Narrative Theorys

narrative theory's/code

Roland Barthes' theory was the first one we looked at, we learned about Enigma and Action codes through his theory. An enigma code is where many questions are asked, maybe not through characters but maybe by us as we are watching a confusing scene in a film, it enables viewers to predict what could happen next. Both codes are linked due to them following one after another, the enigma code will go first which then leads to the action code in which it is supposed to bring excitement as you are supposed to get your answer as it moves the narrative on.

Roland Barthes also described 5 codes which are in any narrative.

• The Hermeneutic code which refers to any element of the story that is not fully explained and becomes a mystery for the audience.

• The Proairetic code builds tension, referring to any other action or event that indicates something is going to happen making the audience guess what will happen next.

• The Semantic code refers to connotation within the story that gives additional meaning over the basic denotative meaning of the word. This suggesting that there is a deeper meaning for every action and word that a character says and does. Maybe it is just to get to know a character better or finding out the antagonists plan. 
•  The Symbolic code is very similar to the semantic code but acts at a wider level, organizing semantic meanings into a broader and deeper meaning. This is typically done in the usage of antithesis where new meanings arise out of opposing ideas. 
•  The Cultural code refers to anything that is founded on some kind of canonical works that cannot be challenged and is used to be a foundation for the truth, suggesting that there is some form of truth that is never questioned in a narrative and is taken as gospel. 

We then looked at Rick Altman's 3 Pleasures, the first one is the emotional pleasure  this pleasure is shown in many genres in which the director tries to generate a strong audience response. The next pleasure is the visceral pleasure this pleasure is to try to get a gut response from the viewer such as feeling sick on a rollercoaster scene or a way to make you nervous by showing a tense scene. The last pleasure is the intellectual pleasure in which the director will either make the whole film or a few scenes show a puzzle or a mystery, maybe even a plot twist at the end such as The Book of Eli (trying not to spoil the film here!).


Nicholas Abercrombie said "The boundaries between genres are shifting and becoming more permeable."

Sound

What are soundtracks and sound designs?
Sound tracks can be music or songs to fit in to the chosen film, they help to create an emotional effect onto the audience. Sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements. These are important to make the audience recognise the sounds anywhere, the music makes films iconic, for example Jaws and Psycho. I will analyse shortly the most iconic soundtracks.


What are diegetic, non diegetic and internal/external diegetic sounds?
Diegetic sound is any sound presented as originated from source within the film's world. Diegetic sound can be either on screen or off screen depending on whatever its source is within the frame or outside the frame. Non diegetic sound whose source is neither visible on the screen nor has been implied to be present in the action: narrator's commentary, sound effects which is added for the dramatic effect, for example music. Internal diegetic sound is sound within a characters mind so none of the other characters can hear it. External diegetic sound is sound within the media production that all characters can hear.

evaluation 3 - Publishing Films

Film Distribution; the process of making a movie available for viewing by an audience


-I Am Legend
I Am Legend is a very popular post apocalyptic film and broke the box office in 2007, where it became the 7th highest grossing film of 2007.  Warner Brothers played a huge part in the sales of I Am Legend, as it is already a large, established and trusted distruster of popular films such as, All Batman, Lego Movies...
However the cost of publishing films through a large distribution can cost from £10million upwards,
I Am Legend cost £77million in publishing cost.



However when publishing our films we are greatly restricted to and where we can publish due to limited funds. Our main target to publish our film is to post it on YouTube. There are many reasons why, one being its free, this means our other expenses where spent on costumes and props, another reason being YouTube is a huge social site with billions of customers, this way our film can be seen by many people. Also our peers are able to see our film and tell other which is a great way of reaching our target audience through work of mouth. However because we have no major publisher its hard for our film to been seen as, warner bros. and 20th century dominate the market, also if we have no major publisher when it is seen by our audience they may not watch as they would think  its a poor film due to the stereotype of other films created as jokes on YouTube. However we are limited to where we can publish, and You Tube still shows our film to billions of people if they choose to see it, and its completely free. You Tube is our best option
Other social media sites are also good such as Facebook, Instagram, which also will reach our target audience and could provide us with positive feed back, however we are restricted to who can view it because of privacy settings so our audience is restricted, so there could be our second option.

Evaluation 4

Audience

My audience I aim to please and attract are aged around 16-21, and mainly boys. The reason being our target gender is male, Is due to all our cast make also male, this will mean other males can relate to our problems we face in the film and also add there opinion on how to react, this will keep our viewers focused and wont to see each scenario outcome. The reason being our audience age group is 16-21 is due to the use of weapons in our film, this could discourage younger views to watch our film, so we increased the age and the use of weapons to keep views interested. I believe my film will attract male views due to our tense physical scenes,(fighting) in rankings, fighting is the 4th largest attraction to a film.


Before we decided on a target audience we carried out intensive research using You Gov, here we were able to find out about other films audience and there ages plus interests, for example ,I Am Legend's target audience-

To specifically target our chosen audience we made sure our characters were from around the similar age (16-17 years).This means the audience will have a better understanding of our actions and are able to relate in all situations, this will make the audience sympathise with the characters and feel apart of the film.


