Friday, 8 June 2012

Narrative Theorists

For my foundation portfolio my task was to create a short thriller opening lasting between 3-4 minutes in a group of 3. The opening shows a teenage girl, the protagonist (Beth) who is in her room crying over her breakup as she is still in love with her ex-boyfriend. The break up causes her to become greatly obsessed with him and plans on getting revenge by crushing pills and ends by her walking out of the room.
Our aim was to create an enigmatic effect right from the start to keep the audience engaged at all times, as the beginning is the most important part of a film, to keep audiences attracted and involved where possible. Roland Barthes enigma code can relate here as his theory suggests that films include enigma which is solved usually at the end of the film, or continued in a sequel. As we didn’t need to produce an ending, this had no effect on our product.
During our research and planning we looked at films that were already on the market to recognise the codes and conventions required for a thriller opening. Films that we came across were ‘Obsessed’ and ‘Prom Night’. Having enigma was one of the conventions we interpreted from the films, in which we got our inspiration from. Other elements of a thriller that we obtained from watching the opening and trailers were using familiar objects and concepts so that the audience can assume the film process (David Bordwell). This included the music choice, (using an enigmatic and eerie non-diegetic soundtrack to create an intense atmosphere) and the emotionally distressed protagonist, who we made seem vulnerable; to enhance the sympathy we wanted the audience to feel towards her.
Levi Strauss’ Theory of binary oppositions suggests that films usually create conflict in which we considered such as the use of desaturation to represent the past, making the use of black and white clear for audiences about the tense shown. By showing clips of their relationship in the past can be argued that the genre for this opening is in fact a drama-thriller hybrid opposed to a thriller genre. We also used the use of lighting, starting in a dark environment outside of the bedroom, which then turns light when the camera moves into her room. The last opposition we used was love/hate, between the two characters. We used a blurry effect at this stage to help signify a distorted and unclear mind of mixed emotions.
We portrayed a stereotypical character of a girl who is upset and broken-hearted which conforms to the hegemonic ideology expected of the character. Propp and Todorov’s theories include the protagonist to be a male character whom is often the hero, but we subverted to this as there were no main male characters until we see her ex-boyfriend, making him the antagonist.
In conclusion my film opening mostly conformed to the stereotypical conventions required in a thriller opening and can be related to many narrative theorists. It enables audiences to relate to the product but I think due to our time constraint, it limited us from exploring contents of a thriller opening in which we could further subvert to.