1B - Narrative Essay Question UPDATED

Apply the concept of narrative to one of your media productions
The concept of narrative refers to a spoken or written account of connected events; a story. We have created a narrative through producing the opening of a film called ‘Traffic Light’. It involves a young boy who has taken the wrong path and finds himself in a sticky situation he has to get himself out of.

There are many theories based on narrative including those of Levi Strauss, Propp, Todorov and Barthes. Strauss focused on binary opposites, having two completely different opposing forces to create a story, a plot line. Within our production we used this ideology to portray the difference between rich and poor. It gave us the story line of how the poor struggle for opportunities and young people can then be lead astray as they have no other options available. We emphasised this by showing Antonio’s dodgy Melbourne neighbourhood, drugs and alcohol covering the lounge coffee table, his ragged unwashed clothes. Then pinned him against the rich London workers walking around the train station in their suit and ties. The large gap between the two characters shows how big a gab society has between the working class and the lower class, emphasising the problems it creates for the youths of our society. It shows to what extent capitalism has when it comes to dividing our community. The hard-hitting truth within society. This was as well as incorporating day and night, to show the dark side of Antonio (being the night) and his good side (being the day). In the dark scenes, it portrays him cycling around his dodgy neighbourhood, handling drugs and simply behaving like a stereotypical drug dealer; shady and cocky. Yet the comparison of the day light shows Antonio regretting his replace decisions and realising that he has taken the wrong path, bringing out his moral side just like the sun brightens the darkness. To make sure this was all brought across we used close ups of his face so that you could see the change in his facial expressions, really enforcing his worries. These shots also gave a development of his character and created enigma codes: will he become and anti-hero? Or will he conform to the ‘chav’ stereotype?

These differences allowed us to create stick characters, something Propp said to be always necessary. At the opening of our film we made it is clear that Antonio had been through struggles by showing his run down home and his shifty community. By doing so it instantly makes the audience empathise with him and they subconsciously see him as a hidden hero. Thus, making the audience want to help him, to make sure he turns it around and becomes a good man It lays out who is going to succeed in the film as well as providing hurdles for them to overcome. Again, this is why we payed large attention to Barthes enigma codes. Throughout the whole opening we made sure to point these out by using less dialogue and more close ups and tracking shots, allowing the audience to follow the actor, as though they are involved with him.

Our evil drug dealing character, Ale, acted as a future reflection of what Antonio is destined to become if he follows this path, he has no male influences in his life his drug dealer is his only source of fatherhood. Ale’s entering shot the camera is looking up at his face to show his superiority over Antonio, the power he has in the side-lines of society. These situations are becoming more and more common within society due do an increase in divorce and the increase in council houses. What better way to show people the problems than through a film.

We used Toddorvs theory to create an equilibrium at the start of the opening and we began to introduce the factors in the film which were going to go wrong for our main character Antonio, getting caught by the police. Our opening created a framework for the rest of the film by giving it a clear story line to follow, whilst also keeping the audience interested in our characters’ ruthless lives.

Overall all of these factors helped us to combine a story line that made sense, where the audience were intrigued to watch more and also that came across as a successful film opening. A narrative is very important in making sure your audience understand the story and we felt we achieved this very successfully.