social & cultural background, advertisers' classifications) – Class,Young and Rubicam’s Four Consumers, LifeMatrix • How media producers and texts construct audiences and users How audiences and users are positioned (including preferred, negotiated and oppositional responses to that positioning).• Ideology• Uses and gratifications• Adorno • Mode of address• Pleasures – Dahlgren & Stam• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Genre• To which genre does the text belong?• What are the generic conventions within the text? • Who creates genre?• Hybrids• Themes and Ideology • Frank McConnell• Post-modernism• Intertextuality• The cast and genre associations

Narrative• What are the major themes of the narrative?• How is the narrative organised and structured? • is the narrative Restricted (like a news broadcast) or Unrestricted?• How is the audience positioned in relation to the narrative? Is there Subjective or Objective character identification?• Propp• Todorov• Barthes• Levi-Strauss•Allan Cameron – modular Narratives• John Ellis• Single/Two Goal Plot• Genre/Cultural/Internal Repetition & representation• Segmented Narrative

Textual Analysis Grid

Institutions/Ideology• What is the institutional source of the text? • In what ways has the text been influenced or shaped by the institution which produced it? • Is the source a public service or commercial institution? What difference does this make to the text?• Who owns and controls the institution concerned and does this matter? • How has the text been distributed?• What are the major values, ideologies and assumptions underpinning the text or naturalised within it? • What criteria have been used for selecting the content presented?

Understanding the narrative codes will help you to understand

1.How an audience makes sense of the narrative2.How the producers convey meaning3.The different theories behind narrative

In turn this should help you to create strong narratives for your own work

critical theory - the basics:

Narrative: Narrative is defined as “a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship occurring in time” (Bordwell & Thompson, Film Art, 1980).

Diegesis: The internal world created by the story that the characters themselves experience and encounter.

Story and plotStory – all events referenced both explicitly in a narrative and inferred (includingbackstory as well as those projected beyond the action)Plot – the events directly incorporated into the action of the text and the order inwhich they are presented

Narrative RangeUnrestricted narration – A narrative which has no limits to the information that is presented i.e. a news bulletin.Restricted narration – only offers minimal information regarding the narrative i.e. Thrillers

Narrative DepthSubjective character identification: the viewer is given unique access to what a range of characters see and doObjective character identification:the viewer is given unique access to acharacter’s point of view such as seeing things from the character’s mind, dreams,fantasies or memories

HOW MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF NARRATIVE ARE THERE?

ARE THERE IMPORTANT NARRATIVE THEORIES OR THEORISTS I SHOULD

KNOW ABOUT?

LINEAR AND NON-LINEAR• Non-linear stories are

popular in computer games – it means the story doesn’t follow a straight line. In a game, you can often choose different paths.

• In films like Memento, the story moves around in time and is often told in flashbacks, where a character looks back in time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vS0E9bBSL0

• What kind of audience would like this kind of film?

• Linear narratives are in a “straight line” from start to end.

• They attempt to convey a realistic effect NOT realistic aesthetic in terms of timeline

• They try to suggest a ‘normal’ timeline of action

• The follow natural order of how we understand time

• This is more suited to a mainstream production

MULTI-STRAND AND DUAL NARRATIVES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khB_wpn-bmc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmu70sS4C34

• Theses narratives often have more than one story and more than one set of characters. Sometimes the stories “cross over” and the characters meet.

• Sometimes, but rarely, they are kept apart…

• These often follow one character. It is one person’s story.

BARTHES’ ACTION/ENIGMA CODES• Action codes • Enigma Codes

• Roland Barthes believed that in some films and other narratives one action will lead to another and this is where the story comes from… e.g. somebody kills, so a friend hunts them down… Here the audience know why things occur.

• It is a film structure where logic is applied: Action, Adventure and to some extend Sci-Fi & Fantasy apply this code.

• On the other hand, it can be mysteries that drive a story forward… The audience watch to find out why things are happening.

• This is a more common Narrative code for Genres such as Thriller, Crime, Mystery and even more sophisticated Romance.

• The audience become engaged with ‘solving’ or guessing the ending of the story

TZVETAN TODOROVTodorov suggested that the primary function of the narrative was to solve a problem.

Characters pass through a series of stages of a linear narrative where events follow in chronological order.

