In my AS production, I produced a film opening based
on a mix of both a thriller and romance genre.
I constructed the plot to make the audience realise that a person’s
class does not defeat the object of being in love, whoever they may fall
for. Tez was a lower class 18-year-old
boy, a stereotypical character of someone who was brought up from a more
unfortunate environment. Alicia was an
upper-class, upcoming businesswoman who worked in the city.
Levi Strauss created a theory in which films are
stocked with several binary opposites.
This is immediately effective for the audience without them
subconsciously knowing about it. An
example of this is my film opening was that Tez came from a lower-class
foundation and Alicia, an upper class surrounding. I decided to go through with this theory as
when watching existing media texts such as; Twilight, it is not predictable and
this is what makes an opening of a film so gripping.
Todorov’s theory involved the idea of having an
equilibrium. This was the idea of the
plot starting calm, disruption interrupting in the middle, causing a complete
different outcome in comparison to the beginning. Due to our production being a film
opening. I decided not to apply this as
it would look like a short film instead.
Therefore, we decided to challenge the theory by making our film
original, creating enigma at the end. An
example of this is we used our camera shots and editing skills to create
tension about Tez, to make the audience question his personality. Is he dangerous? Why does this music
implement fear towards Alicia?
For Propp’s theory, we created Alicia’s character to
be portrayed as sweet and innocent.
Whereas, with Tez we created him to cause enigma for the audience, by
making him look like a villain. Yet, we
challenged this theory and subverted the audience’s expectations as Tez is not
a dangerous character but his stereotypical view of the way he dresses, walks
and acts causes him to be portrayed as this type of character. Also, as mentioned before, we wanted to make
our film opening as original as we could by not having these type of characters
in the film as it then becomes predictable and repetitive especially for the
audience we have.
As mentioned before, Barthes enigma coding theory was
exactly the theory we were inspired by.
As a massive fan of loving being left on a cliff hanger, we decided to
use this theory to grip our audience. We
made the audience question why Tez sat next to Alicia on the train, why is
Alicia oblivious to Tez and many more.
Because of this, this causes the audience to want to watch more and find
out the answers to their questions.
To conclude, narrative was a crucial consideration
when constructing my film opening.
However, for me, the most influential theorist is Barthes. This is due to how much his theory inspired
the narrative of our opening. If it
wasn’t for this enigma coding invention, films today would not be half as
gripping today.
Chloe, you show good understanding of theories, and with work, this could be good.
ReplyDelete- Your introduction gives a nice overview, but reflect on the concept of genre also.
- P2 - Don't explain the theory. Just reference it and show how you used it.
- P3 - This is confusing. Again, don't explain the theory. You ARE applying Todorov, but you're only making an opening, so we wouldn't see it ALL. What camera angles? What music? Enigma is Barthes' theory so put this separately.
- This essay is a bit too focussed on repeating WHAT you did, rather than exploring it in terms of narrative. Try to analyse more and be more specific with your examples.
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