NARATIVE DEVICES

There are a varirty of devices which are used in film and television to create different moods and feelings within the film and to the audience, some of which are:

1.Flash Back - Go back into the past or furutre

2.Red Hearring - A missleading path

3.Dramatic Irony - The audience know more than the characters do

4.Foreshadowing - Hinting things to come

5.Pathetic Fallacy - Where the weather matches the mood in the narrative. E.g in the opening of "The silence of the lambs" the weather is very dark and mysterious which fits the eiry, dark and mysterious mood of the beginig.

6.Twist Ending - is an unexpected conclusion or climax to a work of fiction, and which often contains irony or causes the audience to reevaluate the narrative or character

ANALYSIS OF DVD COVERS

THE BOURNE IDENTITY

The first thing we see on the front cover is the main character, Jason Bourne played by Matt Damon. Haveing a famous movie star on the fromt cover can often help sell a film. We can tell he is the main character becasue he is in all of the pictures on both the back and the front covers, they also show us they type of character he is. We can see he is on the run from something or someone because on the main picture he looks to be running but also on teh back cover he is running away from somehing. The stills on the cover show us the type of film it will be and that is very action packed, with guns, chases, explosions and ofcourse woomen. The pictures on the cover can appeal to both men and women as the action and guns will appeal to the men where as the kissing may appeal to the women, which gives the film a larger audience. Also the two colours on the cover, could also mean he is more than one person or leads more than on life. The cover is very attracting and would defenately get people to buy it, making it effective.

NORTH BY NORTHWEST

This cover is a lot different to the Bourne Identity. Here there is only one shot , and it is that of the main character Roger Thornhill played by James Mason runnig away from a low flying plane. This shows us the amount of danger he finds himself in during the film, which would make people want to watch it as it seem so thrilling and also want to find out what it is he did to get himself into that situation. The title of the film is very bold, the colour red makes it stand out on the pale blue backround, the font is also intriguing because you do not normally assosiate 'fun' writing with thrillers.

The colours used are good as they do not blend in with each other but they stand out, making the cover more eyecatching and bold.

From the cover we can defenately see that it is a thriller film and the PG rating is great as it can have a very wide and large audience, although the man running away from the plane will defenatel appeal more to boys and men.

Silence Of The Lambs

The first impression of this cover is that the film is that the film is quite eiry and ghostly. The main picture is of a womans very pale face, which could mean she is either dead or a ghost of somesort. The butterfly is over her mouth, 'silencing' her which is a very clever thing to do as this is in the title of the film. Her eyes are the same colour as the butterflies wings, and being on such a pale white background they stand out a lot and seem as if she is looking at us, also the psoitioning of the eyes also make it feel that as we move the eyes move with us, making us feel a little frigtened. The black background is scary as the two colours of white and black realy stand out on each other, emphasisng the face. Also the title of the film is in red which defentely stands out, although it is very small compared to the picture. Which may been the people who made this thought the picture would say it all. Lastly the colour sceme of Red, White and Black, determines to us that the film is going to be frightening with blood and murder in it. Overall it is a very good poster and all the elements work well with each other.

Continuity task - Corpse Scene, "The Birds"

The sequence begins with an establishing shot, with a character in close view. From this we can see the setting and meet the character from the first time, (can only see the back but can make out she is an older female).
Mid-shot of the lady lets us familiarise ourselves with the character more. Mid-shot continues as she looks around a bit, but there is a suddedn zoom in from mid-shot to close up to amphasise somehting is wrong. We can also see her face and expressions clearer.
She walks along a corridor, the corridor is very narow making it look as if she is being closed in the further down the corridor she goes. She then enters a bedroom to see windows are broken, furniture is broken and there are dead birds on the floor.
Point of view shot on these, draw us further into her emotions, with close-ups on her face to establish she is in shock, scared and is worried about soemthing. Which sets of an enigma code, of "why is so firghtend?".
She looks around more and see something. There is the an extreme-close up on feet with blood, so we as the audience have a feeling we know what she has scene.
We see the corpse as a long-shot, then zoomed in on face where eyes have been removed.
Extreme close-up in her to show her shock and reaction.
Long, tracking shot follows her as she runs off in horror.

