Group Narrative- Miss Georgiou

Group Narrative 

The basic purpose of a narrative is to entertain, to gain and hold a readers interest. The narrative is to be clear and is to present the setting and way in which, the whole story is set.   In media it is important to be able to tell the differences between the narrative and the story. A story is a sequence of events where as a narrative is the way in which this is told. So, when we are analysing a narrative we are analysing the construction of a story eg, the way its put together not the story itself. From our group narrative we must be able to show the audience the theme of our narrative from the off set; our theme being thrillers. As a group we discussed and took into consideration each-other's individual ideas in order to take the best parts of each to formulate a narrative as a group that fits into the main focuses of a narrative. 

  My Own Idea For A Narrative

My idea for my narrative consists of a car crash taking place and a young girl being killed. A young, blonde, female driver is the reason for this and is then haunted by the young girl she killed in the chase who is out to get revenge. The scene is vaguely shown but, we mostly see her getting haunted and the crash is the background story to this. She gets haunted in a series of events and we witness within the opening scene these occuring to her. For example: door's slamming, strong gusts of wind following this and objects unexpectedly falling off of shelves. The setting would be in a house to add to the realism of the event, and small glimps of the girl will be shown to the audience but, not the victim (dramatic irony). When the girl is shown to the audience, creepy music is played that will then thus create an atmosphere and a suspense for the audience. 

Advantages of this idea:
An advantage of this is that my narrative falls into the thriller genre and obtains many thriller conventions such as, the female victim, the un-expected killer, a murder being taken place and the conventional setting of night-time in a isolated area. However, having seen the advantages of my idea we discovered disadvantages that came alongside them.

Disadvantages of this idea:
 A disadvantage of my narrative idea is that there is a great deal to be able to be placed within the time we have been allocated to create our opening scene. The car crash, the death, and the chase for revenge are quite longwinded and although, would be a good idea for a whole thriller sequence, perhaps is too much for a short snip-it of one. 

The idea we decided to take from mine was that using transport was an exciting thing to use for our clip. After differing we decided that we could use public transport such as, a train in order to create our scene. This will be the easiest thing for us to use as it will not involve getting permisson and will allow us sound effects to create suspense and tension. 

Gunnet's Idea

My individual narrative consists of an extremely vain girl who keeps looking at herself at every mirror or surface with a reflection once the eerie music comes in she realises someone has been following her and eventually gets killed after sprinting through the retail shop floors from the psychotic killer.

Advantages of this idea:
The main character is conventional to the thriller genre and the use of music will add suspense and tension to it.

Disadvantages of this idea:
It will be hard to film this without people getting in the way meaning, there will be a lot of disruptions taking place when filming.

Sophie's Idea

My individual narrative consists of a young blonde girl who is alone in her house she recently moved in to. The house is old fashioned and has a creepy atmosphere as there is low key lighting and close up shots. She starts to hear doors slamming and other noises in her house, when she realizes something is wrong a creepy erry soundtrack starts to play, when she realizes she is not alone in the house a more upbeat faced paced music is introduced. When she is investigating the house, the masked killer appears behind her and she see's his reflection in the window and a non diagetic disturbing loud sound is played to shock the audience and grab their attention. By the end of the clip she wakes up in her bed and realizes it was a dream the soundtrack is more calm, so she goes back to sleep and there is a heartbeat sound building the suspense. When she is asleep there is a extreme close up of the killers face. The audience is left in suspense of a cliff hanger.   

Advantages of this idea: 

• The narrative is clear and easy to display to the audience
• Easy place to film without any disturbances
• Easy to re create the scene for more filming time
• Good place to film, as everyone in the group can easily get there
• different camera angles and sound used
• the audience will be able to relate to the scene well as its set in a house

Disadvantages of this idea:

• Simple, predictable scene for a thriller film
• Parts of the plot may not grab the audiences attention
• May be hard to add the effects in such as the doors slamming

Overall idea

Our overall idea consists of a small group of people on their way to a party with the main character being a teenage blonde girl. The train has a maximum of 15 people on and is in the middle of the day. There is a panning shot so the audience can be aware of the surroundings and the number of people in the train, there is also a mid shot of the girl and her group of friends so the audience can understand that she is not alone and be prepared for what is going to happen next. As the train goes through a dark tunnel the soundtrack changes from happy laughter and upbeat music to creepy sinister music with a heartbeat sound in the background. As the train comes out of the tunnel everyone in the train has disappeared and the girl is left alone, the time of day has changed as well to late evening as it is dark, this sets the scene for what is about to happen for the audience and there is a loud eery sound as the train comes out of the tunnel. The girl starts to look around and pressing the 'open' button trying to open the doors but nothing happens, as she looks up she see's a masked man looking back at her and she falls back. The train door noise is exaggerated as the masked man now enters the train. As the masked killer goes to kill the young girl, she is transported back to when she is on the train before it goes in the tunnel with her friends and in the middle of the day, as the train pulls up to the next station the masked killer is standing in front of her at the next station and the clip ends. The audience is left in suspense and on a cliff hanger. This will grab their attention to find out what will happen and leave them wanting more.

There are three different narrative theories that films can chose to follow discovered by, Vladimir Propp, Toderov's and Aristole. Vladimir's theory consists of "Characters providing functions for film's providing a structure." This structure then allows the audience to understand the narrative better. These characters consist of: The hero, the villian, the donor, the dispatcher, the false hero, the helper, the princes and her father. The Toderov's theory consists of a simplified idea of a narrative whilst also allowing a more complex interpretation of film texts within this theory of Equilibrium or disequilibrium. It goes in the order of 1) Equilibrium- Everythings normal, 2) Disequlilbrium- a disruption, 3) then a new equlibrium. The third theory was Aristole's theory which is based on "the unties; time, place and action." The structure of this narative is under the following headings: inciting incident, dramatic question, character goal, antagonist/protagonist, stakes, resoloution and sympathy/empathy. Our narrative folows the structure of Todorov's theory as we have an equlibrium of the girl being on the train with her friends en route to a party, the disequilibrium of her struggle to get off the train and meeting the killer and the new equilibrium of her trying to get away back to normality. By following a theory we will enable our opening to have a structure and will hopefully flow through a lot more freely due, to the orgainisation of it.