Planning my Production: Synopsis of Narrative

Shown below is the images of the planning stages that Lucy and I conducted to develop our production ideas.

They range from our initial ideas, where we still hadn't firmly decided on our genre being horror.

To developed ideas where we had a greater understanding of what we wanted to achieve.

To more detailed development where we started to map out and develop our storyboard.

Synopsis

For our coursework piece we have decided to create a parallel narrative whereby the main narrative of the story follows an ordinary day in the life of a teenage girl, however it gradually reveals that she is being stalked by an unknown person. This is quite a complex narrative that follows her day to day activities and during it the film shall cut to her current situation. Where she is tied up in an unknown room - she has been kidnapped. The main narrative will build up to the point she was kidnapped but the twist shall be in the cliffhanger at the end.


Aspects of complex narratives:

Below is a list of common features in complex narratives that Lucy and I may wish to include.

• Repetition
• Flashbacks
• different character' point of view
• different time frames
• flash forwards
• multiple plot lines converging at the end
• pre-figuring of events that are yet to occur
• backwards story telling, where the outcome is shown first and explained through the plot

Why create a parallel narrative?
As well as providing a deeper and more interesting sequence of events, narrative structure can position the reader to think and feel a wider range of responses by providing differing views or perspectives in experiencing and viewing the action. These maintain or increase the interest and engages the audience.



Claude Levi Strauss -  Narrative Theory
Now that Lucy and I have decided to create a parallel narrative, we shall be adhering to Strauss' narrative structure in terms of binary oppositions. What Strauss meant by this is that the binary oppositions are sets of opposite values. For example, in our film the two binary opposites shall be 'EVIL' and 'GOOD'. Strauss was not interested in the order of events in the plot of the film and instead focused the deeper arrangements with regard to the themes.