Group narrative - Miss Georgiou

Group Narrative

In my media group along with myself there is Molly Emmerson and Jake Butler. Individually we were asked to create narrative ideas for our opening thriller sequence, thinking about how we can incorporate elements into it that are conventional to the thriller genre, such as using a knife as the iconography or for the victim to be female.

I decided to begin my sequence with a suicide, as I believed that this enigma would hook the audience with questions such as why has the antagonist killed himself. After seeing the suicide, the sequence will flow into a flashback and the audience will begin to see the different events that have led up to his death. In order to make his character more conventional to the thriller genre, the antagonist "Cameron" will be portrayed as mentally unstable due to his multiple personality disorder. Throughout the sequence the audience will either see him wearing a white or black shirt, individually they represent the different sides to his personality. White means innocent, whereas black is his dark, violent side that will be seen when he is killing his victim. Following the suicide there will be a VoiceOver that will allow the antagonist to engage the audience by talking directly to them. The flashback following the suicide will take the audience to the antogonists house where he and his mother are eating dinner. The natural setting will make the audience feel more relaxed and at home. As the scene progresses the tension and awkwardness between the two characters will become more obvious, which will make the audience feel tense also as the idea of the mother being the first victim becomes possible. The sequence will end with another enigma and the introduction of Cameron's girlfriend, "Harmony". She will arrive at the house to find the mother dead and Cameron nowhere to be seen. She will be completely oblivious to the events that the audience have just seen. After leaving the house scared and panicked, she will call Cameron to try and find out what has happened. The girlfriend "Harmony" and the mother "Grace" both have positive, innocent names that imply to the audience that they are the victims. My idea may be difficult to fit into a two minute sequence as it is quite detailed. Having said that, the use of enigmas in my sequence will make the audience feel tense

Molly and I had very similar ideas that followed almost identical narratives. The reason for this was due to use previously discussing a possible idea for our opening sequence. She wanted the narrative to cincernyrate on a very disturbed male character named "Cameron", who is mentally unstable. His name is unisex which represents his split personality. The young boy will struggle to deal with his evil side which is the ultimate reason behind his suicide at the start of the sequence. The audience will see his death and wonder what has made him do this, the VoiceOver will then begin and take the audience back in time to start showing them the events that led to his death. The flashback shows how his troubles began, starting with the death of his mother whom he finds annoying and overprotective. He will murder her with a knife as this is the most conventional weapon in the thriller genre as it is pysical and more personal. By using Molly's idea the audience will be able to see many conventions that are typical to the thriller genre. On the other hand, her narrative is very detailed and may be difficult for the audience to follow.

Jake wanted to show the audience the backstory to the main narrative of the film, with a flowing story that hooks the audience from the beginning. He wanted our opening sequence to show the audience a male stalker that is still hung up on his ex-girlfriend. The sequence will involve a chase scene that will create tension as the audience will not know whether the guy will catch the girl or not. A disadvantage of Jakes idea is that we will need to film on the streets and they will need to be empty in order for us to create that stalker effect. Although, an advantage of his idea is that his narrative is completely different to mine and Molly's and will be interesting for the audience to watch. His idea also contains typical conventions, such as an enigma which the audience will be able to identify with.

Group Narrative

For our final group narrative, we decided to begin our opening sequence by showing the audience the antagonist "Cameron" committing suicide. This will create an enigma that will hook the audience from the word go. The final shot during this scene will be of his feet dangling to show the audience that he has now hung himself, this will be immediately followed by a VoiceOver that will talk directly to the audience in order to make them feel more involved in what they are watching. The sequence will then flow into a flashback from before his suicide that will show the audience Cameron and his mother at home. The sight of them eating dinner will relax the audience and they will view the pair as a normal family. This will help us to shock the audience later in the sequence when Cameron violently kills his own mother. During the scene, both of the characters will be talking but Cameron will be passive and uninterested. His mother will be nagging him about his therapy sessions and his behaviour at school. The audience will see Cameron gradually growing more annoyed with his mother which eventually leads to him violently killing her. The mother is later found dead at the dinner table by Cameron's girlfriend, "Harmony". After leaving the house panicked, Harmony will call Cameron in an attempt to find out what has gone on. The audience will be left with a close up of her face as she listens to what Cameron is telling her over the phone. As the sequence finishes, the audience will be left wonder what Cameron has told her and whether or not she is going to become his next victim.

Narrative Theory

The narrative theory that my group narrative follows is Aristole's, as his theory is that the narrative focuses on the themes within the film. After analysing his theory and suggested themes from within a film, we believe that our film incorporates a dramatic question and the use of sympathy and empathy. Our dramatic question of why did he kill himself will occur at the very beginning of our sequence following the suicide of our antagonist Cameron. This is also where we feel the audience will feel sympathy and empathy towards him, and then again after the mother has been killed during the dinner scene that follows. Todorov's theory states that the narrative will start with an equilibrium (everything is normal) which is closely followed by a disequilibrium (something that will disrupt the narrative and prevent it from being happy). This is quite a common theory that can be seen in romantic comadies, fairytales or even action films. Due to my group narrative beginning with a sucide which is not considered an equilibrium, we therefore do not follow Todorov's theory. Vladimir Propp's theory is that the characters in the film are there to help the narrative and bring it to life. For example, the protagonist will have a sidekick that helps them with their quest, or an evil villan who's purpose in the film is to stop the protagonist from succeeding. This theory can often be seen in fairy tales including all of the Shrek films. My group narrative does not follow this theory due to the not being a protagonist amongst the characters featured, although the characters in any narrative are arguably always important. Our group managed to agree on a basis for our group narrative which includes many conventions that are typical to the thriller genre such as the use of an enigma at the beginning and end of our clip, and also the gender of the characters within the narrative. We really wanted to focus on the characters as they are what will bring our narrative to life, but especially our antagonist and his personality disorder that arguably makes him both the killer and a victim.