HW - 20th January

Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions

For my foundation portfolio work in my first year I created a crime film opening. I decided to base my film opening around the crime genre as this would provide me with opportunity to look into various different narratives. Finally I decided to base the narrative around a violent assault which one young adult male character aims at another.

Propp's theory on narrative structure can be applied to my film opening to some extent, as it is possible to classify the main character into a clearly defined role and function based on general stereotypes of young adults within the media. This young adults actions and physical appearance within the film opening clearly make him come across as what society would deem to be a yob, as he is wearing a baggy tracksuit, trainers, and stabs another male within the film opening. However when looking at the other male which gets stabbed and his physical appearance it could be argued that he challenges Propp's theory, as he is dressed in smart trousers, a shirt and smart shoes, this does not conform to stereotypes of a yob, and therefore makes it hard for the audience to classify this character into a defined role as he is dressed as what would be considered smart, whilst attempting to murder the main character.

In the moment when the villain male pulls out a knife and runs up behind the main character, Bathes narrative theory of action codes can be applied as the audience is wondering what is going to happen to the main character, and what the resolution of the situation will be as suspense is created by the action in this brief moment. An enigma code is also created during this scene as the audience is left wondering why the character who is now the villain tired to stab the main character, this presents a puzzle to the audience in a way as they will be left confused and wanting to know the answer to this question.

I differed between two methods of time within my narrative structure. At the start of the footage when the main character can be seen running this is meant to represent what is happening in the present time. The other method of time which I applied to my structure is a flash back which starts from when the main character is walking towards the underpass and then gets attacked. The audience will then gather why the main character was running at the start of the footage once they see the flash back scene as they will see that the main character stabbed his attacker and then fled the area of the crime.

Levi-Strauss's theory of binary opposites can be applied to the narrative of my coursework production to some extent, through the opposition of strong and weak. The attacker in the footage could be seen to be weak as he fails his attack despite the fact that he is armed with a knife and sneaks up behind the target of his attempted murder, contrastingly the main character who reverses the attack is depicted as strong as he is able to disarm and fight off the man who tried to attack him when his guard was down. However Strauss's theory is challenged by the action which takes place between the two males in the underpass, as their is no clear distinction between good and evil when looking at the characters as both the males clearly had intuitions on harming the other once the fight had started.

My coursework production follows Propp's, Bathes and Strauss's theories of narrative along basic guide lines to give my production a sense of realism and continuous production. However some parts of the production challenge certain narrative aspects of theory within these media theorists ideologies.

Media HW

Describe the ways in which your media production was informed and aided by research into real media texts and planning. How has your ability to use research and planning for production developed over time.

It is extremely important to carry out research and planning when making a media text. A good media text will follow typical conventions of the particular genre in which it is based around. Having clear codes and conventions of genre through research and planning will allow the audience to establish for themselves the genre of the film, and will in turn make the production seem more professional and successful. In my first year I created a film opening based around the crime genre, and in my second year I created an advert alongside a sponsorship sequence. Designing and producing each of these productions involved planning and research both from real media texts and my own ideas.

When creating my first year crime film opening, I looked at various different existing films which follow the crime genre in order to see clear conventions such as Sket, Shank and Kidulthood. After carrying out research into looking at the way young people are dressed in these crime drama films I was  able to apply a similar sort of dress code to the characters within my film opening, finding that young men involved in crime within media texts are usually portrayed wearing tracksuits trainers and hoodies, something which was applied to the main character in my opening. Similarly I looked at existing texts in the form of adverts for my second year production before making a decision of what to include exactly within the advert. My research and planning skills developed between my first and second year productions as I found I was able to take and apply more from existing adverts to my own production, in comparison to the amount of conventions I applied to my film opening from existing texts. For example for my advert I came up with the idea of using many different locations to advertise a running trainer, as this seemed to be an accepted code of many existing productions for running trainers. Where as for my first year film opening I only used 3 locations based around the same area without looking if this is something which a crime drama opening would consist of.

When researching into the audience for my first year production, I was able to use Google to find out audience figures for many crime drama films, which I was then able to apply to a powerpoint or word document in order to display results. This was helpful as it allowed me to see the kind of audience viewing figures which I could expect my production to recieve in order for it to be deemed a success. Similarly for my second year production I was once again able to use the internet to find out audience figures, this time I was able to develop my skills and find out not only the figures for certain shows by TV channels as a whole also. This would bring benefit to me as I could see which program on which channel, would be best to carrying out a sponsorship sequence with as it would be a good idea to aim to sponsor a sports program with high audience figures, since I created an advert for sports running trainers. Additionally in depth audience figures allowed me to see which channel I would want my advert to be advertised on, and at what time (in order to be shown around the same time as popular TV shows with some amount of relevance). Development of these research skills has meant that my second year production is more specific to conventions of real media texts in comparison to my first year production.

Planning for my first year production was divided up between another student and myself as we worked together on the production in a group. Whilst meaning that tasks could be completed quicker it also meant that disagreements on how things should be done arose. In my second year I worked on the production by myself coming up with all the ideas and planning, I found that this was a better way of doing things so that everything could be done exactly how I wanted it and in depth, although the process was more time consuming as a whole. Being able to work by myself on my second year production has meant that I have been able to better develop my planning and research skills as I have no choice in completing the tasks through independent work and study.