3 Key Terms:
Narrative: The structure of a story.
Diegesis: The fictional space and time implied by the narrative...the word in which the story takes place.
Verisimilitude: Literally - the quality of appearing to be real or true. for story to engage us it must appear to be real to us as we watch (the diegetic effect). The story must therefore have verisimilitude - following the rules of continuity (example - Mirrors by Justin Timberlake), temporal and spacial coherence.
Multi-Strated Narrative: Story form more than one person or two person stories.
Restricted narrative: One character story
Linear Narrative: Story is told chronologically - Beginning, middle and end.
Non-Linear: Opposite of linear.
Vladimir Propp : Characters
Born in1895, Russia was a soviet formalist scolar who analysed the narrative elements of Russian Folk Tales. One of the things that he discovered was that all characters could be catagorized into 7 different “Stock Characters”.
Vladimir Propp’s List of Stock Characters:
The dispatcher: Character who sends the hero off.
The donor: Prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
The magical helper: Helps the hero in the quest.
The priness and her father: gives task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marriesw the hero, often sought for during the narrative.
The hero (or victim/seeker hero): Reacts to the doner, weds the princess.
False hero: Takes credit for the hero's actions or tries to marry the princess
He also has a 8 Point Structure that he belives is in every Fairtale:
Normality
Extrodinary
Avenge
Magical Agent
Good vs Evil
Hero Escapes
Final Task
Glory/Reward
23 categories of action over 30 character types with specific functions!
A2 Music Video: Stage 6: Hero - victim of love but eventually succeeds in forgetting and getting away from the girl who was his ex love. we decided to do this as the lyrics suggested this, therefore making a link between visuals and lyrics.
from thr 8 point structure one rule that relates toward s the music video that we created is the hero escape. We see this in the end of the narrative when the male protagonist has finally escaped from his past relationship. Also another element that relates to the 8 point structure in the music video we created is the Glory/Reward, this is because the make is seen happy when he has finally moved on from his past love.
Pam Cook (1985): The Structure of the Classic Narrative
The standard Hollywood narrative structure should include:
Linearity: The cause and effect within an overall trajectory of enigma resolution. (Biginning, middle and end in which something happens - cause and effect, enigmas and resolution)
A high degree of narrative closure.
A fictional world: Contains a vertisimilitude especiall governed by spatial and temporal coherence.
Tzuetan Todorov: The Five Stages of Narrative
He was interested in the way language is ordered to infer particular meaning and has been very influencial in the field of Narrative Theory.Stage 1: A Point os stable equilibrium where everything is satisfied, clam and normal.
Stage 2: This stability is disrupted by some kind of force, which creates a state of disequilibrium.
Stage 3: Recognition that a disruption has taken place.
Stage 4: It is only possible to re-create equilibrium through action directed against the disruption.
Stage 5: Restoration of a new state equilibruim. the consequences of the reaction to change the world of the naarative and'or the characters so that the final state of equilibrium is not the same as the initial state.
A2 Music Video: Challenged this theory the video does not start with a state of equilibrium, it starts with the protagonist running away from the girl who is his last love. we decided to do this because we thought that we should allow the audience to be easily draw into the narrative of the video and enjoy what is happening.
Roland Bathes (1977): CodesNarrative
Establishment of plot or theme. This is then the development of the problem (an enigma), an increase in tension which finally leads to the resolution of the plot.
These types of Narratives can be unambiguous and linear.
Quote meaning ( look at sheet for quote): Theres no beginning or end, it goes on and on depending on what you interpret the narrative into.
Claude Levi-Strauss (1958): Binary Oppositions
his ideas about narrative amount to the fact that he believed all stories operated to certain clear Binary Opposites, for example good vs evil, black vs white or rich vs poor etc.The importance of these ides is that essentially a complicated world is reduced to simple either/or structure. This are either right or wrong, good or bad. There is no in between!
An Example: Beyonce - If I Were A Man has boy/Girl, Black/White, Strong/Weak, Danger/Safety, Social/Anti-Social
A2 Music Video: Binary Opposites
1. Dull vs Bright
2.Party vs Depression
3. Boy vs Girl
4. Running vs Walking
5. Happy vs Sad
6. Defeat vs Victory
7. War vs Peace
