Technique & Theory: Time-based...
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Technique & Theory:Time-based NarrativePerrin StamatisKelli Evans
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Narrative Theory
- Joseph Campbell via Chris Vogler
- Tristan Todorov
- Vladimir Propp
- Claude Levi-Strauss
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell (1904 – 1987) was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. ["Joseph Campbell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."
8/30/2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell>.]
In 1949, Campbell made a big splash in the field of mythology with his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces. This book built on the pioneering work of German anthropologist, Adolph Bastian (1826-1905), who first proposed the idea that myths from all over the world seem to be built from the same “elementary ideas.” Swiss psychiatrist. Carl Jung (1875-1961), named these elementary ideas “archetypes,” which he believed to be the building blocks not only of the unconscious mind, but of a collective unconscious. ["Star Wars Origins -
Joseph Campbell and the Hero's Journey." 8/30/2009 <http://
www.moongadget.com/origins/myth.html>.]
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Chris Vogler
Christopher Vogler, a Hollywood film producer and writer, created a now-famous seven page company memo, A Practical Guide to The Hero With a Thousand Faces, based on Joseph Campbell's work which inspired films such as Disney's 1994 film, The Lion King. Vogler's memo was later developed into the book, The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers published in late 1990s. This story structure is evident in a vast number of successful Hollywood films including the Matrix series. ["Monomyth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."
8/30/2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth#Chris_Vogler.
2C_The_Writer.27s_Journey.2C_and_Hollywood_films>.]
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The Hero’s Journey (or Monomyth)Chris Vogler, based on the work of Joseph Campbell
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The Archetypes
- Hero
- Mentor
- Threshold Guardian
- Herald
- Shapeshifter
- Shadow
- Trickster
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Chris Vogler: The Hero’s Journey
1. The Hero is introduced in his ordinary world
2. The Hero receives the call to adventure
3. The Hero is reluctant at first
4. The Hero is encouraged by a mentor
5. The Hero crosses the first threshold
6. The Hero encounters tests and finds allies
7. The Hero reaches the innermost cave
8. The Hero endures the supreme ordeal
9. The Hero seizes the sword
10. The road back
11. Resurrection
12. Return with the Elixir
“A Practical Guide to THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES by Joseph Campbell.” <http://www.skepticfiles.org/atheist2/hero.htm>.
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Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Tzvetan Todorov
Tzvetan Todorov (1939 -) is a Franco-Bulgarian philosopher. He writes books and essays about literary theory, thought history and culture theory. "Tzvetan Todorov
- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." 8/30/2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzvetan_Todorov>.
- Stories begin with equilibrium or status quo (Ordinary World)
- Equilibrium is disrupted by some event (Call to Adventure)
- This sets in motion a chain of events (The Hero’s Journey)
- Problems are solved (Hero Seizes the Sword, The Road Back, Resurrection)
- Order is restored (Return with the Elixir)
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Vladimir Propp
Vladimir Propp (1895 – 1970) was a Russian Formalist scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements. "Vladimir Propp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."
8/30/2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp>.
After studying hundreds of fairy tales, he identified eight character roles and 31 narrative functions.
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Propp’s Eight Character Roles
- The Villain
- The Hero
- The Donor
- The Helper (aids the Hero)
- The Princess (reward for Hero & object of Villain’s schemes)
- The Princess’s Father (rewards Hero)
- The Dispatcher
- The False Hero
Propp’s Character Roles align to a great degree with Monomyth archetypes.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-) is a French anthropologist.
Like Joseph Campbell, Lévi-Strauss proposed that universal laws must govern mythical thought.
According to Lévi-Strauss, “mythical thought always progresses from the awareness of oppositions toward their resolution.”
In other words, myths consist of:
1. elements that oppose or contradict each other
2. other elements that “mediate,” or resolve, those oppositions
“Claude Lévi-Strauss - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi-strauss#The_structuralist_approach_to_myth>.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Lévi-Strauss: Binary Oppositions
He looked at narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. Here are some examples from science fiction films:
- Earth/Space
- Good/Evil
- Humans/Aliens
- Past/Present
- Normal/Strange
- Known/Unknown
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Narrative: Time & Space
- Narrative Modes
- Using Narrative to Build Suspense
- Narrative Meaning
- Story vs. Plot
- David Bordwell’s Principles of Film Narration
- Time: An Extended Explanation
- Manipulating Time
- Space
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Narrative Modes
The narrative of events
A hero shoots an enemy agent, dives into a lake, triggers a remote control device which will destroy the enemy submarine.
See any James Bond film for reference.
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Narrative Modes
The narrative of drama
The heroine has a tense argument with the hero and decides he was never her type and she is going to leave. Nothing has really happened in terms of events but a lot has happened dramatically.
