Narrative blog task

1) Give an example from film or television that uses Todorov's narrative structure of equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium.

An example of a film which us the Todorov's narrative structure equilibrium, disequilibrium and a new equilibrium is a movie called "Ready player one".The equilibrium is the main character "Wade Watson" lives in an urban developed area in the year 2040. This new piece of technology called "The Oasis" is a virtual platform where people can do whatever they want to do. Wade and the people around are addicted to the oasis for the things they can do there. The disequilibrium or the main problem of the narrative is that the creator of The Oasis has put in a secret inside the game. If the secret is found the player gets award 50 billion dollars and owns the property of The Oasis. The second-largest company which is called "IOI" makes a whole army devoted to finding that secret and are willing to harm or kill people for it. Wade starts getting tips on how to get the secret but IOI tries its best to destroy the lives around him. The new equilibrium is that wade fights with IOI for the race to the secret. At the end Wade finds the secret IOI gets shut down because of employees getting arrested for murder.

2) Complete the activity on page 1 of the Factsheet: find a clip on YouTube of the opening of a new TV drama series (season 1, episode 1). Embed the clip in your blog and write an analysis of the narrative markers that help establish setting, character and plot.

This is the opening scenes for a drama series called "Prison Break". 

In the first scene, we can see a man getting tattoos for his body. We can see that the man is really reluctant with the artist and in a way is feeling confident about something. The main important part of this clip is when we are introduced into his apartment. Since we see him again we can presume that the man will be our main character. In the scene where he is collecting papers from his wall, there are some few seconds where we can read different pieces of information coming from the newspaper. for example different news article about a murder of the vice president, the murder being sent to jail for a death sentence, a mob boss being sent to jail. And with the final part, we can see him throwing the papers and a hard drive from his computer. From this, we can analyse a generic marker of a drama/thriller type of tv series because of the environment and different actions made by our main character.

3) Provide three different examples from film or television of characters that fit Propp's hero character role.

- Spider-man: Goal to defeat the villain that is terrorising the city
- Avengers: For the avenger's team to defeat Thanos and bring people back from the dead
- Ready player one: For Wade to defeat IOI and find the secret

4) Give an example of binary opposition.

- Lazy or excited
- Poor or Rich
- Law or Crime

5) What example is provided in the Factsheet for the way narratives can emphasise dominant ideologies and values?

When the girl wins the heart of the guy in a romantic comedy the values of heterosexual relationships and monogamy are reinforced.

6) Why do enigma and action codes (Barthes) offer gratifications for audiences?

Enigma and action codes are here to offer the audience interest with the narrative. They help create different meanings, question and answers which makes the narrative develop more with the audience. The narrative grows with the audience so when there is a climax or an important moment, the audience is there to feel a sense of emotion to the narrative.

7) Write a one-sentence summary of the four different types of TV narrative:

• Episodic narrative (the series): Each episode has a mini-narrative that starts with a problem but ends with a solution.
• Overarching narrative (the serial): Beginning of the series starts with the main problem, then throughout the series the narratives evolve to solve the problem until the series is finished.
• Mixed narrative: A mix of two different narratives to make a larger story inside the series.
• Multi-strand overlapping narrative (soap narrative): Repeated / Continued narrative which tells different stories and problems which last over one episode or more.

8) How does the Factsheet suggest adverts use narrative?

They introduce a problem with a solution so it can reform into a resolution.