Key Terminology

1. Linear – When a story is told in the order of what happens
2. Chronological – Following the order in which they occurred.
3. Sequential – Forming or following in a logical order or sequence.
4. Circular structure – A circular structure is an object that references itself – A story ends the same way it started (A moral of the story type thing)
5. Time based – Over a period of time.
6. Narrative arc – Literary term for the path a story follows. It provides a backbone by providing a clear beginning, middle, and end of the story. 
7. Freytag’s Pyramid – Devised by 19th century German playwright Gustav Freytag, Freytag’s Pyramid is a paradigm of dramatic structure outlining the seven key steps in successful storytelling: exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and denouement.
8. Exposition – A comprehensive description or explanation to get across an idea. Exposition is a device used in television, films, poetry, literature, music, and plays.
9. Inciting incident – The event that sets the main character or characters on the journey that will occupy them throughout the narrative
10. Rising action – The rising action starts right after the period of exposition and ends at the climax. Beginning with the inciting incident, rising action is the bulk of the plot.
11. Climax – The ending and leading up to the end of the narrative. The ending and finishing moral of the narrative
12. Falling action – Falling action is what happens near the end of a story after the climax and resolution of the major conflict. Simply put, falling action is what the characters are doing after the story’s most dramatic part has happened.
13. Resolution – The ending of the story. Occurs after the climax.
14. Denouement –  Is an aspect of narrative that gives context and resolution to a major theme, relationship or event in a story.
15. Beginning / middle / end – Different stages of a story.
16. Equilibrium – One (First) of the stages in the theory of narrative structure of Todorov’s theory. It is explained about the condition that happens with a character. Is the beginning of the film, and the characters life is normal.
17. Disruption – This is the second stage of Todorov’s theory, where a characters life is about to change / have interference.
18. New equilibrium – The final stage of Todorov’s theory where a characters life goes back to normal. Is the ending of the film.
19. Peripeteia – The turning point in a drama after which the plot moves steadily to its denouement. A shift of good to bad in a characters life.
20. Anagnorisis – A moment of recognition or revelation in a story, where the characters life switches to a reversal of fortune.
21. Catharsis – The release and relief of strong or repressed emotions and often leads to a resolution.
22. The 3 Unities: Action, Time, Place –  Action (a play / film should have one unified plot), Time (all the action should occur within one day), Place (a play / film should be limited to a single locale / location)
23. Flashback / flash forward – Flashback / flash forward – A interruption of a character remembering past tragic events.
24. Foreshadowing – An indication or hint of what is to come.
25. Ellipsis – A jump or skip in time in film
26. Pathos – The persuasive technique that appeals to an audience through emotions and to gain an emotional effect from the film. The quality of pity and sadness.
27. Empathy – The ability to sense other people’s emotions and to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling.
28. Diegetic / non-diegetic – Things that emanates from the story world of the film.
29. Slow motion – When a scene is slowed down in editing so the watcher can focus on a particular moment and aspect of the movie
30. In Media Res -Starting mid-action
31. Metanarratives – drawing attention to the process of storytelling
32. Unreliable narration – deliberately deceive audiences, providing plots that deliver unexpected moments – usually by revealing that a character is not who they claim to be.
33. Frame Stories – stories told inside of stories, testing Todorov’s ideal narrative structure through the presentation of nested moments of equilibrium and disequilibrium.

Synopsis and statement of intent

It’s about a poor family and the teen sons parents are struggling to get by, they have one son who wants to become a professional football player but can’t afford to pay for football training so he spends all his time playing street football and playing with his best friend, but his parents want him to get a job to help provide.

In this movie I will have the main character, the hero, being the teen who wants to become a football player. He will have a best friend at the start but then becomes the false hero, he then joins a rival team to his friend after the hero manages to get into a team through very hard work and training and being able to get free training due to his large skill and ability. The false hero will purposefully injure the hero out of spite that the hero is a greater player than him. So the hero has to go back home and start working for his family for a while. After being injured for a while we have a dispatcher (a coach) who convinces him to play again and carry on his training. To where he then gets scouted by a premier league team and this will be the anagnorisis where he earns enough money to provide for him self and his family.

The film will be funded and produced by Warner Brothers. It should have a least a mid level budget due to the simple nature of the story not needing many high level filming attributes or techniques. The poster will have the main hero at the front holding the football in his hands or at his feet, with his friend next to him but slightly behind to indicate his insignificance compared to the main hero and as also a slight foreshadow of his false hero intentions.

The genre of the film will be a feel-good type idea that focuses on a classic and conventional base story line following ideas of the Tripartite narrative structure. The genre would loosely be based on the films techniques and genre of “Blinded By the Light” where he young teenager faces antagonists and hardships to make his dream come true of becoming a professional football player, making his parents proud and taking them out of poverty.

Tztevan Todorov (Tripartite narrative structure):

A really good way to think about NARRATIVE STRUCTURE is to recognise that most stories can be easily broken down into a BEGINNING / MIDDLE / END. The Bulgarian structuralist theorist Tztevan Todorov presents this idea as:

• Equilibrium
• Disruption
• New equilibrium

In the beginning of a movie such as Harry Potter, his equilibrium is that he lives in a foster home under the stairs and they are disrespectful and unkind to him, then begins the disruption where he finds out he is a wizard and gets sent to Hogwarts when now Voldemort wants to kill him, lastly, there’s the new equilibrium where it goes back to the characters being happy once again and the conflict is over.

A more sophisticated application of Todorov considers and recognises that stories are constructed in ways that test and subvert the three act narrative structure outlined above. A more sophisticated application of Todorov might also consider:

• Plot and subplot(s)
• Multiple equilibrium/ disruption sequences
• Flexi-narratives

Sometimes there may also be an audience who expect action quickly and have a short attention and quick boredom span, so, Condensed equilibriums:

This structural approach could also be referenced to Freytag’s Pyramid:

exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and denouement as illustrated below.

Vladimir Propp (Character Types and Function)

His theory is about narrative structures, as his work (based around an analysis of fairy tales) suggests that stories use STOCK CHARACTERS to structure stories. That is not to say that all characters are the same, but rather to suggest that all stories draw on familiar characters performing similar functions to provide familiar narrative structures.

Simply, Vladimir Propp theorised that although characters may seem different, there are 8 stock character types that they follow that relates to their function in the movie and their personalities.

CHARACTERS FUNCTION TO PROVIDE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE; Here are the 8 Stock Characters:

1. Hero
2. Helper
3. Princess
4. Villain
5. Victim
6. Dispatcher
7. Father
8. False Hero

• Often there is a villain who has done something to a victim. This means that we need a hero, who (often) accompanied by a helper is sent out (by a dispatcher) to fight the villain. 

• The dispatcher or similar donor (such as a father figure) prepares thehero in his ‘quest‘ and gives theherosome magical object. The hero generally meets the princess as part of his quest / journey which usually provides a happy ending. During the narrative we (and the princess) may be presented by a false hero.
• Propp says that a narrative does not necessarily have use all the characters.

Spheres of Action

As Turner makes clear ‘these are not separate characters, since one character can occupy a number of roles or ‘spheres of action’ as Propp calls them and one role may be played by a number of different characters’ 

However, Propp proposed that his list of stock characters are structured into a narrative that has 31 different functions that play an important role in organising character and story into a plot. Without going into detail for each, overall they can be divided into the following sections:

1. PREPARATION
2. COMPLICATION
3. TRANSFERENCE
4. STRUGGLE
5. RETURN
6. RECOGNITION