Todorov stated that narratives are led by events in a cause and effect format.

He states that narratives are structured in five logical stages:

1. The Narrative starts in a state of Equilibrium: Stable, balanced, unchanging system.

2. An action or character disrupts the equilibrium.3. Following recognition of the disruption a quest to restore the equilibrium ensues.4. The narrative moves to a confrontation / climax: there is an attempt to repair the disruption5. Resolution / equilibrium is restored and reinstated.

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This narrative is familiar and is conventional: we see it applied to many ‘mainstream’ film Narratives

VLADIMIR PROPP• Russian literary critic and folklorist, was concerned with the relationship between narrative and characters. He analysed many folktales. • Through his research, he argued that stories are character driven and that plots develop around the actions of characters. He looked at characters and their function within the story. • He hypothesised that characters have the role of narrative ‘spheres of action’ or functions and that there were 7 of them although theorists now have extended this list

1. The hero – is the agent who restores equilibrium, he carries the events through the story. (In modern narrative, the hero can also be female). ‘He’ can be a seeker hero or a victim hero

2. The villain – who creates the narrative disruption and tries to prevent the hero from accomplishing his mission.

3. The doner – aids the hero by giving him something: an object / advice etc

4. The helper – often a ‘sidekick’ (like figure) who helps the hero / aides the restoration of equilibrium

5. The princess – the character most threatened by the villain who has to be saved. Her father – rewards the hero (often by giving his daughter as a prize) and is often the despatcher

6. The diepatcher – sends the hero on a quest or task7. The false hero – appears to be good and tries to trick the hero by

giving bad advice – s/he is revealed at the end.

LEVI-STRAUSS’S BINARY OPPOSITIONS

• Levi-Strauss (pronounced Lev-ee, and no relation to the Jeans guy), introduced the notion of binary oppositions as a useful way to consider the production of meaning within narratives.

• E.g. Hero – Villain, Light – Dark, Man – Machine, Male – Female etc.

• He argued that all construction of meaning was dependent, to some degree, on these oppositions.

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ALLAN CAMERONThe Modular Narratives Narrative theory presents the sense of time in moving image productions as “divisible and subject to manipulation”.Cameron identified four different types of modular narrative:Anachronic modular narratives involve the use of flashbacks and/or flashforwards, with no clear dominance between any of the narrative threads. These narratives also often repeat scenes directly or via a different perspective. Examples include: Pulp Fiction and Memento.Forking-path narratives juxtapose alternative versions of a story, showing the possible outcomes that might result from small changes in a single event or group of events. The forking-path narrative introduces a number of plotlines that usually contradict one another. Examples include Groundhog Day, Sliding Door, Cloverfield and Run Lola Run.Episodic narratives are organised as an abstract series or narrative anthology. Abstract series type of modular narrative is characterized by the operation of a non-narrative formal system which appears to dictate (or at least overlay) the organization of narrative elements such as a sequence of numbers or the alphabet. Anthology consists of a series of shorter tales which are apparently disconnected but share a random similarity, such as all ‘episodes’ being survivors of a shipwreck.Split screen narratives are different from the other types of modular narrative discussed here, because their modularity is articulated along spatial rather than temporal lines. These films divide the screen into two or more frames, juxtaposing events within the same visual field, in a sustained fashion. Examples include Timecode / Source Code – One of the earliest was ‘The Boston Strangler’ (1968) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l48RxxhjhqM

TESTING UNDERSTANDING• There are five stages to this activity. Stage

five sees you complete the following quiz:1.Name an example of a text with

a non-linear narrative.2.Name a text with a linear

narrative.3.Name a text with a single-

strand narrative.4.Name a text with a multi-strand

narrative. 5.Name one of Barthes’ codes.6.Name the other of Barthes’

codes.7.Name the first stage in

Todorov’s narrative structure.8.Name the second stage in

Todorov’s narrative structure.9.Name the third stage in

Todorov’s narrative structure.

10. Name the fourth stage in Todorov’s narrative structure.

11. Name the final stage in Todorov’s narrative structure.

12. Name all of Propp’s character types.

13. One.14. Two15. Three16. Four 17. Five18. Six19. Seven20. Example - Binary Opposition.21. Who came up with the theory

of Binary Oppositions?