Group Narrative - Miss Georgiou

Group Narrative
In my group there is Claire Golighty, Jake Butler and myself.

Claires Idea Involves a suicide at the beginning. Her thriller sequence will show the audience the different events that leads the main character to commit suicide by hanging himself.The beginning of her thriller sequence will start with the audience seeing the main character. She wants to involve suicide from the main character. She wants to end the clip with an enigma that will leave the audience confused. Claires idea, involves an enigma which fits the convention of a thriller. This would be successful within a thriller opening as it creates a mystery atmosphere. A disadvantage of Claires idea is that is it very structured and could be too long and too detailed to be appropriate for just a thriller opening.

Jakes Idea is for the audience to know the back story and the plot of the film, and the narrative has to be flowing, makes sense and draw them in. Most films tend to explain the narrative later, but no film can ever not contain a narrative, as no one would want to watch it and no one would be interested. His idea was to involve a stalker harassing his ex-girlfriend. Jakes idea could be harder to film, because you need the streets to be cleared to create a night time effect. In addition to this you couldn't have an extras within the scene as this defeats the whole purpose of it being a stalker scenario. Although the plot was able to remain different and thriller-like. Which is good for being the audience intrigued within the opening.

My own idea involves a suicide that would be representative of a male with a mental disorder. He would commit suicide at the beginning and then flash back to how he got to that stage in his life. The ending would involve him killing his own mother and then his 'good side' would overtake him and then leave the audience into wandering why he committed suicide. The story line in my own idea, remains very confusing and could cause problems for an audience to keep up with. The advantages to my idea would be that it involves a mentally unstable character which fits the conventions of a thriller genre.

Final Group Narrative 
The beginning of our narrative starts with a suicide from our main antagonist, Cameron. He will be scene hanging himself, with a voice over presents, when he finally kicks the chair away Cameron is left hanging there and the flashback is presented. The scene then transitions into a dinner scene where Cameron and his mother are portrayed eating dinner. His mother begins to bombard him with questions about his health and well being. This then results in a violent murder between Cameron and his Mother. The mother is left for dead and is found by a friend that is isolated in the dark and the scene ends with a blackout and possible a scream that leaves the audience wandering what could be next. The title 'Disturbia' will then flash on the screen as the opening sequence ends.

Narrative Theory 
Vladimir Propp had a theory that the characters are what makes up a narrative. For example in the fairy tale genre. There is always certain types of characters such as the hero (protagonist), the sidekick, the humorous character, the princess (damsel in distress) He believes the characters are what make a film and bring it to life. Our group narrative follows some of this theory due to the fact our protagonist/antagonist Cameron is what our opening is all about he is the focus. The only thing that opposes this theory in our narrative is the fact that our narrative doesn't consist of the different characters also mentioned in Valdimir Propps theory. In addition to this due to our main character having a split personality he is not just the protagonist (his good side) but the antagonist also (when his evil side comes out).

Our narrative follows Aristoles theory. We believe our narrative follows two of his suggestions. One being sympathy/empathy within a film. This will occur when the character of Cameron commits suicide. The audience have no idea who he is and what motives he has, this means that they have no kind of judgement towards him. This type of narrative idea also occurs when the mother is murdered, as mothers are the people who nurtures and protect their children and in return she is brutally murdered by her son. Dramatic question is another aspect that is present within our opening narrative. We are able to leave the audience questioning whats happened in the sequence and whats caused him to commit suicide, making them want to watch more if this was a feature length film.

The final theory is Todorovs. He believes that every narrative starts with an equilibrium. The fact that everyone is happy and eveything is safe and in its place at the start of the film, although suddenly this changes to an disequilibrium. This type of scenario is more common in other genres. These storylines will usually be rather sterotypical and able apart of genres such as romantic comedies and action films between good and evil. Our group narrative does not follow this theory at all as our film begins with a tragic event that is followed by another horrific event which leaves the opening sequence on a cliff hanger and the audience want to watch more.