Chapter 3 & 4 – Types of Movies and Elements of narrative PDF

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Types of Movies and Elements of narrative...

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Chapter 3 Types of Movies & Chapter 4 – Elements of narrative What is Narrative?  A cinematic structure in which the filmmakers hae selected and arranged events in a cause-and-effect sequence occurring over time  Narrative movie: a fictions film, as opposed to other movies modes, such as documentary or experimental  Narration: The act of telling the story  The narrator: who or what tells the story o Primary narrator  In every movie, the camera is the primary narrator.  Its narration consists of the many visual elements it captures and arranges in every composition in every shot.  Other cinematic elements such as lighting, set design, makeup, performance, and editing contribute to the narrative. o First-person – typically a voice-over but may address the audience directly o Third-person – a voice imposed from outside the narrative o Omniscient – has unrestricted access to all aspects of the narrative and characters, as well as information that no character knows o Restricted – information limited to the knowledge of a single character o

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A narrative is a story A type of movie A way of structuring fictional or fictionalized stories presented in narrative film A broader concept that both includes and goes beyond any of these applications

Narrative Concept  A cinematic structure tat arranges events in a cause and effect sequence  This causality is the basic organizing structure of the most more narratives  Movies do not have to arrange events in conventional order to employ narrative Narrative structure Content is selected and arranged in a cause and effect sequence over time  A structure defined by Aristotle in Poetics (335 BCE) o Exposition o Rising action o Climax o Falling action o Dénouement Types of Move

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Narrative movies – movies that are directed toward fiction or fictionalized stories Documentary movies – movies with an allegiance to nonfiction but which still employ movie storytelling and dramatization Experimental movies– movies that push the boundaries of what most people think movies are or should be.

Narrative structure • Most narratives structures can be broken down to: – Beginning (Act I) – sets up the story and establishes the normal world – Middle (Act II) – longest section that develops the story – End (Act III) – resolves the story

Basic Types of Characters  Two essential elements of virtually every film narrative are a character pursuing a goal.  Round characters – more lifelike, with complex personalities that may change as the story progresses  Flat characters – few distinct traits and do not change significantly as the story progresses  Protagonist – the primary character pursuing the goal  Antagonist – The person(s), creature, or force responsible for obstructing the protagonist  Anti-hero – an unsympathetic protagonist chasing a less than noble goal  Imperfect characters in a narrative – have obstacles, character development, and character motivations

Four Documentary Approaches

Factual Instructive Persuasive Propaganda The Screenwriter  Creates the movie’s story and writes the screenplay in its various stages either from scratch or by adapting another source  Builds the narrative structure and devises characters, action, dialogue, and settings  Adheres to a precisely prescribed format so that each page equals one minute of screen time Diegetic and Nondiegetic  Diegetic elements – what we see and hear on the screen that come from inside the world of the story: characters, objects, settings, and sounds from the world of the story  Nondiegetic elements – what we see and hear on the screen that come from outside the world of the story: titles, credits, music (not originating from the world of the story), and voice-over or third-person narratives Story and Plot  Story – all of the explicit and implicit narrative events in the movie and the diegesis, or total world in which the movie occurs  Plot – the specific actions and events and the order in which the events are arranged to convey the narrative to the viewer, including the nondiegetic elements  These two concepts overlap and intersect with one another in every movie

Plot order and Events

• Plot order – a fundamental decision filmmakers make about how to relay story information • Events – happen in a logical order and their relative significance to the story defines them as either major or minor (secondary) Elements of Narrative: Duration  Duration – the length of time it takes for things to occur (in life or in movies)  Story duration – the length of time the implied story takes to occur  Plot duration – the elapsed time of the events explicitly presented in the film take to occur  Screen duration – the movie’s running time on the screen Elements of Narrative: Exposition • Provides background information on the characters, setting, and basic conflict • Ends with an inciting moment that sets the rest of the narrative in motion Elements of Narrative: Suspense vs. Surprise • Surprise – taken unaware, can be shocking. Our emotional response is generally short-lived and can only happen in the same way once. • Suspense – anxiety brought on by partial uncertainty or even knowing what is going to happen. The means by which its created is uncertain, and we want to warn and protect the empathetic characters. Elements of Narrative: Repetition • Repetition – the number of times a story element recurs in a narrative plot • Familiar image – an audio or visual image that a director periodically repeats in a movie to stabilize its narrative – By its repetition, the image calls attention to itself as a narrative element. – may be symbolic Setting and scope  Setting – the time and place in which the story occurs  Scope – the overall range, in time and place, of a movie’s story...