Narrative - 30 minute essay

Narrative (Thriller film opening):
Introduction (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
Narrative is an important building block when constructing a media production and is a key part in organising and structuring a storyline. For my AS coursework production of a thriller film opening, it was important for me to plan and structure what the narrative would include; from beguinning, middle to end. When making the thriller, it was important to come up with a successful beguinning, middle and end of the production so that the storyline would flow well and make sense to the audience. The main concept of my thriller opening was based on an 'Assassin' set out to do a task in the dark of the night, but ends up being the one being prayed on by an enemy. This in turn ends up as revealing that the assassin has a unique gift of being able to time travel back and forward into time (being able to rewind and fastforward events). Brannagan suggested that narrative is 'a way of organisng spatial and temportal data into cause/effect events'. Throughout my production, I found the narrative important to plan and structure the thriller opening. Using narrative helped to set out the time and space of the storyline and how it would link to the cause/effect events of the thriller opening - such as the darkness of the night leading into the unexpected attack and outcome of the act. Being able to organise my thriller opening this way helped me to make the gradual opening of my mysterious character walking into the night, to then the second unknown mysterioud character being gradually introduced into the picture, being the cause, and then the effect being the sum up/end of how the film opening creates the way in which the film ends. In relation to my production, I can see where Brannagan's theory appears within my work and how the organisation of spatial and temporal data does lead into the cause/effect events within the production.
Within my thriller film production, I included what Cameron would describe as an 'Anachronic' narrative which involves a 'flashback/flashforward' event. This particular narrative type 'Anachronic' fits in well with my own production when it involves the important 'twist' of the time travel back and then forward into time when the main character is attacked but has an individual gift of time travelling. I believed this particular aspect fit in well with the thriller genre but also to intrigue the audience who are interested in the narrative/storyline of the production.
Kate Domaille (2001) discussed about the ‘eight narrative types’ including ‘Circe: The chase’. My thriller film opening would fit in with the ‘Circe’ narrative type as it involves the aspect of the chase, which in turn supports Domailles theory of the main eight narrative types. Within my thriller, it is all about the chase / assassination of one character trying to find someone but in turn is also the one being chased! My production would probably fall into the action and enigma categories as both codes involves aspects of where the audience can create meaning from the texts which are identified within these categories, such as the gun and violence which could fall in action and the mystery and un-explained happenings of the enigma category.
The characters within my production do play an important part in the storyline. Vladimir Propp (1928) talked about the seven character types from the historical fairy tales he analysed, Including the villain, the hero, the princess, the dispatcher… etc. Within my production, the characters aren’t as clear as this because it is not as clear or identifiable to make out whom is the hero and who is the villain, or have the same structure as what prop suggested. It can be argued that one character can be a hero and villain but not one or the other.
Conclusion (approx. 50 words/paragraph)
To conclude, I believe narrative does play an important part in productions such as mine and is also important in engaging the audience with the point of the thriller production. My aim was to create a more creative narrative than other typical thriller films, and in terms of the theories mentioned; I believe that my work does connect well to some of these theorie, but for the some that were mentioned I believe to have challenged them for my own reasons into creating a successful narrative for my thriller film opening.