Narrative theories

Narrative theory in terms of our project work

Narrative in media terms means ‘story-telling’. It is not the story itself but rather the way that the story has been told. This involves things such as the narrative structure, verisimilitude and often an enigma.

In terms of the product I have created I feel that I have been able to incorporate major aspects of the narrative theory and have been able to create a narrative that is engaging and exciting for the audience. Our trailer shows aspects of the film that we would have created however it doesn’t tell the audience everything about the film, the film would still involve George being at the top of his game but then a stalker would ruin this by messing with him and kidnapping him, however our story would have an unexpected twist for the audience as the whole story would unfold and it would turn out that everything was for a publicity stunt. However this would then twist once more as he would actually get stalked for real and end up in a heap of danger.

Our storyline delivers narrative to the audience through the suspense and tension in both the trailer and the film that we would have created. We decided to include tension and suspense in order to keep the audience hooked into the film and we offered twists in the story so that the audience didn’t expect what was going to happen which would also keep them interested  in the storyline

Our storyline doesn’t follow the traditional linear structure at the start; this is because we plan on having the kidnapping scene at the end and he would be locked in a room trying to remember what has happened to him, thus revealing the story about his life going down hill. It would then twist to reveal the publicity stunt which would reverse the structure to the traditional linear structure that the audience would expect. This is because the time would follow in order rather than go backwards in his life.

We also wanted to keep the audience interested in the film this is why we decided to have the open structure to the trailer as we felt that this would persuade the audience to come and watch the film in order to find out what has happened. With the film we would also choose not to close the ending and rather have an open one as we plan to create a second film carrying on the new storyline that the audience finds out about. This would mean that the audience who watched the first film would want to go and see the second to find out how it ended.

We offered two enigmas within the storyline; this is where there is a puzzle that the audience has to solve which usually ends with an unexpected twist. The first we added was where the first part of the film actually turns out to be a publicity stunt, and just when the audience thinks that they have figured out the puzzle of the storyline we added in another twist to the story by making it so that George was actually getting stalked for real. This would make it so that the audience would be glued to the screen when watching and trying to unravel the storyline.

We also went against typical conventions and the expectations by reversing the villain and victim roles. Audience member would expect the traditional male villain and the female ‘damsel in distress’ however we reversed these roles as we felt it added a new twist to the storyline.