Audience Positioning Analysis (Gemma and Disha)

The first shot is a two shot, here ware able to see the relationship between the two characters, during the two shot the character Gemma is smiling so we think that they have a good positive relationship. There is then and over the shoulder shot for each character, so we can see what the two characters see, this makes us fee; more involved and understande the way one charcacter sees and percieves the other.
Next is a midshot if the character Disha looking out of the window at something, we can see her emotions a lot clearer. It shows she is thougthfull and thinking about something, which is an enigma code as the viewers would ask the question, 'what is she thinking about?' or is it that she is regretfull about something?
Mid shot goes into close up of Disha, but this time with a mid-shot of Gemma behind her bearing a knife. It may also be described as a two-shot as we can see a negatvie relationship between the two characters.
Next is an extreme close-up of Gemma with the knife in her mouth, looking towards Disha with anger in her eyes. Here the audience knows what is going to happen next but Disha is obblivious to it all as she is looking in the opposite direction.
In the next two-shot we see the struggle between the characters and the knife going towards Disha's neck.
Extreme close-up of the knife pressed on Disha's throat, shows the danger that she is in.
Back to a two-shot of the agonist with the knife on the protagonists throat.

From these various types of shots we can clearly see the change in relationship with the two characters. They also have a good range of shots which are all usefull and do there jobs, showing emotion etc. Also the change (transaction) between different shots are well thought out and work well to make a clear sequence which makes sense. They do not randomly change (e.g go from a long shot to and extreme close up) but the change is smooth and effective.

CONVENTIONS OF A THRILLER

-A crime (usuallly murder) at the core of the narrative
-Complex narrative structure - false paths, red herrings, clues and resoloutions
-Protagonist (hero) systematically disempowered and drawn into a complex web of intrigued by the antagonist (villan)
-Extra ordinary events happening in ordinary situations
-Protagonist with a 'flaw' which is exploited by the antagonist
-Themes of identity e.g mistaken identity
-Establishing enigmas for the protagonist
-A given scene near the end of the film in which the protagonist is in peril
-Mise en scene which echos/mirrors the protagonists plight

Various Narrative Theories In Film

ROLAND BARTHES
Barthes created narrative codes because he felt they helped to define and analyse the meanings behind different stories. One way in which he tested this was to look at a story from one point of view to gain one persepective of it and then to look at the same story form another point of view to gain a different perspective on the story.
These codes where then put into different groups:
1. Points of cultural reference
2. Symbols and Signs
3. Action and Enigma Codes - uses unanswered questions e.g who are they? what are they doing? why are they doing it? and then "what happens next" in the film
4. Simple description/reproduction

VLADIMIR PROPP
Vladimir Propp was a Russian formalist scholar who analysed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements.
Propp analysed hundreds of tales, after which he concluded that there were 31 functions of the character and 8 character types. The 8 character types were:
1. Villains - Struggles against the hero
2. Hero/Heroin - Defeats the villain. Solves the crime.
3. Donor - Prepares the hero
4. Helper - the heroes accomplice
5. Princess - the heroes reward. Character who is usually sought for during the narrative
6. Father - Gives the task to the hero
7. Dispatcher - make the lack known and sends the hero off
8. Flase Hero - takes credit for the heroes actions or tries to get the rewars (marry the princess)

CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS
Levi Strauss saw narrative structure in the terms of binary opposites. Levi strauss had the important insight that the way we understand ceratin words depends not so much on any meaning they themseves directly contain, but much more by our understanding of the difference of the words and its opposite or "Binary Opposite". Examples of binary opposites:
1. Good and Evil
2. Light and Dark
3. Love and Hate
4. Known and Unknown

Gemma and Disha