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Narrative ModesThe narrative of drama
French Kiss (1995) Directed by Lawrence Kadan
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Using Narrative to Build Suspense
Restricted narrative
When a character does not know what is waiting around the corner and neither does the audience.
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Using Narrative to Build SuspenseRestricted narrative
Star Wars (1977) Directed by George Lucas
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Using Narrative to Build Suspense
Unrestricted narrative
The audience is anticipating the events to come, of which the character has no knowledge.
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Narrative Meaning
Cause and Effect
Narrative can be defined as “a chain of events in cause-effect relationships in time and space.”
It typically begins with one situation & then a series of changes occur according to a pattern of cause and effect. Finally, a new situation arises that brings the end of the narrative.
When we are watching a film we try to connect the events to make sense of what is happening, to see a line of cause and effect. Even if there is no obvious connection, we still try to make one.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Narrative Meaning
How does the director manipulate cause and effect?
The director can create a mood or atmosphere by choosing certain shots in a certain order, to build a picture in our minds.
We automatically link what is happening in one shot with what happens in those either side of it, as this is what happens in real life.
Montage can be used effectively in propaganda, where the filmmaker wants the audience to believe in a certain idea or concept.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Story vs. Plot
When discussing film narrative, we can make a distinction between the story and the plot (the plot is sometimes called the discourse).
The term plot is used to describe the events on screen and how they are organized/presented.
The term story is used to describe the whole set of events in a narrative that we bring to the plot in order to make sense of it. This will include not only the plot elements, which we have seen, but also the events we have inferred, which wehave assumed have happened.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
David Bordwell’sPrinciples of Film Narration
Bordwell defines story thus:
Presented with two narrative events, we look for causal or spatial or temporal links. The imaginary construct we create, progressively and retroactively, was termedby Formalists the fabula (sometimes translated as “story”).
The fabula is thus a pattern which perceivers of narratives create through assumptions and inferences . It is the developing result of picking up narrative cues, applying schemata, framing and testing hypotheses.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
David Bordwell’sPrinciples of Film Narration
The viewer builds the fabula on the basis of:
prototype schemata – identifiable types of persons, actions, locales, etc.
template schemata – principally the “canonic” story
procedural schemata – a search for appropriate motivations and relations of causality, time, and space
A film’s fabula is never materially present on the screen or soundtrack.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
David Bordwell’sPrinciples of Film Narration
The fabula can only be guessed at, but it is not a given.
What is given? What sorts of phenomenally present materials and forms do we encounter?
1. syuzhet – the actual arrangement & presentation of the fabula in the film.
The syuzhet is a system that arranges components — the story events and states of affairs — according to specific principles.
It is how the fabula is presented.
2. style – style also constitutes a system in that it too mobilizes components – particular instantiations of film techniques – according to principles of organization. Style, silmply names the film’s systematic use of cinematic devices
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
David Bordwell’sPrinciples of Film Narration
Syuzhet is what is shown. The syuzhet embodies the film as a “dramaturgical” process.
Style is how it is shown. Style embodies the film as a “technical” process.
Film technique is customarily used to perform syuzhet tasks – providing information, cueing hypotheses, and so forth. In the “normal” film, the syuzhet system controls the stylistic system.
In the fiction film, narration is the process whereby the film’s syuzhet and style interact in the course of cueing and channeling the spectator’s construction the fabula. Thus it is not only when the syuzhet arranges fabula information that the film narrates. Narration also includes stylistic processes.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
David Bordwell’sPrinciples of Film Narration
Three sorts of principles relate the syuzhet to the fabula:
1. Narrative logic – In constructing a fabula, the perceiver defines some phenomena as events while constructing relations among them.
2. Time –
a. order
b. duration
c. frequency
3. Time – Fabula events must be represented as occurring in a spatial frame of reference, however vague or abstract. The syuzhet can facilitate construction of fabula space by informing us of the relevant surroundings and the positions and paths assumed by the story’s agents.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Time: An Extended Explanation
Temporal Order
The plot does not always show us events in strict chronological order, i.e. the order in which they would have happened in real life.
As with all narrative choices the filmmaker makes, we must look at why they have chosen to present events in a certain way and the effect it has upon us as an audience.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Time: An Extended Explanation
Temporal Duration
There are 3 distinctions of time within a film:
Screen duration: the time the film takes to show
Plot duration: the length of time the plot covers
Story duration: the length of time the story covers, this includes all the inferred events we bring to it
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Time: An Extended Explanation
Temporal Frequency
The plot of a film may show us an event which happens once in the film but we know to have happened many times in the story.