Our audience are a very big part in the success of out film, as they provide us with valuable information, we gave our audience a questionnaire consisting of 15 questions, some being multiple choice and some questions need a few words to be anwsered

How films are showed in cinemas

Films in cinemas
There are some cinemas that use 35mm projectors, these are only used for special events now. Modern cinemas which show any new releases are exclusively distributed in digital format.
Digital projectors have been used since 2005 in the UK, however much earlier in America and China, other countries are now moving in the same direction. Many cinemas use a system called DCP which is a USB pen that gets shipped around inside a case. It improves accountability on behalf of cinema-pirates, each pen has a certain number of licences on it. A DCP is simply a file that requires activation from a licence. The DCP is signed for by the cinema, and then the projectionist is given the licence activation code to allow the content to be played. Satellite technology is being explored in order to reduce the cost of distribution (which has already more than halved in the past 10 years). Under satellite systems, the film is downloaded from a secure server and the film is activated for use via satellite; projectors can even be controlled remotely through the satellite, which centralizes the entire process externally. This is a method that has been spearheaded in the UK by such projects as National Theatre Live and Opera Live. Whilst they do broadcast globally, they remain a minority interest for exhibitors (although a growing one, due to their success). The legacy of these projects will not, however, come from their content but by their method of distribution. Even now, many distributors are promoting their ease of use as leverage to persuade developers to pursue satellite distribution as it reduces the overheads dramatically.

Evaluation 2

Overall character evaluation
the film 'Wanderer' consists of all characters ,Male. Our main thought was men are the more dominant character out of the genders, so we implied this theory to our film, to portray women are not strong enough and don't have the will to survive a post apocalyptic attack, this backs up the idea of men being the stronger gender.
Our characters where all aged 16-18, this was done for many reasons. One being because we only had teenagers available for filming, in school hours. However because of this it helped back up our target audience ,(teenagers). this gave a stronger reason for our target audience and attracted more viewers.
All our cast members had weapons lethal or not, this was to show the rarity of weapons and how desperate all characters are for survival, this gives the audience mixed opinions on all characters and by viewing there weapon they can quickly decide on how vulnerable they are and also if they are there to kill or to protect.
Ethnicity
With in my short film, the main character (the protagonist) is white. This is a mainstream feature in many action and post apocalyptic films due to there common stereotypes of white people being smarter and more practical than other races. If we could of, in our film we would of featured a black male character towards the end as views wouldn't predict the out come as we would like to of shown them to bring positivity back to all races currently in the post apocalyptic scene, and show how all races are equal, this would of broken all ethnic stereotypes and reversed them.
Females
Within my short post apocalyptic film the 4 characters featured are all male teenagers, this was important when constructing my film because stereotypically makes are the stronger gender and are known to be more physical which is key to survival in post apocalyptic matters. Women were not strong enough to survive in our film as its around 10 years after the disaster occurred or intelligent enough.

Evaluation 1 - 2 post apocaliptic films

Mise En Scene
-LOCATION



Our location for my film, Wanderer, is set in Kirkby in Ashfield, Nottingham, and was filmed in the winter of 2016, and the start of 2017, We choose to film here due to the location is very close by and is easy to access, also the location is very run down and has graffiti on all walls which adds to there feeling of the area being derelict and over run. Also at the location there is an abandoned factory in the back drop with a unused train line which we begin to walk down in the film. All these features add to our choosen genere

(Bucther Works, Sheffield)

The Film, Threads, is also located in England, Sheffield. Which is close to Nottingham, and is a post apocalyptic film, based on the earth ending due to a nuclear war. this is very similar to ours as our characters are also fighting for survival and looking for life, the film, Threads had had a huge influence on where to locate our film.


In our film, we varied our props used, we did this to emphasize the differences between each characters, and let the audience decide on there personalities and there objectives in the post apocalyptic setting, this gave our audience the chance to give there opinion on our characters before they seen there true colours. We tries to show each characters objectives through there weapons for example,  our main character had a Beeman hand gun, this show the audience he was a more dominant character and the richer of our characters, where as our hunter character has a rounder's bat and wore a mouth muzzle, this gave the impression of terminator and he was out there to kill other survivalists. He also wore a black leather jacket with other black clothing, this imminently gave the character a dark personality and the audiences first impression is he was the bad guy in our opening, how ever we also had a navy seal which was used to show there still is a sense of safeness, and there are still people out there to restore the world.


we greatly varied our camera angles, to show the more superior character (low angle shot) this instantly gave the audience a hint to the more dominant character, we also used many tracking shots in our film when our characters where walking, this was used to speed up the walking process and keep the audience focused, this also gave a clear image of the characters walking style, and the audience could decide on there personality.


our lighting was very dependent on our ti me of film as we really wonted the light low but with the sun still visable (dusk).