Cerys Ford Computer animation arts

The vast majority of stories, especially films, use what is called a linear storytelling format. This is where the events of the film happen in a chronological order, one after the other. This is the format most often used because it’s hard to get wrong, and for most stories is the best way of telling it. However, there is another, relatively unused format, which is non-linear. This is where the events aren’t taking place chronologically. The best example of this is a flashback, which is where the audience sees an event that happened in the past. This can go even further, where the audience doesn’t know for most of the film which event happens in the past, which happens in the present, and which happens in the future. This can be a very useful technique for some stories, the main example being ‘Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind’ where the non-linear format helps tell the story effectively. To best understand how the use of non-linear aids in the storytelling in ‘Eternal sunshin...

  Two of the most popular structures for films in Western media is the 3-act and the 5-act structure. Many popular western films can be broken up into either structure, and often both. For the 3-act structure, the film is broken into three acts (as the name suggests) which are: the set-up, the obstacle, and the solution. These acts usually take up a standard amount of the story as well, 25% to the set-up, 50% to the obstacle, and 25% to the solution, however, many films don’t follow this specific breakup of the time allotted to each act. The 3-act structure can then be broken up even further into the 5-act structure, where the acts are as follows: Exposition, inciting incident, Rising action, climax, falling action, Resolution, and finally denouement. A great example of both these structures in action is ‘Die hard’. The first act of the 3-act structure is the set-up. This involves setting up the world the story is set in, where most of the story will take place and the main chara...

Character Archetypes are specific and identifiable traits that are very frequently used in storytelling, sometimes by themselves to create characters, but more often are used as a foundation to build a character off of. These archetypes can be split into two categories – the personality archetypes that tie into a characters, traits, motivations and flaws, and archetypes that impacts a character’s role in a story. The main personality archetypes used are called the 12 Jungian archetypes. These are the ruler, the creator/artist, the sage, the innocent, the explorer, the rebel, the hero, the jester, the everyman, the lover, and finally, the caregiver. The most often used role archetypes are the hero, the herald, the threshold guardian, the shapeshifter, the shadow, the trickster, Allies, the father, the mother, the child and the maiden. The best way of explaining some of these archetypes is using a film that uses a lot of them, and one of the best examples of this. We start with the pro...