Narrative, Story and Plot

Story and plot is what we looked at this week, and how they differentiate from eachother. Plot, is in the most basic terms, what is going on in the film for example. And the story is how the plot is portrayed, where it is how we understand it. For example, in the film Avatar, the plot is about a government corporation who want to take control of an island inhabited by others for financial gain. The story is about how a marine learns to live with its residents, and ends up turning against his own people because of their greed and the way that they are treating them. So what are the basics of story and plot? Most obviously beginning, middle and end. Also we need to be told what is happening in the film, Narration. Narration can be done in different way on screen, for example there does not need to necessarily have a narrator, every film will tell some of the story through the script some will tell all through the script. Some may begin with a narrator explaining the background of the story, and some film, such as Curious case of Benjamin Button have a narrator giving you an in depth insight to what is happening on screen throughout the whole film.
  Most films the plots order will follow in a chronological way, for example starting in 2000, and finishing in 2011. Some films will switch this around to give the film a bit of a twist, for example the movie Memento starts at the end and the chronological order is mixed up through out the whole movie.
  Every film must also have the most obvious thing, Characters. Usually each movie follows a certain list of stereotyped characters. The most frequent ones we see in film today is the villain, the hero and the Princess, and we can find these in most films. Example? Man on Fire - Villain - the man who kidnaps a wealthy girl for ransom. The princess - The little girl. The Hero - Denzel Washington, her minder who gives his life in order to get her back to her family. Not every film has to follow this order directly, but will usually have one of those kind of characters involved. Other examples are the helper (sometimes magical) who helps the hero. And a Donor who offers something that helps the hero, whether this be information, or a physical item.

Intertextuality

For this weeks lecture we looked at the way intertextuality is communicated throughout the film industry. We looked at a scene from madagascar Where one of the characters quotes a line from the original planet of the apes movie. The first thing we were discussing for this lecture is why? Seeing as Madagascar is an animated feature we assume that its primary target audience would be children? assuming around the ages of 5-13. So why put a scene like this in a childrens film? It could possibly be due to the fact that most kids wont be going to the cinema by themselves to see this movie, so maybe as a little joke for the adults to understand and keep them entertained throughout the film. The other option we discused, and in my opinion is the more correct one, is to pay homage/respect to another kind of film or person etc. We see things like this alot in the Pixar films, seeing as alot of graduates from Cal Arts university end up working at Pixar, they pay homage to their university in subtle ways throughout lots of Pixar films. One example is in Toy Story, Andys Mums car has the license plate 'A113,' which is the room number they study the character animation in.
  After the lecture I realized i had seen various examples of intertextuality without actually realising. For example in the new Rise of the Planet of the Apes, one of the characters is grabbed by a chimp and he shouts 'Get your filthy paws off me you damn filthy ape.' The same line which is said by an ape in the 2001 movie, but substitute the word ape for human. And the same line spoken from a human to an ape even back to the 1968 movie. These three examples of intertextuality i believe are all to pay homage. The 2001 and the 2011 movies are all drastic changes from each film, but I think the way that they maintain respect, and keep a similar angle on the film is to use these kind of examples of intertextuality.

Semiotics

So the topic on this weeks lecture was Semiotics, how we interpret things that we see, and what assumptions we make from this. For example if somebody draw four straight lines connected up, we say square, if they then draw an antenna and a man in the middle, we switch to TV. The principle however, does not just apply to drawings, it can also apply so sounds gestures or pretty much anything. Another example would be if somebody was to hold their hands up in front of their face with their fists clenched, we would assume a fight, or confrontation.
  Going back to the symbolic side of Semiotics the signs we are showed are made up from the Denotation and the Connotation. The Denotation is the sign or symbol we are being show at the most basic level possible - A mans briefcase. the Connotation is what the Denotation suggests, so by seeing a man with a briefcase we automatically can assume businessman? We also looked at the different ways these things can be Iconic, or Arbitrary. Iconic means it is more realistic and Arbitrary is more of a simple or even abstract form, basically less realistic.

Here are two example of Iconic and Arbitrary, although we know that they both represent the same thing! The house on the left is an Arbitrary drawing of a house (probably by a small child), the interesting thing about this picture is that everything in it is iconic, nobodies house looks like that, the sun doesnt have big visible rays with a smiley face, trees do have leafs and peoples faces are not a circle with two dots and a curve. However we still recognize this set of strange and unrealistic symbols as a man and woman outside their house! The picture on the right however is much more Iconic, the trees arent just a solid line with a curvy circle on top, and the house isnt just a block with a chimney on top.
  So how can this help me in Animation? We can depict certain things within a film on purpose, to suggest something, and lead the audience along a totally different trail in order to make the film have a twist. So for example, we could show a mysterious man who always leaves his wife at home, and we could always show him in a shop buying flowers. What is this suggesting? hes buying flowers for another woman. However we could then show the man going to a cemetery, and then we would work out he is putting flowers down on somebodies grave every week. Semiotics is an easy way to lead people on and make them believe something totally different just by using small suggestive things like a man buying bunches of flowers.

Process Model of Communication

In this weeks lecture we looked at Shannon and Weavers process model of communication. This is the theory of how Information, whether it be sound or anything else, is transmitted from a Sender, to a receiver. We looked at the process of how the information is transmitted, received (by the receiver) and then any feedback. There are also other factors that come into play such as 'noise.' Noise is anything that distracts the receiver from receiving the information being transmitted. Within animation this distraction could be something such as a couple kissing, but in the background somebody jumping around. The message to be sent would be the couple kissing but the viewer would be distracted by the 'noise' of the man jumping in the background.
  In the latter part of the lecture we looked at the two different types of information to be communicated. One type is 'Entropy.' Entropy is unexpected or new information that we need to know or would be useful for us to know. The other type of information is known and 'Redundant.' This means the information is other not useful to us or just basic redundant info that we already know. An example of this would be in a film, if a man came home to his wife and said hello and kissed her, then this information is redundant, we know the husband loves his wife and the information is not new or surprising, therefore Redundant. Whereas if he came home and threw her out of their home then this information would would be new and surprising to us, thus - Redundancy and Entropy.
  After this lecture we had a Seminar with Jeremy and looked at how these different types of information and could be communicated to an audience, and how we could put this into practice, for example, in our short film. I think it is of great importance to understand how we communicate certain types of information, in order for the audience to understand. We watched a short animated film, in which there were consistent symbols for the 'SS.' This information was communicated to us in a way where it wasn't blatantly portrayed but was communicated enough for the audience so still possibly notice it and understand.