examples of circular narrative to hook the audience

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbgcxD4-I7I
from 1.50 till the theme





This is a good example of how a circular narritive can be used for building of tension. At the begining one of the main protagonists of 4400 - Diana is holed up in a gym with her daughter whilst someone is continually banging against the double doors. Finally breaking through the door this unknown attacker comes face to face (gun to gun) with diana. The resultant mid shot reveals that the attacker is in fact the main protagonist and her collegue Tom.

The way the circular narrative works means that the audience are both shocked and hooked onto what will happen due to the break in the convention in that the protagonist is shown as the antagonist. This break in personality trait means that the audience will want to know why and how this has happened, thus meaning that they are successfully hooked. And as a technique, normally this is how a circular narritive is used. To give the audience information that they can build upon to create their own opinions of what they think will happen. In this case they break convention through a main character. As it is a television series, by this point the audience will likely have a strong relation with key characters and this is what is played upon for effect. Should this be tryed on a film it wouldn't work as the audience would have no prior knowledge of characters, meaning a protagonist or antagonist wouldnt be apparent.

It is interesting that a technique like circular narritive has different ways it can be executed and it is sure to be something i will look into further.

Idea so far for the practical production

After discussing possible ideas with people, I’ve found a rough idea for the thriller. It would be based around a school where for unknown reasons students begin to disappear. The general storyline would follow the female protagonist as she attempts to fathom who has done this because her friend goes missing. It’s found that the English teacher is the one guilty. I haven’t yet thought of a reasonable idea why this is but I think that there should be some form of link to children’s nursery rhymes.
I think that the reason for this should due to a child he lost but as this is mainly going to be only the opening few minutes it would not be suitable to delve too far into the mentality of the character. In the early discussions had in lessons, a circular narrative seemed like a good way to present it.
It hopefully will turn out okay as a particularly ‘creepy’ character could be produced in the teacher and it is also very conventional in the teacher being the antagonist so hopefully this mix of unconventional narrative and conventional characters should be interesting.

Intro feat. Continuity Task

This year I will be delving into the world of filming an opening for a thriller. It will only be 2 minutes long (hopefully short enough for me not to mess it up!). I am aiming for a psychological thriller style of filming but at the moment i dont have much ideas of where to start however before this, to get used to the practical side of filming, we all had to create a short film that was a practice of key filming rules such as 180 degree and continuity.

Obviously the topic is a little contraversial but that said it is actually a good example of a parody and for the continuity of the peice, it was perfect. I did a little bit of the filming which was great as I hadn't ever used a camera before.

Brief for Practical production

I am planning to film a psychological thriller. Our target Audience is those that will be able to watch a film of certificate 15. It will be filmed in a style that is not yet been determined using video recording equipment that is available to us through the school. [insert continuity stuff here when i find out how to post youtube vids]