Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Week 3: Storytelling in the New Hollywood, Spectators are most likely to…

- - - - Script manuals: help freelance screenwriters with structuring their narratives according to the "Norms"
      - Craft norms arise from frequent patterns and regularities we detect from Hollywood narratives to form the basic techniques of storytelling
- - - - Everything in the film should be motivated: each event, object, character trait should be justified by elements in the film.
        
        Plot holes arise from a lack of justification, an unmotivated device that becomes distracting & runs counter to narrative linearity / unity
        
        Use of Motifs: auditory or visual
        
        cues in redundancy
        
        adds emotional resonance to a narrative
        
        What elements motivates characters, narratives and objects?
        
        personal events (past)
        
        impersonal circumstances (disaster, unforeseen luck)
        
        institution systems (large organizations such as The Matrix or Children of Men)
        
        Genre conventions (i.e breaking into a song because it's a musical)
        
        Character traits inherent/consistent in characters (eg. greed, pride, compassion) but these traits cannot be only a caricature but well-rounded & in-depth
  - - - Dangling Cause: action that has no effect until later in the film.
        
        a line of action that is put on hold until it is needed to push the story forward
        
        typically not at the end/resolution, but somewhere middle
        
        Most hollywood films achieve closure in all plotlines and subplots & ambiguous, open endings are avoided
        
        UNLESS: Generating a Sequel and hints at the dangling cause the sequel will address
        
        hook and a dialogue hook that foreshadows -- usually appears in the end of one scene and starts another scene
        
        Redundancy, Appointment, Deadlines
        
        important information is repeated: helps people to direct attention esp because we overlook things.
        
        Formal devices t omaintain claritty: 1) Wide shot
        2) Eyeline
        3) Shot reverse shot
        4) Angle
        5) Match Cutt
        6) Mootifs
        7) sound design
  - - - In art film, there can be no progression with goals.
        
        unable to pursue them actively
        
        shifting ambiguous goals
        
        simply no goals
        
        these are impossible in classical-style
    - - however, certain fundamental techniques are not lost. Still used to promote narrative clarity: eg. shot/reverse-shots
- - - - Plot point/Turning Point: incident or event that hooks into the story and spins it around into another direction.
        
        need not be moments of high drama
        
        usually when the characters goal changes or when a goal is achieved and a new one replaces it
        
        can occur after an act or before an act as transition
    - - 1) afford the spectatoor room to breathe
        2) fosters clear, gradual character change (allocate enough time to motivate their progress)
        3) Each part has a shape of its own and its own unique variety
        4) caters to the attention span of the audience