Narrative Theory

Narrative Theory

Five Stage Narrative Structure

There is a five stage narrative structure to every film, this is how the stories are told and how the meaning is conveyed to captivate the understanding for the audience. Usually in chronological order and following a set of main characters the story develops around their actions, what caused them to take this path and how they go about solving any obstacles.

1. Exposition - setting a scene and introducing the characters. In Zombieland the main character protagonist who plays Colombus is introduced, giving him background on his fears (clowns and people) and also his rules for surviving Zombieland. From this we can see he his a lone survivor in America, trusting people always ends badly for him therefore forshadowing his emotions about meeting others later on in the film.

2. Development - As the situation develops, there are more characters that are introduced. Colombus is forced to leave his home and starts travelling back to where his parents live, on the way he meets Talhasse who is a zombie-killing extraordinare and takes a lot of pride in doing so. On the motorway Colombus and Talhasse travel until they meet Wichita and Little Rock, two sisters that are found along the way which they begin to travel with.

3. Complication - Something happens to complicate lives of the characters. Columbus and Talhasse get their truck taken from them by Wichita and Little Rock, they were fooled by a feigned infection, a play made by the sisters. This makes it so that Columbus and Talhasse have to walk, in a zombie apocalypse you need to be moving fast to get anywhere.. eventually they find another truck with a load of guns in it and go forth to find the sisters.

4. Climax - Decisive moment reached; matters come to a head; suspense high. The sisters have gone to an amusement park alone, Little Rock wanted to do this for a long time hence why they are there by themselves. Wichita turns on the power to the rides, illuminating it from miles away, alerting zombies from all around to feast. Zombies begin to swarm the amusement park and Colombus and Talhasse are in front of them ready to protect the girls who are still on the rides. The infected climb up the rides to where the sisters are trying to eat them, this is the tense part when they start rushing into the park, all the survivors are killing as many zombies as they can but it seems neverending.

5. Resolution - Matters are resolved and a satisfactory end is reached. At the end of Zombieland the infected have been almost cleared out and the sun begins to rise. The rides have died and the suriviors are free to leave in the trucks.

Kettle Shots

Kettle Scene

Over the last two days we have taken shots of a kettle against a black background, the smoke rising and contrasting with the background. As the kettle is boiled it gets poured into a glass jar where the tea bag is mixed, a different shot angle is used for this, not the same as the beginning shot with a different framing. Next the glass is held up to the person drinking it, they blow on it, pause and then take a sip.

All of SWEFF (Sound, White Balance, Exposure, Focus and Framing) has been considered and used within the shots. For example the two cameras we had we're set to tungsten lighting, the aperature was 10 whereas the shutter speed was 50, this gave the white lighting to the setting. We done the Call and Respond everytime before beginning of the shot to keep all the roles on set in order, for example we say lights, ready, sound, speed and cameras, rolling. After the respond and call the clipboard is used to tell us the scene and what take it is.

Sound Theory

Sound Theory

There are several types of sound that are in films which make up sound theory.

Dialogue: The speech of a character when they are talking aloud, usually the voice is recorded on set and not a pre-production track.

Narration: A commentary over the film, usually to describe what is happening in the scene, seperately recorded to the scene and put over as non-diegetic sound.

Diegetic Sound: Sound that can be heard by both the audience and the characters in the film, these tracks are recorded on set.

Non-Diegetic Sound: The sound that can't be heard by characters in the scene however the audience can, this is usually music or a voiceover/narration.

Atmosphereic Sound: Ambient sound from the location, usually captured by a shotgun mic as it picks up loads of sound clearly.

Foley Sound: This type of sound is the reproduction of everyday sound effects where by the audio is enhanced during pre-production for more impact.

Pleonastic Sound: Sound effects put in real time to go with the scene for example a punching sound, or gun shot, and explosion.

Soundtrack: The music put on over the scene to go with the pace and keep the rhythm of the scene.

Microphones

Shotgun Mic

The shotgun mic is used for a specific area of sound and capturing the audio that's on frame, a muffler is used to minimize certain unwanted sounds like wind for example.

Lapel Mic

  This mic is used for recording sound on a specific character, it is usually hooked on their clothes to get good quality sound while still keeping the microphone hands-free.

Omni-Directional Mic

An omnidirectional microphone is used to record atmospheric sound, and record in all different directions.