Year 12 to Year 13 Transition Project

Codes and Conventions of Short Films:

One key moral or lesson/a question for the audience

A smaller budget

Limited narrative

Varied genre

Small scale mise-en-scene: few settings / locations / characters 

Equilibrium -> disequilibrium -> new equilibrium 

Introduction to Narrative Theory

Claude Levi-Straus: narratives are driven forwards by conflict by a series of opposing forces. This is binary opposition. 

Vladimir Propp: theorized that there are always the same stock characters. This involves a hero, villain, heroine, helper, father, donor, mentor. 

Todorov's Theory of Narrative: begins with an equilibrium, an event causes a disequilibrium, and is resolved to create a new equilibrium.

Introduction to Narrative Theory

Common narratives involve: Linear narrative - this is a straight line of narrative with no flashbacks or digression. Parallel action - two scenes are observed as happening at the same time by cutting between them. Anti-narrative: seeks to deliberately disrupt narrative flow to achieve a particular effect, e.g. repetition of images, disruption of a chronological sequence of events. 

Cameron Allen - the unusual narrative theory:  Anachronic: flashbacks and flash forwards, with all different narrative

parts being just as important.  Forking path: shows two different outcomes that are different as a

result of a small change or decision.  Episodic: separates narratives that have some sort of link, for example;

different character lives, linked by the fact that they are all involved in one incident. 

Split screen: different stories, linked by the fact that they are shown on screen at the same time. 

Introduction to Audience Theory

Blumler and Katz - Uses and Gratifications: people watch media products to be informed and educated, to identify with characters or situations, to entertain, as a talking point for social interaction, or an escape from daily life. 

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: psychological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualisation. 

Marxist Theory: Media is part of the superstructure and the ideological state apparatus. We are ruled through the ideologies of the bourgeoisie in the media. ideologies are deemed as normal. 

Stuart Hall (challenged marxist theory): narratives are encoded by producers and decoded by the audience. There is polysemy: the dominant ideology are the preferred reading, however there are also negotiated and oppositional readings. 

Pluralist Theory (Liberal): society is made up of different groups with competing interests. These are represented in different ways. Audience select and reject ideologies voluntarily. The media want to attract mass audience and therefore give the audience what they want - the media works on a supply and demand basis.