Analysis of Narrative Structures

Now that we have decided on our genre (Film Noir) and planned a general synopsis of our production, we looked at some narrative structures that current films follow to give us an idea on how we need to adapt our ideas to fit a structure. We discarded most ideas because they simply didn't fit the style of a Film Noir, but managed to narrow it down to two ideas which can be seen below:

The first narrative structure is 'Vladimir Propp', and the whole idea of the structure revolves around the characters. If we were to adapt our narrative to suit this, we would have to create seven different characters to build up the plot. The whole idea of this structure is that every character has an effect on the way the plot pans out, and each of these characters has a role with exactly what they do in the relation to other characters. This structure would work, however we decided that as whole it wouldn't suit our production because we are only filming the opening title sequence, so even if we designed all of these characters we wouldn't actually be able to involve them in the filming process. Another reason why we decided against this type of structure is the fact that it doesn't follow the conventions of a Film Noir. Traditional Noir's start with the end of the film, and usually feature two main characters (the everyman, and the femme fatal), but the 'Vladimir Propp' structure features far too many characters, which simply wouldn't fit the conventions of a Film Noir.

The second narrative structure we looked at fully was the 'Enigma Code'. This structure is usually related to a mystery, and used in relation to genres of thrillers and crime. It is also designed so that the audience become instantly engaged with the film, and attempt to guess the solution of the mystery. Generally, this narrative structure fits a lot of the conventions of a Film Noir, which makes it more suitable for our production. For example, the fact that the structure relates to a mystery fits the conventions of a Film Noir because they are usually about a dramatic event that has happened which we spend the majority of the film trying to figure out. Another part of the structure that relates to the conventions is the fact it is common with genres related to thrillers and crime. These genres are related and feature throughout a Film Noir so this structure relates to it well. As a whole, the 'Enigma Code' is more suited to a Film Noir, so we can relate our ideas to this structure to help us construct the plot.


Reflection:
Analysing these narrative structures was very useful for us, because we were able to get an idea on what structures actual films follow. With these structures in mind, we have been able to relate the 'Enigma Code' to a Film Noir, so we can analyse the structure and possibly compare it to our synopsis to help us have a full understanding on the layout of the plot. From this task, we all learnt how important it is to know the structure of a film, and not just attempt to create a plot for a film without an idea on the direction it has to go. To improve this task we could've analysed more structures to give us an even better understanding, but we decided to discard the rest because they didn't relate to our idea of a Film Noir enough.