Character Types

For Mrs Francis, we were told to search for a British Film and write about the types of characters that appeared in the film.

Theorist Valdimir Propp looked at the characters in stories, and stated there were eight basic characters in the traditional narrative that we can transpose to film.

According to Propp, the characters are:

• The hero - the seeker, the major protagonist
  
• The false hero - tries to trick the hero or audience
  
• The donor - helps the hero with extra information
• The princess - the prize and possibly the victim or target of the villain
• The father - gives out an award at the end of the quest
• The helper - gives the hero information to help them complete the task
• The dispatcher - sends the hero out on his quest

When put into pairs, we were not sure which film to choose at first, as there are so many to choose from. We looked on a website for a list of British Films, and chose The Golden Compass, as this has a big cast therefore we were sure that we could find one character for each one of Propp's characters.

The Golden Compass

• The Hero - Lyra, as she seeks to begin an amazing adventure in a battle to save her friend, and other missing children.
• The False Hero - Mrs Coulter and the Jordan's vice-chancellor secretly give Lyra a magic golden compass capable of revealing the truth. When Lyra finds out that Mrs Coulter is the leader of the Gobblers, she escapes from her house.
• The Donor - With the help of Lorek Byrnison, Lyra goes ahead of the Gyptians to a village, where she finds Tony Makarios and learns that the Gobblers are cutting children's demons away from them.
• The Princess - Roger Parslow, the Jordan College kitchen boy, who is Lyra's good friend and playmate. Lyra believes he has been stolen by the Gobblers.
• Billy Costa - Ma Costa's son, who appears to have been taken by the Gobblers.
• The Father - We could not find such a character.
• The Helper - Master of Jordan, the ranking scholar of Jordan College, who feels responsible for raising and protecting Lyra.
• The Dispatcher - no one, Lyra goes herself to find her friends and is not sent by anyone.

I enjoyed this task very much, as it was interesting to see how Propp's theory is actually true, and i will certainly not be watching another film without looking out for each of these character types!

Working Title Films and Film4

For Mrs Francis, we were told to use the structure, identified by Todorov ( Equilibrium, Disturbance and Resolution) to explore the following British Films in terms of narrative and structure:

Billy Elliot

Bridget Jones's Diary

The same applied to Film 4:

This is England

Brick Lane

Billy Elliot:

A young boy succeeds in his quest to become a ballet dancer.

Instead of going to Boxing lessons, he goes to ballet classes.

Father does not know

Ballet teacher notices his potential and tries to get him an audition at the Royal Ballet School.

The father disagrees when asked for permission, then re-considers.

At the end, it shows Billy aged 20, performing in Swan Lake.

Billy Elliot uses:

Equilibrium - we see Billy in his day to day life, hobbies and friends etc.

Disturbance - his dad does not agree with Ballet and there is a mining strike which his father is involved in, e.g. his dad is seen in a coach that is being thrown at with eggs.

Resolution - his son accepts that his son is good at ballet and at the end we see his dad come to watch Billy in Swan Lake.

Bridget Jones's Diary:

A detailed account of a 30 year old singly womans life on a hunt to find a husband.

Bridget Jones is an assistant at a London book publisher.

Feeling time pass her by, Daniel Cleaver, her boss starts flirting with her, she plunges straight in.

An affair ensues and she is head over heels.

She also keeps running into Mark Darcy, a barrister who has known her since a young child.

At the end, Bridget must make a decision, Daniel or Mark?

Bridget Jones's Diaet uses: 

Equilibrium - we see her in her day to day life, the narrative through her diary therefore we get a first hand account.

Disturbance - she is with Daniel who she then finds out is having an affair, therefore she has to deal with the break up.

Resolution - Bridget learns from her mistakes of bad men and chooses the more sensible option, Mark Darcy.

This is England:

Displays a young boys trauma of being brainwashed by the skinhead culture. Set in 1983.

Shaun is 12 and a bit of a loner, growing up with his mum in a grim costal town, his dad was killed fighting in the Falklands War.

On his way home from school, he runs into a group of skinheads, who against the expectations, turn out to be friendly and take him under their wing.

Soon, Shaun discovers parties, girls and snappy dressing, and finds some rold models in Woody, Milky and the rest of the gang.

Handling the complexities of masculinity, violence and race with sensitivity and lightness of touch.

This is England uses:

Equilibrium - showing his life and the culture of the skin heads.

Disturbance - the gang breaking up

Resolution - None

Brick Lane

Brick Lane is the story of Nazneen, a young Bangladeshi woman who is put into an arranged marriage with Chanu Ahmed.

A loveless marriage with the middle aged Chanu, she feels her soul is quietly dying.

Her sister Hasina, meanwhile, continues to live a carefree life back in Bangladesh.

Nazneen struggles to accept her lifestyle, until the hot headed young, Karim comes knocking at her door.

The novel ends with a surprise trip for Nazneen. Nazneen's daughters and Razia take her to an ice skating rink for the first time where she will be free to skate, even in her Sari.

Brick Lane uses:

Equilibrium - shows the life of a young Bangladeshi woman, and a typical life, e.g. arranged marriage.

Disturbance - Nazneen has to live with Chanu, but she has to survive in a whole new culture.

Resolution - they get the money.

Filming Task

When i first heard about the filming task, i thought it was going to be great fun, and easy to come up with.

Then after the first lesson, i realised it isnt all that easy. 

There are so many aspects to worry about.

Most people, i found, tended to go for the horror/suspense genre.

However, my group didnt want to do the same as everyone else and thought that to do such genre could be extremely embarassing, if it didnt look real.

After watching endless clips on YouTube, discussing what we were going to do, and after much discussion, we came up with an idea, and to be honest, thanks to Liv, a very good one :) 

Here are some of the YouTube videos we watched to give us an idea: