Narrative Theories

Narrative theories analyses the way that the media text passes its meanings about the events that happen in the video. There are a lot of theories that have been created to give the audience an insight of the professional analysis that the film makers and producers have gave the film. This gives the audience an idea of what they should expect and makes the audience think about the relevance of the theory.

In our trailer, we have decided to explore a wide range of theories to represent the theme of horror. We have used these theories to make the audience feel engaged to the storyline and to make the audience wanting to watch more of the film beyond the trailer.

The first narrative theory we have chosen to use is the Levi-Strauss theory. The Levi- Strauss theory is a narrative that is structured around the idea of binary oppositions meaning if you have a hero you will always have a villain that will come with that hero. This shows that both characters are the opposition of each other and this often leads to the characters having conflicts and tensions and in some cases this may be resolved. The two opposite characters are created to show the audience the two different sides to the story and the audience will be obliged to take sides with the hero, especially in horror films as the hero is stereotypically known to be the one getting hurt in horror films.

In our own trailer, we are using the Levi-Strauss theory to explain the storyline of the film. Although the storyline is not fully revealed in the trailer (as the audience will know what is going to happen and not want to watch the film) it gives the audience the basic knowledge of the storyline that they need to know to understand the film. We are having a young female character as our hero as we are going to use things such as costume to display why she is going to be the hero of the situation. The use of a young female character automatically shows the audience that she is going to be in some sort of trouble with the storyline as horrors generally use a young suspect or target in the film to make the audience feel on edge. The villain in our trailer is going to be a man and he is going to appear in all black clothing. The audience will not see the man’s face in the trailer which shows the audience that he is going to be the villain by the use of hiding his face and his actions such as following the hero around in the trailer. This is going to help the audience understand the message of the trailer and draw the audience’s attention into the storyline which makes them want to watch more.

Another narrative theory we will be using is Barthes enigma code. The Barthes enigma code we are going to be using is The Hermeneutic Code. The Hermeneutic Code refers to an element in the story that is not fully explained and becomes a mystery to the audience members. The purpose of this is to keep the audience guessing what the mystery is until it is revealed but in this case, the mystery will not be revealed in the trailer and the audience will need to watch the rest of the film to find out what happens. This is a very good way of drawing the audience’s attention as it makes the audience question the action in the trailer and makes them think about the possible outcomes. If the audience are interested in this and want to find out more, they will want to research and watch the rest of the film.

In our trailer, we are going to be using this enigma code. We are going to be using this enigma code by giving the audience glimpses of the storyline such as showing the audience that the male villain character is going to be following the female hero character around but the audience do not know why he is following her or why he is using the female as the target. This leaves the audience thinking of all of the possibilities he may have chosen her to follow and leaves the audience wanting to know answers of the mystery and then they will go onto watching the film.