Narrative Form & Films Flashcards
The central cause behind a character’s actions.
Motivation
Dense accumulation of detail conveyed in the opening moments of a film.
Exposition
The details of a character’s past that emerge as the film unfolds.
Backstory
The written blueprint of film, composed of three elements: dialogue, sluglines, and description.
Screenplay
A screenplay written and submitted to a studio without a prior contract or agreement.
Spec script
The period of time before principal photography during which actors are signed, sets and costumes designed, and locations scouted.
Pre-production
The annotated script containing information about set-ups used during shooting.
Shooting script
The length in minutes for a film to play in its entirety.
Screen time
The non-chronological insertion of events from the past into the present day of the
story world
Flashbacks
When a character speaks directly to the camera and thus the audience
Direct address
The classical model of narrative form.
Three-act structure
The falling or unraveling action after climax of a narrative that leads to
resolution e.i FINALE.
Denouement
A characteristic of conventional narrative form, when the conclusion of the film wraps up all loose ends in a form of resolution.
Closure
A technique in which the audience temporarily shares the visual
perspective of a character(s).
A point-of-view shot
The non-chronological insertion of scenes of events YET to happen into the present day of the story world.
Flash forward
The narrative e.i PLOT path of the main or supporting characters.
Plot lines
The plotline that surrounds an embedded tale.
Frame narration
A non-standard narrative organization that assumes a ‘day in the life’ quality.
Episodic
A conclusion that does not answer all the questions raised regarding characters or storyline.
Open-ended
A story narrated by one of the characters within the story.
First-person
Literary narration from a viewpoint beyond that of any one individual character.
Third person
The technique of telling the story from an all-knowing viewpoint rather than that of one individual character
Omniscient
The imagined world of the story, including sounds heard by the characters of the movie.
Diegesic
Any narrative, sound, or visual element not contained in the story world.
Non-diegesic
