Narrative Theories

Barthes - Gives the audience an enigma code, e.g a close up on a knife, which gives the audience a hint of danger to come.

Levi-Strauss - Binary oposition- Good vs evil, e.g Heather vs Ben.

Todorov- The sense of a beginning middle and end.

Vladimir Propp- He thought that characters had key functions. For example we would have a protagonist and antagonist a long with many different characters to show off different personalities.

Open Narrative- an open narrative is when a story carries on between episodes and doesn't show a sign of ending.

Example: Heathers murder in Eastenders, the first episode is when Heather is murdered by Ben Mitchell, this is an open narrative because it opens the door for the storyline to continue. Instantly you begin to ask yourself is he going to get caught? As a result you continue to watch because you are intent on finding out what happens in the end.

Close Narrative- This is the opposite to an open narrative, it addresses less issues and therefore when resolved the storyline finishes.

Example: Michael walks into the shop and buys some nappies. This is a close storyline because it doesnt open up the opportunity for this story to be continued into future episodes.
Multi-Stranded Narrative- This is when a number of storylines are linked together in an episode, this is a key convention as it is used effectively in multiple soaps.

Sterotypical Soap Editing Techniques: Eastenders

-Reflects the characters personalities and tries to create a relationship between the characters and the audience.

-Using lots of names to allow new viewers to quickly understand who the characters are.

-Lots of shot reverse shots to show dialogue, which allows the audience to understand who is speaker to who and engages the audience into the conversation.

-Cross cutting between scenes is a huge editing technique in all soaps as it gives you an idea of what is happening else where. This keeps the audience interested because it introduces all of the audience pleasures. For example Personal Identity where somebody viewing may be able to relate to a specific event/character.

- Sound bridges are used to link the different scenes together.

-Soaps tend to use comfortable settings to allow the audience to feel safe when watching.

-Cliffhangers are always used in Eastenders therefore there specific target audience tunes in for the next episode so they can see what happens.