Narrative Structure - Summary Film Studies PDF

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Summary of Sikov narrative structure....

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Narrative Structure Narrative Structure  Narrative: storytelling o Not all films are narrative:  documentaries—non-fiction accounts of real people and events that may or may not tell a story in the process  Avant-garde—experimental films that may be composed of nothing but shapes or colors or shots of ppl and things that are not assembled in the form of a tale Story and Plot  Story: all the events of the narrative as they occur in chronological order from beginning to end, including not only those that we see and hear, but those we infer o Tells what happened from beginning to end  Plot: the ordering and structuring of narrative events as they are presented in the film o Order the filmmaker reveals the story elements to the audience  Diegesis: all the story elements presented by the narrative, no matter whether they are actually seen or heard onscreen or not  Fabula: the story that each of us constructs as we watch and hear the syuzhet unfold  Syuzhet: film’s plot; specific ordering of narrative elements within the film Scenes and Sequences  Scene—defined by unity of time, space, and action o Unified action that takes place in one location during a single time period  Sequence—maintains a unity of time, place or dramatic action but introduces a discontinuity o Defined by patterns of shots within each scene  Flashback—a shot, sequence, or scene that takes place in the past, before the present-day time frame established by the film  Flashforward—shot, sequence, or scene that takes place in the future, after the presentday time-frame established by the film Transitions from scene to scene  Most scenes just cut  Fade-in: image entirely black/white and new image gradually appears until full strength/clarity  Fade-out: image gradually disappears until the screen is either all white or all black  Iris-in: created when the image begins as a small circle in the middle of an all-white or all black screen and widens until it covers the screen  Iris-out: full rectangular image shrinks in a circular form until it disappears in the middle of a screen  Dissolve: one image fades out while a subsequent image fades in o Midway point is superimposition  Wipe: one image appears to push another off the screen o May happen horizontally, vertically, diagonally, or take the form of a shape  Crosscutting—editing that alternates two or more lines of action occurring in different places or times, thereby connecting them

Narrative Structure

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o Cutting from one character in one space to another character un a different space then back to the first characters A-picture: feature that was more expensive to make (probably better known) B movie: lesser-known, probably cheaper made film

Character, desire, and conflict  Desire: the central character’s pursuit of a goal  Conflict: what gets in the way/prevents desire Analyzing conflict  Segmentation—how to break down cinematic stories...