In Western culture, in the movie industry it is the norm to have a protagonist who has to face obstacles to reach a happy ending. However, over more recent years, this tradition has been toyed with, experimenting different conventions, including ambiguous endings, which leave the audience to make up their own ending, or even room for a sequel. In Eastern culture, when watching their representation of film, or story telling, it is very different, and for most of us who are adapted to the western story telling, the linear, straight forward style, it is often difficult to get to grips with this alternative order of events.
It has been established that to make a successful story or film, that there needs to be an order at the start, some kind of equilibrium, a calm before the storm. This is often interrupted by an event, or a person who is different to interrupt the calm, and cause chaos. The disequilibrium. This leaves the ending open for the chaos to be fixed and put right. In my children’s programme, I used a state of calm at the beginning, with the introduction, before it had been established that there was anything wrong. It was the missing animal that caused the chaos before an important visiting relative comes to visit, causing nerves and rushing in an attempt to find him. Whether the problem shown is resolved or not, the end often contains a message subliminal or not, that teaches people something. In my case, the message is to be selfless, and treat people well, and as the target age is around five years old, it is a valid lesson that should be taught at a young age.
A montage is also an effective way of story telling, a mixture of clips from different events to set a scene, or even convey some kind of emotion. My montage is for my titles, and by watching that alone, the audience will understand the basic foundations of the show, three characters, a human and two puppets, one good and one bad. This montage will give the audience, in this case young children the chance to see what the programme contains, whether it makes them laugh, or whether it interests them. The montage contains every day activities such as driving a car, or cooking, activities that young children can relate to, and come to realise the consequences of their actions if they behave badly.
A linear form of story telling, in my opinion is the easiest to follow, and because of my young target age, this is the narrative I did adopt, simply because if there are flashbacks and cutting from one time to another, it would have to be done in such an obvious way to make the children fully understand it, and the changing lapses of time could become confusing, and this could cause the children to potentially lose interest, which is not what I would want to happen.
The conventional approach at story telling, is a potentially boring one, but I believe if it is backed up with an interesting story with a plot that is exciting and dynamic, then it will not lose any of its popularity as a story or film.
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