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.