By now you will have come up with an idea, worked out part of your production plan and done your research. This chapter is designed to help you think about the piece, to give you a structure or a way of thinking that will help you to be creative.
You don’t need to read through all of the different sections if you don’t want to; just find the section that deals with the type of production you are doing. However, everyone should read the first section on story structure as you will need to be familiar with these concepts to understand the rest of it. Advertising is dealt with in the next chapter, since the ways to think about advertising and the way it is structured are rather different. News and current affairs are also dealt with in a separate chapter.
For this chapter you will need to refer to the website. On the website you will find the links to these examples of TV, film and radio, and help in deconstructing them.
What is meant by story structure? We are all familiar with the idea of a story, from our earliest fairy stories to complicated novels we might read or study later in life. We tend to associate the word story with fiction or drama. However, the word story is also used when making factual programmes, advertisements or music videos. Thus it is important to think about how stories are structured. There have been many theorists writing about the structure of narrative and many books written on story structure. It’s outside the scope of this chapter to go into a lot of detail, so this is just to give you some pointers to think about.
Most theories on story structure break down the structure into a series of acts or stages; different theorists will have a slightly different approach, but most of them are along the lines set out in the next template.
Template 6.1 Story structure
Not all stories follow this format but the majority broadly follow these lines. Woven around this structure will be the important elements of narrative.
Template 6.2 Narrative elements
These elements are different in each story; there are an almost infinite number of different characters, themes, settings and genres which can be woven around the same basic story structure. Thus, for example, take the story of Snow White:
Narrative elements
Exercise 6.1 Story structure: Cinderella
Now you have a go: think of the story of Cinderella. If you wish, you can print off a blank sheet from the website Try to break it down into its component parts:
EXERCISE 6.2 Narrative elements: Cinderella
The point of a film trailer is to make you want to see the film. In order to get you to watch the film, the film-makers try to convey some of the narrative elements in the film:
However, in order to get this information across effectively, they will also need to use pivotal moments in the story structure so that they can convey a lot of information about the film in a short space of time:
By using some of these key elements of story structure and elements of the narrative, the trailer will offer the audience a very good sense of what the film is about in a short space of time. Because film-makers concentrate on using key elements they convey a lot more than just using an extract from the film. By making sure the audience understand the genre, the trailer also ensures that the film targets the right people effectively. It’s also worth noting that the trailer doesn’t normally give you any information about the climax or the resolution to the film: they don’t want to spoil the ending!
Before you start to make your trailer therefore, you will need to have thought about the structure and narrative elements in your story. You don’t have to work it out in any great detail but you will need to think about:
Unless you have some idea of this in your head you cannot use these elements to make an effective trailer.
Let’s take the story of Snow White again. Think about the different narrative and structural elements you may want to include in the trailer.
Snow White: narrative and structural elements
Have a go yourself now and make notes on what elements you might include if you were doing a trailer for Cinderella.
EXERCISE 6.3 Cinderella trailer
If you log onto the website now you can see some real film trailers. There are some notes to guide you through how to deconstruct the trailer and identify the different elements.
Understanding the component parts of a story helps you to understand how film-makers strategically use the components to get across a lot of information about the film in a short space of time. When you come to make your trailer this is what you are aiming to do. It’s easy to find trailers on the net so you can spend as much time as you want breaking them down; soon you won’t be able to go to the cinema without deconstructing every trailer you see.
Opening sequences and opening scenes are a little like film trailers. Their job is to grab the audience and make them want to watch. They should also help to signal to the audience what kind of film they are going to be watching. If it’s a comedy, this will be signalled in the opening scene. They usually also tell you something general about the mise-en-scène; it will mostly introduce you to the kind of environment you are in. If the opening scene is set somewhere which is totally out of character for the rest of the film it will jar slightly and set up the wrong kind of expectation.
