analyse one of your media products in relation to narrative theory

In my foundation portfolio I constructed a thriller opening called 'One Step Ahead' . My film opening was a hybrid that was classified within the man on the run /political/ action sub-genres. the bulk of the plot in  'One Step Ahead' is about a government agent ,who overhears classified information that reveals himself and others are at risk and he is now on the run. When the film opens we see the after effects of his discovery.
When constructing my film I had to consider whether I would adhere to the narrative conventions or challenge them .

Todorov states that there are five steps that occur within the narrative during a film. Our film opening 'One step ahead' challenged the conventions as it opens with a disruption rather than an equilibrium.  The mise-en scene such as the dark lighting suggests that the protagonist is in hiding and all is not what is supposed to be. In addition the voice over states that the character had been fired which shows that there has been a disruption within his life .This is further highlighted with the use of a flashback where the female protagonist reinforces the disruption with her message to the protagonist; this also hints to the audience that the opening is indeed a man on the run thriller. The flashback also indicates a non-linear narrative as this reveals that the narrative may not be chronological . The panning across the wall as the scene opens reveals that the hero may be trying to repair the damage that has been done .

Levi Strauss devised the theory of binary oppositions that may occur within a narrative or film; we decided to adhere to this narrative convention. 
The flashback indicates that there is a binary opposition within our opening as our male protagonist is on the run from the powerful people who are threatening his life (the antagonists) .We thought having a good vs evil concept within our narrative  would help drive the narrative forward . During our research and planning we came across Propp's theory on character types.We decided to include certain popular character types such as the donor ;during the flashback the female protagonist acts as a donor giving the protagonist vital information that would send him / help him on his journey. In the flashback we used a range of mid-shots showing our female protagonist. We thought this was a successful method ,as we wanted to show her slight panic in delivering the message to the male protagonist; This could suggest how vital the information is for him. In addition we decided that the soundtrack would crescendo to show that the "donor's" role is of significance during the flashback.Some would argue that the female protagonist may act as a side-kick to the male protagonist aiding him with his escape and hiding .However our film opening does not have a 'Princess or a damsel in distress' which also confers that the antagonist's schemes would not focus on one .

There are many ways in which we decided to create suspense and build up tension within our film opening Ronald Barthes suggests that action and enigma codes are essential for the successful creation of suspense and tension. as the camera pans across the wall the audience are shown documents which indicate that assassinations and conspiracies have taken place . We then are shown the protagonist searching  frantically for an unknown object ;his uneasiness or desperation is highlighted by the fast jump-cuts of different angles, it is then revealed what  our protagonist was looking for. The audience may not be aware of whether our protagonist is a villain or hero which creates mystery for the audience. The wall of documents is shown in greater detail as the protagonist continues to scan for information revealing more of his motives such as a map on the wall which may indicate to the audience that he may be on the run.The  editing then  becomes fast pace  as he begins to take  down the documents we included various jump-cuts which  help creates suspense and tension .The soundtrack begins to mimic the editing and becomes fast -paced with the drums becoming heavier and louder ;this may show/reveal to the audience that the protagonists time is running out .When the flashback occurs the puzzles created beforehand are solved we decided that the soundtrack would crescendo throughout the scene to highlight the panic and create the tension and suspense; as what the female protagonist is saying is important and catches the audience's attention.The tension and suspense is further explored by the cliff hanger that our opening ends on ;the voice over states that the protagonist's life is about to change and his new journey is about to begin .However the police sirens show the audience that his enemies are not far behind him; which would hint that our protagonist may not get away so easily. Which is when the action codes would appear within our film 

Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to the concept of audience

In my foundation portfolio I constructed a thriller opening called 'One Step Ahead'  my film opening was a hybrid that was classified within the man on the run /political/ action sub-genres . When constructing my media product I had to consider my film opening in relation to the concept of audience .

