NARRATIVE THEORIES

I have based the main structure of my film around Todorov’s theory. I have chosen to do this as in my film as I will start with a balanced equilibrium where it seems as though everything is as it should be and a normal day. There will then be an unbalancing of this equilibrium, in which the main character will have to overcome this. And finally a new equilibrium will be formed. This is what Todorov’s theory suggests, a balanced equilibrium, an unsettling of this equilibrium and then a new equilibrium is formed.

However, rather than showing this new equilibrium at the end, it will only have a short shot, leaving the audience to try to guess and figure out what has happened. In my film I am also going to include the basic principles of binary opposites as suggested by Propp. But rather than having a good character vs. a bad one, I am going to have the good and bad represented within one character.

AUDIENCE RESEARCH

One of the most common results that occurred in my audience research was that males and females both prefer different ending to the films that they watch. Firstly, males prefer a more open-ended ending where they get to imagine how the film ends, and get to voice their own opinion, however, in general females do not like this. They would prefer to know how the film ends as they then do not argue with their friends over what they think happened/happens.

Also, many people have seen short films as they are not very easily accessible. A few people have seen short films, as promotional videos shown in the millennium dome. Another popular place that people have seen short films is at the start of Disney films, when they show Pixar animations. To allow short films to be more accessible people have suggested that there should be a specialised website for short films that are promoted well so everybody knows about them. Also, if there were more video links on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace then people would like to watch more.

A few people also added that to make short films more popular and to let more people know about them they should be added to the start of a DVD for a big/blockbuster film as almost everybody said they would like to watch them and wouldn’t just fast-forward them.

The most common problem people appear to have with feature length films is that they find them too predicatble. The most suggested criticism is that you can always predict what is going to happen in the end for example the hero overcomes the villain and wins over the princess. People said that they would like to see more of a twist to the end of a feature length film or a generally unpredictable ending. Also, a lot of people said that the main aspect they like about the short films that they have seen is that they are seen to be more mysterious and ‘twisty’ at the end.

Some people commented on how they would pay to see a compilation of short films at the cinema for a discounted rate. Another popular place people said they would like to see short films is on iTunes for a cheap price. People also said that if the films were advertised on the iTunes store homepage they would get a lot more advertisement and a bigger chance of becoming more successful as you have to view this page when you go to purchase anything through iTunes. If people then came to viewing more, the films were also more likely to talked about and spread through word of mouth gaining more views. Many of the males said that they would like to see some short films on the Xbox live marketplace, where they could view some for free, to get a taste of what they are like, then if they liked them they could pay to view some more.

Overall, not many people have seen short films, but the few that they have seen, they have said were very enjoyable and well made and generally positive. A lot of the audience I researched on said that they would like to view short films on YouTube as they are easily accessible, but YouTube also has lots of non-related, ‘pointless’ videos that are annoying when they are searching for short films. A popular suggestion was that the short films had their own ‘channel’, or some other method where people could see the professionally made short films. Some people also said they would like a well-known short film specialised website.