The opening has three main functions:
Credits: Opening title sequences often also carry some information about the film itself, the title credits. They might give you the names of the cast or director. Films vary in terms of what kind of information they give but almost invariably they tell you the name of the production company or companies at the top of the film. Even very well-established brands like the Harry Potter films start with the Warner Brothers logo. The placing of the title sequences will vary: some films open with the title sequence, others simply start with the opening scene of the film and the titles run over the opening titles, while some are a mixture of the two.
If you log onto the website you will see a number of links to opening sequences that can be broken down into component parts. When you watch the sequences you should start to think about what the film is trying to establish in terms of narrative elements and how they are conveyed. You should also look at the ways of setting up the status quo. What are they trying to establish about the character/s which you might need to know before the inciting incident?
There are a number of different types of factual programmes. They break down into four main groups:
There are of course many other types that don’t fall specifically into any of these groups.
On the surface it may not seem to you that the issues raised about story structure apply to factual pieces. Certainly the theorists tend to be talking about fiction when they are making these points. This is not meant to imply that making a factual piece is the same as making a piece of drama, but it is interesting to try to apply some of the points about story structure to a factual piece. It’s quite common to hear journalists talking about their “story”. But other types of factual programme-makers also think in terms of a story, from factual entertainment shows to feature-length documentaries; the film-makers always try to create a narrative for the piece.
Why should factual programmes need to have a story? Well, put simply, viewers are more engaged by stories than they are just by being given straightforward pieces of information. We also tend to remember things better. We like to hear of characters, we like a bit of tension in a story, and we like a resolution.
If you are making a factual piece then it’s possible that your viewers may not know anything about the subject or indeed they may not even be that interested. Your job is to make them interested and keep them engaged, so factual programme-makers tend to use narrative devices to grab and keep our attention.
Factual programme-makers often talk about the narrative structure in a similar manner to the way writers do for fiction. Like fictional story structure there are various theories, but they all follow similar lines, some more complicated than others, but here is a basic model. If you log onto the website you will be able to see some examples.
Template 6.3 Structure of factual pieces
Some film-makers will go further than this; they like to think of the body of the piece as having the same elements as a drama. They talk in terms of acts and reversal; this tends to be used for longer form documentaries As a student making a project, you are unlikely to be expected to make a long film. You are likely to be asked to make a much shorter piece, perhaps an item in a programme with a magazine format.
If you log onto the website you can see an example of this kind of factual piece and some notes on how the item is structured.
Just as with fiction you can weave a number of different elements around this basic structure. To have a look at some of these different types of programmes you will need to refer to the website and follow the links provided.
Of all the forms included in this chapter, music videos have the most flexibility in their structure. In all of the above forms there is some kind of linear structure. There are of course many artists who subvert or play with conventional structures but they all tend to at least start with an understanding of what the structure is.
With a music video you are doing something slightly different. You are showcasing a piece of music. The music will be the starting place for all your decisions. However, it is possible to loosely group different types of music video. You can log onto the website if you want see some examples of the different types of music video.
Template 6.4 Types of music video
When you start to think about your music video you will more than likely begin with the music itself. You will probably start by choosing the music you want to use. The next thing you could think about is which type of music video you want to create. Do you want something which tells the story of the song or is it more impressionistic? To what extent do you want to feature the artists? This will help you anchor the basic structure of your video.
From this point you then need to start thinking about all the other elements which you might weave around the basic structure. How you do this will depend on which structure you intend to follow.
The other elements you will need to weave around it are as follows:
If you log onto the website you can follow links to a number of different music videos giving you a variety of different styles.
Understanding the component parts of your piece will help you construct your own material. It will help you to start thinking about how to put the piece together and you will find it much easier to get a flow into your piece. When it comes to the edit, having a strong structure in mind will be invaluable. You will have the backbone of your piece ready and the edit will start to knit together around this structure. The structure also helps you in the recording. You will know the main elements you need to tell your story. Time spent working out your structure will mean more time on the shoot, at the recording and in the edit to be creative.
