Theory - Year 1 Notes | Charlotte Whitworth

Stereotypes

Ideology and Types

We get our information about them partly from what other people tell us - although we may not necessarily trust this - and, in fiction, from narrators and from the 'thoughts' of the characters, but most of out knowledge about them is based on the evidence in front of us: what they do and how they'll do it, what they say and how they say it, dress, mannerisms, where they live and so on. Organisation of this information goes into roles, individual, type and member.

Role - think of them purely in terms of the particular set of actions; including dress, speech and gesture; that they are doing in the moment we encounter them.

Narration - the process by which the plot presents story information to the spectator.

Story - all the events in a narrative, those presented and these implied, the spectator infers story.

Plot - the visible and audio story information that is presented to the spectator.

The story is the raw material, usually perceived in terms of a beginning, a middle, and an end. The plot can omit some story elements and does not have to follow a linear order - certain films adopt a plot-in-reverse narrative.

Diegesis - the 'story world' of the film. All narratives combine diegetic and non-diegetic elements.

Cause and effect imply change, which leads to narrative development and accordingly interest. Cause or effects might be withheld, prompting the viewer to imagine them (making hypothesis).

Classic Hollywood uses casual agents characters (train, motivations) and natural or supernatural events, which lead to effects.

Function - either central or minor figures (not always human beings), who are a combination of both ordinary and extraordinary features.

Coherence - the character carries values, performs actions and adopts behaviours that should create a unified image.

Depth - the uniqueness of a character is usually a combination of personal mysteries and intricacies.

Groupings - the social arrangements of characters in relation to each other (social hierarchies of class, gender, race, age, geography often play an important role).

Types - the distinguishing features of a character (particularly prominent in fairy tales, genre films and comic books). They can be characterised as either archetypes or stereotypes.

Development - characters move from one mental, physical or emotional state to another (internal/external change).

Order - most commonly, plot follows a linear chronology (ABCD). Yet, many films adopt nonlinear devices, like flashbacks (BACD) or flash-forwards (ABDC).

Duration - time can be compressed or expanded through the different relationships of story duration, plot duration and screen duration.

Frequency - story events might be repeated in the plot (e.g. when we have multiple narrators). Frequency can determine the values of event.

Normally, the place of the story action is also that of the plot, but sometimes the plot leads us to infer other locales as part of the story.

Locations within a narrative can have different characters and perform various functions: historical, ideological, psychological, or symbolic.

Screen space (i.e. the visible space within the frame) selects portions of plot space. The continuity system emphasises the coherence of onscreen and offscreen space.

Unrestricted (omniscient) narration - the audience knows/sees more than the characters (often third-person narrative)

Restricted Narration - limited story information is provided to the viewer (e.g. in detective or mystery genres).

Frequently narration fluctuates between restricted and unrestricted (this can help to create narrative tension).

The depth of story information varies: presentation can be objective or subjective (e.g. using POV shots), or even manipulative.

Claude Levi-Strauss 'Stories are simple. There is only one.'

Levi-Strauss spent many years studying hundreds of myths and legends from around the globe. At the end, his conclusion was that at the heart of every story there is conflict expressed in the form of binary oppositions.

Binary oppositions are sets of opposite values, which van reveal the structure of media texts (e.g. films, books, video games, advertisements, etc.)

We subconsciously recognise conflicts in terms of binary oppositions (e.g. good ≠ evil, male ≠ female, savage ≠ civilised, white ≠ black, war ≠ peace, moral ≠ immoral, etc.) Such oppositions are essential for us in order to produce basic meaning out of what is happening in our lives.
Levi-Strauss was not so interested in looking at the order in which events were arranged in the plot. He looked instead for a deeper arrangement of themes.

The main problem with the approach of Levi-Strauss is that it might lead us to adopt a rather simplistic way to perceive even highly complex stories and plots.

Oppositions produce a heirarchial model: one side has to 'win' the conflict that lies at the core of the narrative and the members of the audience are expected to agree with and favour the 'winning side'

This theorization can create a dangerous 'norm' that delimits our perspective and nurtures stereotypes (e.g. the ideology promoted by the white handsome heterosexual male hero.)

Notably, the binaries described by Levi-Strauss have strong validity when it comes to the Hollywood model.

Tzvetan Todorov

Todorov suggested there are five key stages in all narratives:

Equilibrium - all is as it should be, a state of normality or neutrality.
Disruption of Equilibrium - a change is forced by an action or event.
Recognition of the Disequilibrium - the protagonist realises/experiences the change in the established order of things.
Attempt to repair the disequilibrium.
New Equilibrium - a new satisfactory state of normality is reached.

Often the new equilibrium involves a new state of being, where not only has order been restored, but also some kind of learning process or improvement to life has taken place.

Therefore, Torodov argues that good narrative involves some kind of transformation for its major characters and situations.

In the case of franchise films or games (e.g. trilogies or 'sagas') each instalment leaves the audience with either a disequilibrium (an evidently 'unfinished' aspect of the plot) or with a form of false equilibrium.

The circular pattern of equilibrium/disruption/new equilibrium may be repeated even within the same video game plot.

Imagining the future: Utopia's, Dystopias and the 'New Man'

Utopia - an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect.

Dys - bad, badly, depraved, difficult, working badly, painful

Four types of utopian fiction:

The paradise, in which a happier kind of life is described
The externally altered world
The willed transformation
The technological transformation

Four types of dystopia:

The hell
The externally altered world
The willed transformation
The technological transformation

Creative Writing

Generating Ideas

Research - info for inspiration. Film, images, fiction, poetry, history, ect.
Brainstorm - notes, mind-maps. Pairs and groups good for exchanging and developing ideas
Experiment - set exercises. Writing takes practice and a few drafts to get 'right'

Working as Communication

As a writer you communicate your message to the reader/audience
How well do you do the above?
Need to have a reasonable understanding of what you are trying to say
Consider: content, narrative, plot, tone, style, dialogue, character

Writing a Screenplay

Idea
Basic story - one paragraph
Story outline/proposal - one page
Treatment - 3 to 4 pages that describe the tone, style and contextualise the film
Scene outline - script without dialogue that describes each scene objective
Screenplay - first draft...rewrite to eventual final draft

Building the structure

Beginning, middle, end - not necessarily in that order
Conflict
Set up experiments
Confound expectations
Build in ambiguity
Don't resolve everything
Denouement - whether to tie up the loose threads at the end? or not?

Dialogue

Better to show that the tell - use gestures, actions and looks where possible
Moves the storyline forward
Know how the scene will end before writing dialogue
Know characters' objectives in the scene before writing
Use to fill background and provide motivation
Conflict creates best dialogue
A crafter representation of conversation?
Overwrite, cut, condense, tighten

Character Development

Main character/protagonist
Their struggle/dilemmas
Backstory you should know
Visualize
Protagonists needs - be fulfilled or not
Contrast characters - conflict
Don't stay locked in the head of one character