Narrative Theories - Propp's Character Theory

Propp's Character Theory can be applied in a way that'll relate to my script because in my script, i used many different characters like the 'Hero' that finds the 'Villain' and struggles to run away from the 'Hero'. The hero is driven by achieving a goal and the villain is motivated by trying to stop them. This then links to my film because in Propps Theory, the 'Villain' fights and tries to defeat the 'Hero' within the story line. An example from my film would be when the person holding the GoPro (villain) is trying to find the 'Hero' which then finds out to be hiding in the car park at the back of the Hawthorn Block. They are these characters because they are representing a character to be a part within the story and to present their actions that these 'Villain' and 'Hero's' would do.

Todorov's Equilibrium

Todorov's Equilibrium Theory can be applied in a way that'll relate to my script because in my script, we used a narrative that followed the Three Act Structure. The Three Act Structure is a model that is used within screenwriting and is divided into three parts. This theory has informed the development of my characters as at the beginning of my story, the characters start happy but then however changes when something is then disturbed between this, this is called Equilibrium which is founded in Todorov’s theory. Next, this then changes through a distribution where something will feature a problem or something will disturb happiness. This would link back to my interactive film as at the beginning of the story, deciding on what option you’ll take, something will always disturb happiness as you’re trying to escape from the ‘unknown’ character. Linking back to the characters, this would then relate back to the ‘villain’ and ‘hero’ within a story.

The Hero’s Journey

The Hero’s Journey is portraying the expedition of the hero – the hero goes on an adventure, wins a victory, and then comes home changed or transformed into someone different. This relates to my story as throughout my story the hero wins either way, doesn’t matter what choice you choose, you’ll always find them. This theory has informed the development of my characters as well as they’ll only be either a ‘hero’ or ‘villain’ within our film. You will see the ‘hero’ (person you’ll be) go on their journey…

My characters go through the stage of the Hero’s Journey that Joseph Campbell described as the adventure begins within my story. This starts with the character going off and choosing their own options to get to the end of the journey. They will go through challenges and temptations in deciding what the best options are to succeed. My characters undergo deaths and rebirths as they will choose options that’ll say ‘try again’ which they will then need to start from the very beginning and choose very carefully. They don’t receive any calls to start their journey, but they have three choices they can choose from to go with what story they may wish to follow. This is making it interesting for them as they can go at their own pace and speed, by choosing their own path in what interests them the most.

Binary Oppositions

The Binary Oppositions shows the differences between two different things e.g. good VS evil, black VS white. This can be applied within my script as I will be using two genres for my film: boy VS girl and would also apply for my characters too. This is because they’ll be good VS evil groups which will be the ‘villains’ and ‘hero’. This is particularly shown in genres such as action and thrillers in a protagonist and antagonist ride. We don’t have any conflict within our story, we’ve kept it as mutual as possible but there are different characters like the ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ that still may not agree in their choices and way to succeed, but it doesn’t show it within the story. However, this doesn’t arise from positioning in Binary Opposites against one another in the narrative because it still follows a story and still follows the Binary Oppositions within the narrative.

Representation

The casting decision informed the idea of Representation through age, gender, class and ethnicity. This was because when deciding who we wanted as each character, it was needed to be a boy and girl within one shot – filming and the one in front of the camera but wasn’t allowed to show the person who’s segment it was as this was due to finding them at the end. We had a clear idea to of what we wanted our characters to look like. We wanted it to be as simple as possible due to we didn’t want to go over the top with looks as focused more on what the storyline would be about but on the other hand, we made it obvious who was what character. Yes – we was able to find someone to fit that idea of choosing who would be what character, in which we used the other team members. We chose to present the character in terms of costume, lighting, and framing by including elements that’ll present their chosen character. For example: we would use darker, flashing and morbid lighting to represent the character as an evil villain this is because we wanted to make it obvious who was who within the story.

But, for every character we still mad them themselves, so we still stuck to our own everyday outfits. This was because we wanted to do something different by not having a specific character for a different character. We ensured that the audience thought about the character the way we wanted them to by letting them think and imagine what they wanted, this is because as it’s an interactive video, they chose their path and option so they would use their imaginations in how they wanted the characters to be portrayed through their decision in story.

Hypodermic Needle Model

As a group we wasn’t trying to repeatedly inject any messages, themes or ideas in their head as we wanted them to choose their own path and imagination as we decided that by having an interactive video and not sticking to a main message, they’ll choose their journey that will keep themselves entertained. When editing, we used stylistic techniques such as mise-en-scene as this created a visual theme for the audience which was adventurous and we also used effects such as rewind that was used when the audience chose the wrong direction, when ‘try again’ was displayed on the screen. By doing so, this then created a passive audience theory as it brought a powerful effect onto the audience through the use of edits to make it seem more realistic and the audience to feel like they’re actually in the story.

Uses & Gratifications Model

The uses that the audience may have for our media product would be three things: self confidence in following their own decision in what path to choose and go with, pleasure in enjoying our product through recognition, videos and pictures, and lastly, empowerment by interactive conversations between the characters on screen and themselves. Through the use of interactive conversations we were aiming to let the viewers and audience to talk about the entertain that our product brought to them, and bringing a conversation through the use of technology of interactive videos and the audience.

Encoding/Decoding Model

The techniques that we used to encode to our film was by presenting our product by just showing our interactive film and tell the audience what it’s all about by just watching and interacting with it. Our group communicated to the audience that a villain was a villain or that a dangerous situation was dangerous by changing the effect of sound, this was then achieved by using a software called Adobe premiere pro that we all used to edit on. The effects that I used to edit my audio on to make a dangerous scene seem dangerous by changing the tempo so the sound decreases and seems more morbid for the audience to listen too. We used editing and the music to express the effect of a darker scene like in scene 6 when you get nearer to in finding the ‘unknown’ character but we didn’t use costume for this because we felt like we wanted a different atmosphere and not follow along the lines like any other film that has certain, based costumes for the different characters.

However, other audience members may decode our messages to our media project as they may not agree with what they may read, or understand through interpreting a text. A different social or cultural background result in a viewer coming away from our film with a very different interpretation to one that we intended as they may not like the use in how we’ve made it into an interactive video, and what genre we’ve based it on as they’re argument may be that “not everyone likes and enjoys our chosen genre”, which is adventurous/crime…