Tag: Week 8

Nothing is Original: Narrative/Non-Narrative

Alaine Thompson on

The idea that all stories have already been created is an idea that has existed for as long as before the bible was first published. The existance of genres and genre conventions placing expectations and therefore limitations upon films within such genres only forces them to be more confined and ‘cliched’ less they cause an uproar. It’s the way the these ideas are used and placed, and the variation of ideas that can give fresh and new life to seemingly tired and old stories such as vampires and zombies, “a constantly overused plot devise” my mum tells me. But with films like, “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” (Amirpour, 2014), an Iranian vampire western, and “Life After Beth” (Baena, 2014), in which a girl becomes a zombie and her boyfriend tries to deal with her new flesh-eating tendencies. These fresh ideas, to me, prove that there is no such thing as no originality, even if the same basic trajectory exists.

Heroesjourney.svg

This same basic trajectory, which can be found in most films, is known as ‘the hero’s journey’. The hero’s journey, which can also be called the monomyth, follows 12 basic stages and has 7 basic archetypes which are said to be found in most, if not all stories. This idea was created by the American scholar, Joseph Campbell.

The 12 basic stages of the monomyth are:

  1. THE ORDINARY WORLD
  2. THE CALL TO ADVENTURE
  3. REFUSAL OF THE CALL
  4. MEETING WITH THE MENTOR
  5. CROSSING THE THRESHOLD
  6. TESTS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES
  7. APPROACH
  8. THE ORDEAL
  9. THE REWARD
  10. THE ROAD BACK
  11. THE RESURRECTION
  12. RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR  – (Unknown)

Of course, not all stories use all the stages, it depends upon the character of the hero, and whether or not their journey is a difficult task and goes against their character, if they need to go through so much indecision and inner turmoil before they start their journey.

One part of the monomyth follows the idea that each great story includes the same 7 archetypal characters:

  1. Hero
  2. Herald
  3. Mentor
  4. Threshold Guardians
  5. Trickster
  6. Shape-Shifter
  7. Shadow

This video sums up both the character archetypes and the most fundamnetal stages of the hero’s journey:

There is also a lesser known heroine’s journey by Maureen Murdock. It’s stages are slightly similar, but also have a shocking difference – the emphasis on gender. The stages are:

heroine's journey

  1. SEPARATION FROM THE FEMININE
  2. IDENTIFICATION WITH THE MASCULINE & GATHERING OF ALLIES
  3. ROAD OF TRIALS, MEETING OGRES & DRAGONS
  4. FINDING THE BOON OF SUCCESS
  5. AWAKENING TO FEELINGS OF SPIRITUAL ARIDITY: DEATH
  6. INITIATION & DESCENT TO THE GODDESS
  7. URGENT YEARNING TO RECONNECT WITH THE FEMININE
  8. HEALING THE MOTHER/DAUGHTER SPLIT
  9. HEALING THE WOUNDED MASCULINE
  10. INTEGRATION OF MASCULINE & FEMININE, (Unknown)

This journey can be found in some way, shape, or form in films such as “Mulan” (Bancroft and Cook, 1998) and “Brave” (Andrews and chapman, 2012). It is interesting to me how films with female leads seem to have the need for a different model of story telling. However, I don’t think that is quite true anymore. While there will always be stories out there that follow this model, there are also stories breaking this mold and following a stranger more twisted version of the monomyth. Films such as “The Hunger Games” (Ross, 2012) and “Divergent” (Burger, 2014), which are both post-apocolyptic films featuring hardened female leads, and both stories follow the monomyth, not the heroine’s journey. But in saying this, I think it is more the case that both these films are set in a post-apocalyptic future and not the present, so they feel they can show characters who are more hardened due to their situation, regardless of gender, essentially getting rid of classic gender stereotypes because times are too tough to do otherwise.

– Unknown. “Hero’s Journey.” Available at http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero’s_journey.htm

Narrative/Non-Narrative

Alaine Thompson on

Today’s lectorial was all about narrative. Dan Binns told us how everything is story/story is everything, especially to humanity, who seek to create stories and meaning from everything around them.

Narrative is any retelling of any sequence of events and heavily involves the principle of causality; a logical progression from one event to another (cause and effect). Causality allows for character development which takes time within the narrative and presents the audience with a number of situations with which the character can respond, but only within a limited range of responses according to the characters traits. A character won’t do something you want them to just for the sake of a happy ending or plot, they are in fact their own little person with internal conflicts and choices, and if for some reason they did choose to do something ‘out of character’, you as an audience member wouldn’t be very happy. That is why good writing creates clashes between traits so a character must choose between them and the audience is left in suspense. Plot is the chronological sequence of events in a narrative and involves a key character carrying out action, the action, and recipient’s of the plot’s action. And of course the resolution, which does not have to have a recipient in order to receive the response (Binns, 2015).

Now that the basics are over with, Dan told us the first rule of storytelling: nothing is original. Just as it is in adaptation and genre films, it is how the filmmaker creates the world with a different and unique perspective, allowing them to subvert expectations and put a new and different twist on conventions, that truly makes narrative films interesting and unique.

Dan also explored the concept of non-narrative. These are visual explorations within the medium itself that see if it is possible to do away with the narrative entirely. Most things, if not everything has a narrative. Even if the story is not explicit, we as humans rely upon our understanding of story telling principles to understand their lack of story (Binns, 2015).

Non-narrative films possess no obvious causality, no character development, no clear diegetic plot-line, no clear linear events tying scenes together, graphic matches to make art not story, lack of cohesion, lack of conclusion/sense of closure, no character motivation, and the use of people as props not characters (Binns, 2015).

whereas narrative films contain people (or anthropomorphic creatures) as central characters in order to create a connection with the audience, how they arrived at the situation/backstory (context), thematic connections (patterns of representation), often different places creating a journey, parallel events, and a title which gives the film causality and the character motivation (Binns, 2015).

– Binns, Daniel. Lectorial Week 8. Apr. 28th 2015.

Institutions Group Project: Week 1

Alaine Thompson on

Today we were sorted into our groups for our big final project, through the use of a deck of cards. I have to admit ‘pick a card! Any card!’ is much more fun than, ‘1, 2, 3… ok, 1’s over there.’ So now the project has officially begun and we’re working on the topic of media institutions, and the first thing we all thought of was traditional media institutions such as journalism and news media and how the landscape for such mediums has changed since such social mediums such as blogs and vlogs came into being. This gave us the idea for the entire premise of our project: traditional media vs. modern media.

Exploring the idea of traditional media institutions, one key figure immediately came to mind; Rupert Murdoch has a huge monopoly over the print media industry in Australia, England and some parts of the U.S. This case study of sorts led us to the question of ownership, political and economic agendas, and ethics, especially in traditional media, and how this contrasts to modern media institutions.

for the next part of the project, each member has to compile an annotated bibliography of five articles and we decided what areas each member will research. Alana will research social media institutions, I will research traditional media institutions, and Jess will research comparisons between the two forms, as well as a general overview that links all the aspects we brainstormed together. From this we will brainstorm further ideas and concepts to develop our overall project, which will be a multimedia platform, a.k.a, a website involving articles, videos, and any other pieces we can come up with.