First of all I had to consider who would be my target audience  and what rating my film opening would be classified as  . To help with the discovery ,I looked at movies that were classified within  my chosen sub-genres . One of the films that we looked at was  The Bourne Identity  we used IMDB to help find out what type of audience the movie attracted . We discovered that the film mainly attracted Caucasian males aged 15 and upwards . 2/3 of the Bourne trilogies are rated as a 12A we decide to have the same rating as we wanted to attract / target a mass audience and giving our film a 12A rating would broaden the audience that we would attract . we then used BBFC to help ensure that we adhered to the guidelines that were already set .However we wanted to attract a larger female audience to do this we chose to include a female protagonist within our film opening .To make sure that our idea was successful we conducted interviews on females age 15 and upwards  from our interviews we discovered  that this idea was successful as most of them would desire to see more females in empowering roles within movies within our genre.

There are many ways in which our completed thriller opening could impact the audience . the audience could decode certain messages within our opening and receive different readings of our media product . Stuart hall suggests three different ways in which the audience could decode certain media products  a proffered reading, a negotiated reading and a op-positional reading . As we had a female protagonist the audience could see that we are empowering her character  and going against the traditional conventions of an action thriller . Furthermore  as she is of British and African descent it could be said that her character  is going against the ways that most black females are portrayed within films the mid-shots that reveal her character are not provocative and do not encourage the male gaze  . It is evident that her character is significant as she is seen via flashback giving vital information to the male protagonist . however some may have an op-positional reading of our product the opposed audience could recognize that we have  a female protagonist but may not be satisfied with her position someone who is a feminist may feel that her character serves the purpose of a sidekick to the male protagonist and that her character is not really challenging the stereotypical representations of a female character/protagonist  within the genre .

When making our thriller opening we had to understand that our film would meet and maybe cater to  the needs of  a mass audience .Blumer and Katz refer to this as the uses and gratification theory. People or audiences would come to see our film if they are seeking a thrill or for a sense of escapism ,escape from reality and their everyday lives as our film opens the door to another reality. the dark and mysterious lighting that we have used sets the mood an contributes to the tension and suspense this is further emphasized by the slow panning  at the start of the film opening . as the opening begins to progress the editing and the soundtrack follows; the fast pace editing and the  the crescendo soundtrack helps contribute to the tension and suspense built within all of these  techniques that we used help contribute to the thrill that the audience may seek when watching our film .Rarely audience members would seek to watch a film by themselves but would usually go for social interaction some would discuss the film with their friends others for a sense of enjoyment  and to socialize .

I am going to explain how i used , developed or challenged  real media conventions in my productions

Firstly in my foundation portfolio we created a thriller film opening and we were given a set genre to stick to . however we were allowed to choose our own sub-genres.As we were gven a set genre to do the research and planning stage was alot more straight forward as we had to do research into similar media products that were classified within a thriller/man  on the run genre . Such as the bourne identity we looked at the thriller opening and found out that the film and director stuck to the basic conventions various enigmas were created within the opening sequence and they were succesful in establishing tension/suspense  for our own media product we decided to adhere more closely to the conventions . We included enigmas into our opening sequence . The panning against the wall of  stolen  classified documents  created mystery for the viewers as they did not know what the protagonist was up to or why he was in possesion of the documents.Furthermore we used dark lighting to create tension and suspense the soundtrack that i created using garage band  helped  amplify the suspense that was created this was similar to the one that was  used within the Bourne identity  during key and vital moments .lastly we established a protagonist within our film opening and gave clues to the audience to reassure them of who he was such as the flashbacks used. In the foundation portfolio we felt more geared to stick to the conventions of a thriller film .

this probably limited our creativity within our media product . where as in our advanced level portfolio i felt that my creativity was expressed more within the editing skills . Many music videos challenge conventions such as Lady GaGa's you and I music video her video has no narrative or use of a fragmented narrative . We were not  given  a set genre to stick to  so we were able to broaden our research and planning skills .When looking at various music videos we looked at videos that stuck to and challenged the conventions . we desired to do the same within our media product . whereas in As we decided to adhere very closely to the conventions .During the post production stage we decided to have a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals like Beyonce's countdown music video . In our Advance level portfolio we were more aware  of the conventions that people chose to adhere to  such as intertextuality . we chose to incoporate it into out music video  such as the overlaying effect that we used  as seen int the war on drugs music video the city . we chose to make our artist classified within the neo-soul genre