Week 1 Narratology and Film Week 2 Cinematic Narrative Models Week 3 Visual Storytelling

1. Lecture/Seminar Series – Digital Narratives Week 1 Narratology and Film Week 2 Cinematic Narrative Models Week 3 Visual Storytelling Week 4 Anti-Narrative Week 5 Student Presentations

2. What is Narratology? • Narratology or the ‘study of narrative’ provides a means of analysing narrative forms and their underlying structures • Narratology as a theory establishes a discourse through which we can examine a number of recurring elements in narrative construction (the ‘system of narrative’ or the ‘language of narration’) • Narratology concerns itself with how we tell stories, through what means, what voices and through what media

3. Narratology - the complex nature of storytelling, some definitions: Narrative means a spoken or written (or visual) account of connected events Narratology asks how do these processes ( speaking, accounting, connecting) occur? A Narrative is: ‘a text in which an agent or subject conveys to an addressee (‘tells’ the reader) a story in a particular medium, such as language, imagery, sound, buildings or a combination thereof’ Narrative should therefore not to be confused with Story Mieke Bal Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (2009)

4. We should add two other terms here: Focalisation The particular manner in which an addressee is addressed by the text (how the story is told (first, third person narration) and from what perspective (subjective addressor or by extension subjective characterisation) Occularisation The particular way in which the story is told using imagery that replicates or mimics a certain position e.g.‘through the eyes of’ (see film language) Both create very deliberate forms of audience identification Mieke Bal Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (2009)

5. Narratology - the complex nature of storytelling, further definitions A Story is: ‘the content of that text, and produces a particular manifestation, inflection and ‘colouring’ of a fabula’ Story is therefore ‘the fabula …presented in a certain manner’ Mieke Bal Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (2009) A Fabula is: ‘a series of logically and chronologically related events that are caused or experienced by actors’ We should add another term here: Syuzhet (from Russian) Means how that chronology follows particular patterns, what we often call plot

6. Levi –Strauss and Binary Oppositions Our understanding of words id based on the difference between a certain word and its 'opposite' or its 'binary opposite’ (e.g. good/evil, hero/villain, society/wilderness, insider/outsider etc.). Narratives are often structured around these binaries. When studying any kind of narrative, it is worth looking for the ways in which the meanings we make from the story are guided by these 'binary oppositions'

7. Todorov: Equilibrium and Disequilibrium

8. Ways of understanding film narrative - Propp Propp in his study of folk tales discovered a number of characteristics in the structure of narratives. His ideas are also very useful when studying film. His ideas suggest that narratives contain a number of character functions (types) : The hero who is the character who seeks something The villain who opposes or blocks the hero’s quest The donor who provides an object which has a magical property The dispatcher who sends the hero on his way by providing a message The false hero who disrupts the hero’s hope The helper who aids the hero The princess who acts as a reward for the hero and as an object of the villain’s scheming The father who acts to reward the hero for his efforts

9. Actions / Events Preparation Complication Transference Struggle Return Recognition

12. http://www.gardensandmachines.com/AD30400/Downloads_S2012/AD30400_montage_continuity.pdfhttp://www.gardensandmachines.com/AD30400/Downloads_S2012/AD30400_montage_continuity.pdf