Alternatively, but less frequently, a story event may be shown more than one time during the plot — we see an event occur from another angle which may lead us to view characters or events in a different light.
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Manipulating Time
Screen time
A period of time represented by events within a film (e.g. a day, a week).
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Manipulating Time
Subjective time
The time experienced or felt by a character in a film, as revealed through camera movement and editing (e.g. when a frightened person's flight from danger is prolonged).
Compressed time
The compression of time between sequences or scenes, and within scenes. In a dramatic narrative, if climbing a staircase is not a significant part of the plot, a shot of a character starting up the stairs may then cut to him entering a room.
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Manipulating TimeSubjective time Compressed time
Trainspotting (1996) Directed by Danny Boyle
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Manipulating Time
Long take
A single shot (or take, or run of the camera) which lasts for a relatively lengthy period of time. The long take has an “authentic” feel since it is not inherently dramatic.
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Manipulating TimeLong take
A Touch of Evil (1958) Directed by Orson Welles
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Manipulating Time
Simultaneous time
Events in different places can be presented as occurring at the same moment, by parallel editing or cross-cutting, by multiple images or split-screen.
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Manipulating TimeSimultaneous time
The Conversation (1974) Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
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Manipulating Time
Slow motion
Action which takes place on the screen at a slower rate than the rate at which the action took place before the camera.
This is used: a) to make a fast action visibleb) to make a familiar action strangec) to emphasise a dramatic moment.
It can have a lyric and romantic quality or it can amplify violence.
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Manipulating TimeSlow motion
Buffalo 66 (1998) Directed by Vincent Gallo
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Manipulating Time
Accelerated motion (under-cranking)
This is used: a) to make a slow action visibleb) to make a familiar action funnyc) to increase the thrill of speed.
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Manipulating TimeAccelerated motion (under-cranking)
a) to make a slow action visible
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Manipulating TimeAccelerated motion (under-cranking)
b) to make a familiar action funny
A Clockwork Orange (1972) Directed by Stanley Kubrick
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Manipulating Time
Reverse motion
Reproducing action backwards, for comic, magical or explanatory effect.
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Manipulating TimeReverse motion
Mary Poppins (1964) Robert Stevenson
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Manipulating Time
Replay
An action sequence repeated, often in slow motion, commonly featured in the filming of sport to review a significant event.
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Manipulating TimeReplay
Groundhog Day (1993) Directed by Harold Ramis
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Manipulating Time
Freeze-frame
This gives the image the appearance of a still photograph. Clearly not a naturalistic device.
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Manipulating TimeFreeze-frame
The World According to Garp (1982) Directed by George Roy Hill
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Manipulating TimeFreeze-frame
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Manipulating Time
Flashback
A break in the chronology of a narrative in which events from the past are disclosed to the viewer. Formerly indicated conventionally with defocus or ripple dissolves.
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Manipulating TimeFlashback
Casablanca (1943) Directed by Michael Curtiz
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Manipulating Time
Flashforward
Much less common than the flashback. Not normally associated with a particular character. Associated with objective treatments.
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Manipulating TimeFlashforward
American Beauty (1999) Directed by Sam Mendes
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Manipulating Time
Extended or expanded time/overlapping action
The expansion of time can be accomplished by intercutting a series of shots, or by filming the action from different angles and editing them together.
Part of an action may be repeated from another viewpoint, e.g. a character is shown from the inside of a building opening a door and the next shot, from the outside, shows him opening it again.
Used nakedly, this device disrupts the audience’s sense of real time.
The technique may be used unobtrusively to stretch time or to exaggerate for dramatic effect, the time taken to walk down a corridor.
Sometimes combined with slow motion.
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Manipulating TimeExtended or expanded time/overlapping action
The Untouchables (1987) Directed by Brian de Palma
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Manipulating Time
Ambiguous time
Within the context of a well-defined time scheme, sequences may occur which are ambiguous in time. This is most frequently communicated through dissolves and superimpositions.
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Manipulating Time
Universal Time
This is deliberately created to suggest universal relevance.
Ideas rather than examples are emphasised.
Context may be disrupted by frequent cuts and by the extensive use of close-ups and other shots which do not reveal a specific background.
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Manipulating TimeUniversal Time
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Directed by Stanley Kubrick
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Space: The Final Frontier
Space is important in a film because the location is usually quite important.
The plot sometimes leads us to infer “other” story space, which we may never see. For example, we know a character has gone off on holiday, but we do not see this “space.”
Screen space selects portions of plot space to show us, just as it selects certain time events and leaves others out. The decisions that are made in terms of film space need to be examined in conjunction with close study of the visual elements of film language.
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Space: The Final Frontier
The Big Kahuna (2000) Directed by John Swanbeck
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Thank you.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009