NARRATIVE

My film opening 'faded' is about a young man that has his world turned upside down overnight, this event is left mysterious for the audience to figure out and as a result the man has turned severely depressed leading to himself possibly committing suicide.

 
An opening must set up some of the issues that the rest of the film’s narrative will deal with, but must not give too much away, since it is only an opening and you would want the audience to carry on watching.

Technical Codes are used to construct narrative.  We have used these codes within my film opening to construct movement, emotion and to focus upon key aspects of my film. This includes the way we have used camera angles and movement, lighting, sound, props, shot framing and composition, design and layout and editing.

Enigma is created from the mystery of the two main characters formation and end. Claude Levi-Strauss suggested that all narratives had to be driven forward by conflict that was caused by a series of opposing forces. He called this the theory of Binary Opposition, and it is used to describe how each main force in a narrative has its equal and opposite.  This film leaves this convention mysterious, adding to an audiences appeal and desire to continue watching. The soundtrack creates enigma through its mysterious tone and long chords as well as verbal codes such as the girls mysterious scream, prompting audience intrigue. Gloominess and darkness of the scene creates suspense. Theorist Roland Barthes created the hermeneutic code, this is the way the story avoids telling the truth or revealing all the facts, in order to drop clues in through out to help create mystery. This is very evident within my film as subtle yet mysterious clues have been used to connote emotions and possible reasons for the characters depression. He also identified the enigma/Proairetic code which is the way the tension is built up and audience is left guessing what happens next. This is clearly represented through the vagueness of our clips and also the suspenseful cliffhanger ending which leaves audiences with a keenness to find out the outcome and whether he actually jumped or not. Flashback scenes set in the afternoon so that they appear lighter enhancing a more positive mood. False sense of security as beginning is steady and clam but is suddenly disrupted by Karen screaming, this enhances further mystery.

The setting is also set in a very realistic everyday environment where audiences can easily relate and imagine that they are experiencing the scenes and emotions of the characters themselves. We wanted to keep the film effects as simple as possible as we wanted to keep it as close to human real life as possible so that the audience can relate to the film. Loss is very present in out TV drama, very frequent. Boyfriend has lost his girl friend and eventually loses his life in theory, however...

Wide range of shots to show as much background information in the shortest amount of time and show continuity. We made used of panning to show the setting and views of the roof where the character is positioned and to show the surrounding areas very quickly, this intern creates suspense and curiosity. Cutaway shot of the main character jumping off the roof is used to create mystery and give the illusion to viewers that he has jumped. This keeps them on the edge of their seats through desire of wanting to know whether he has survived or not and why he has supposedly committed suicide.

We aimed to use a wide range of shots in order to show the background information as much as we can and show continuity. Other camera shots we made use of are point of view shots midshot, establishing shot , long shots and tracking shots. The close up shots show emotion and expression of the character and allows the viewer to see how the characters emotions have increased up to the point of him jumping.

The footage that we got was very dimly lighted as we filmed it during the evening. However we wanted to lighten it to show greater contrasts and the half lighted tone shows enigma and mystery so we did colour correction using Adobe Premier. We edited the exposure, contrast, white level and black level.

We purposely filmed Swans in our flashback scene when the main characters of our film are on a date. They are walking along the side of a river having fun and laughing. We purposely waited for a group of swans to swim by. We lured them in using bread. Swans traditionally been used to convey romance for example swan pedal boat rides and used in literature such as the poem by famous poet William Yeats- The Wild Swans At Coole.

This poem showing that Swans are loved and are seen by many as beautiful creatures and a symbol of love and romance. We used swans to create a symbolism of the characters' strong love especially to emphasise the loving close relationship during the date flashback. Our chosen location in Kingston also furthered emphasised the films feeling of love and happiness at sunset and in a river location added to our scene’s romantic and happy feel.

Further evidence to why we chose to film swan. In a recent film ‘The Black Swan’, The white swan symbolises beauty, perfection, and purity. However, black swan symbolises darkness, evil, destruction and mysterious. Just like how we made use of white swan in our film, showing that the relationship between George and Karen was beautiful and almost perfect.

Furthermore we chose to create a contrast between love and loss, this was clearly demonstrated through the characters distress and loneliness as well as his emotional state, captured through close up shots. We also made use of the energy of children.  George wore all black clothing, and when he walked pass the camera, people can see his facial expression and he looked sad and depressed. However, on the right, we can see children playing happily, having fun and laughing. It shows a very strong contrast here, and it reminds him of something that he can never get back in his life, love and joy.

Flashbacks can give the narrative a less linear take by adding dimensions and layers into the story plot. Theorist Todrov suggests that linear narratives are often structure in five stages by starting at equilibrium and through series of events of disruption again returns to the initially state of equilibrium.

The titles in our film are often introduced at significant points of the film. The titles themselves are simple, bold and are a contrasting colour compared to the background. We have chosen to use font, not dissimilar to handwriting to give the illusion that the words are the writings of the suicidal boy before he jumps. This makes the titles clear and the names stand out amongst the picture. The titles have been placed in different angles and heights creating tension.

The use of symbolic codes in our sequence such as the characters’ appearance such as his unkempt appearance and dark clothing can be interpreted as suggesting his mood and emotions. He is wearing very dark clothing, possibly showing his dark and negative thoughts. Suspense is created as dark has been often used to symbolise death and evil, leaving audiences to wonder what has happened to the girl and what is he going to do.