THEORIES APPLIED TO THE FILM OPENING

TODOROV :
Equilibrium = Its a usual day, the girl is going to the shop
Disequilibrium = She bumps into a boy and starts liking him

BARTHES :
Where is she going?
Why did she go in that shop?
Do they become friends?
Do they fall in love?
Is the boy safe?

PROPP :
Hero = Anca
Helper = Pam

LEVI-STRAUSS :
Girl/Boy
Inside/Outside
Happy/Serious

All the theories above can be applied to my AS coursework. I have shown the equilibrium and disequilibrium which gives a structure to my film opening. All the events occur chronologically however, I could not show an equilibrium at the end because it is only a film opening. This then links into the theory of Barthes and helps to create enigmas and builds further suspense for the audiences, which then encourages them to watch my movie to get answers to these enigmas.
The theory of Propp shows what role each character is playing thus creates a certain expectation for them to behave in that way. For example, a hero is the main character and the audiences expect to follow their story. However, some movies have challenged these conventions such as in Psycho, at the start the story of the lead female, Marion. But, according to the plot she gets killed in the first half of the movie which then creates more engines and suspense for the audience as to who the main character is and whom does the story revolve around. In my film opening, the camera is constantly behind Anca (Hero) hence for the audience she is the main hero because we are following whatever she is doing which makes her character come across as dominant than the other characters. The helper, Pam, often plays the role of a good person. Pam is shown to be very close to Anca and a friendly character who understands her better than anyone in the story.
Levi-Strauss offers the theory of binary oppositions. Strauss studied many myths and legends all around the world and found out that we as humans makes sense of the world through seeing everything as binary oppositions and mostly all the narratives are arranged around conflict of binary oppositions. For example, we are so much used to seeing a hero and villain creating the opposition in the story such as in Twilight vampires are shown against werewolves however, this opposition is difficult to spot in the first movie. The vampires are shown to be the good side which attracts the audiences and the werewolves are expressed as evil and scary to enhance the binary opposition. The split image helps to create that effect of binary opposition. This could also be classified as good vs evil or innocence vs corruption. In my film opening, the oppositions which I have shown helps my audiences in terms of remembering the characters due to their oppositions such as boy vs girl. This opposition helps to make the film opening much more interesting and entertaining to watch. Inside/outside are the locations which I have used which helps to show the variety of locations that are being presented in my film opening. Happy/serious clarifies the characters personality which further helps to notice their high amount of opposition in terms of building their character as well as their narrative as conflict is based around the binary oppositions and that the binary opposites are the central climax of a narrative structure.