Roland Barthes is a narrative theorist who came up with 5 narrative codes which all films follow these are:
Enigma Code – The structure of puzzles and queries in the text and the way in which we are hooked into the narrative by the desire to find the answers.
Action Code – The ways in which we identify familiar situations and actions through conventions of language and the use of certain key phrases or words; we do not need everything spelt out for us, so from words such as “betrayal” and “love” we can decode plot elements
Semic Code – Refers to details about certain characters which enable us to build up a profile of that character
Symbolic Code – Refers to the way in which themes are developed through the use of recurring symbols usually to convey a message
Cultural Code – Details in the narrative that confirm cultural context, such as it’s location, when it’s taking place and the kinds of moral values, ideas and fashions that are associated with that period
In order to make our trailer appealing to an audience we must include at least one of the narrative codes stated above as it creates a link between the characters in the film and the viewer. In our trailer we are planning to utilizing primarily the Semic Code, but also the Action Code. We hope that this will create an interesting narrative which the viewer would wish to follow as they would feel a connection to the characters.
Barthes also had a theory concerning Readerly and Writerly texts. The idea is that the readerly text the reader follows easily, and the writerly texts make the audience work to construct the narrative for themselves. Usually a film contains both, a familiar structure for a trailer is: the first act being readerly, while the second act introduces a sense of the writerly, then in the final act, which contains a montage is heavily writerly, due to the fast paced nature of a montage. We wish to mostly emulate this structure as it will maximise audience interest and will contain a familiarity to the audience.
AF
No comments:
Post a Comment