Narrative

 1) Give an example from film or television that uses Todorov's narrative structure of equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium. 

In the film Shrek (2000), the equilibrium is Shrek living his preferred life in his swamp hut, the disequilibrium is when lord Far-quad sends fairy tale citizens to disrupt Shrek's peaceful life. The new equilibrium is established when Fiona is saved by Shrek and they depose Far-quad

2) Complete the activity on page 1 of the Fact sheet: find a clip on YouTube of the opening of a new TV drama series (season 1, episode 1). Embed the clip in your blog and write an analysis of the narrative markers that help establish setting, character and plot.

Temporal marker -How do we know what time it is

Geographical marker -How do we know where it is set

Historical marker -How do we know what time period it is, what make sit clear that it is this time period

Character marker -How do we know who the character is whether it is their job or the relationships they have

Generic marker -How do we know/the audience know what genre this text is

Temporal: it is during the day as it can clearly be seen that the sun is out as the camera pans over the city

Geographical: The city landscape is shown and we can see the Washington memorial and capitol building so we know it is set in Washington D.C

Historical marker: The technology seen withing the opening seen used by the soldiers is reminiscent of the mid 2010's.

Character: We can see through the opening scene that the people we are following are wearing military uniforms and carrying guns while protecting someone, we can therefore tell that these people are most likely associated with the U.S army

Generic: We can see a destroyed city in the opening and later find that the soldiers are being chased by zombies, and zombies are a staple of the horror genre and also supported by the decayed state of the city/world.

3) Provide three different examples from film or television of characters that fit Propp's hero character role.

-Alice from Resident Evil Apocalypse (2004)
-Peter Parker Amazing Spider man (2012)
-Luke Skywalker Star Wars Return of the Jedi (1983)

4) Give an example of a binary opposition.

Capitalism vs Communism

5) What example is provided in the Fact sheet for the way narratives can emphasise dominant ideologies and values?

-When the police officer captures the criminal, the value of upholding law and justice is emphasised

-When the girl wins the heart of. a guy she likes in a romantic comedy, the ideas of a heterosexual relationship and monogamy are emphasised 

6) Why do enigma and action codes (Barthes) offer gratifications for audiences?

Enigma: the problems and complications that are introduced in the text will create enigma and therefore the audience will be curious to how the plot turns out/how the problems will be solved.

Action: the climax of the text provides and emotional high spot for the audiences that leaves them with the problem being resolved and is a reward for the audience as the emotional journey is over.


7) Write a one-sentence summary of the four different types of TV narrative:

• Episodic narrative (the series) 

The narrative arc of these types of text are resolved by the end of the episode and can be watched in any order without expectation that the audience would have needed to watch any previous episodes

• Overarching narrative (the serial)

The narrative arc is not resolved at the end of the episode but instead is resolved at the end of the series (season), and therefore will have recaps at the start and cliff-hangers to keep the audience up to date and hooked (interested)

• Mixed narrative

A mix of both episodic and overarching as there are episodes that deal with minor conflicts and are resolved, however there are also larger developments that can occur in certain episodes and will be revisited multiple times in later episodes.

• Multi-strand overlapping narrative (soap narrative)

The soap narrative has multiple stories going on at once of which some might be resolved in 1 or 2 episodes while others will take much longer and as each episode ends with a cliff-hanger, it keeps the audience interested and the fact that there are so many stories occurring even when some are resolved, the soap retains its fanbase (develops a loyal following)

8) How does the Fact sheet suggest adverts use narrative?  

Averts are set up to have a problem, such as having bad breath, and then immediately resolving this with a product, toothpaste, that will offer an immediate solution, good breath.

So the idea of having a problem and solution is crucial in advertisement to create this effect of narrative.

A/A* extension task

Use our brilliant Media Magazine archive to read Narratology: Todorov, Propp and Freytag from MM70 (page 24). This applies some of our narrative theories (and one new one) to Star Wars, Avengers and more. Which of these theories do you find most useful when applying to media texts? Why? 

I believe that although you definitely could apply al three theories to media texts, I would say that Freytag's theory of the 5 sections within a story, with the modified graph, is much better at helping us identify what a media text is trying to accomplish. This is due to how Todorov's theory of equilibrium can be seen as being too broad to apply to media texts as almost every narrative falls into it and is much more of a baseline for what a text should include for its narrative while Propp's theory of character types can be seen as much to narrow in its outlook and does not take into consideration that as a piece of media text expands on its narrative, the role of the characters can change drastically and is therefore difficult to use in much more complex texts.

Going back to Freytag and his theory, I believe that although his original graph expects the text to have a ever increasing build up of tension is a little unrealistic, his theory/breakdown of a story into 5 sections of Exposition, Rising tension, Climax, Falling action and Denouement, with the inclusion of a more modern graph to represent his idea, can aptly help us in investigating a media text and why certain events in the narrative, or how it is structured, are made/explored and how it creates different ideas.