A Study On Image Narration In Movies And TV Shows

This paper is concerned about image narration in movie and TV arts. By doing the study, we are trying to grasp the laws of image narration in movie and TV arts both theoretically and practically.A movie or TV show's success, to a large degree, is decided by how it tells the story, and how its frames present life and humanity, manifest story and plots, and demonstrate well-round portrayal of characters. However, a grasp of theories of narration makes people in movie and TV circles wiser, more sensitive, and guarantees them a better interpretation of movies and TV shows. This is what our purpose is and what we are pursuing. And this is why we choose image narration as our point of penetration. We hope to achieve a better understanding of movie and TV arts. The theoretical value and the practical significance of movies writing are hereafter founded in this dissertation.The present study gives a brief review to the theories of narration and explains several pairs of concepts, such as, textual story vs. visual story, visual story vs. narration, and plots vs. narration. It focuses on issues of telling story and displaying plots with visual elements and image narration principles. Generally speaking, this paper discusses narration of imaginative stories, that is, how images in movies and TV shows tell stories with a combination of images, sound, time and space. It also deals with the levels and function of chronological narration, features of special narration, and patterns of image narration, of which this paper is composed. To be specific, this paper is arranged as follows:Chapters One and Two give a brief introduction to the origin of narration studies and theories of narration in movies and TV shows, and indicate that narrative texts are a part of the subject of image narration studies. However, image narration studies more involve constructing narrative works through specific visual elements, visual language, and visual methods. They are aimed at seeking elements that comprise visual language, visual grammar, and deep visual structure, and discussing their mechanism—constituent forms and images, laws of chronological and special narration, from langue—shots, story, and surface structure. Based on the above, these two chapters also discuss the differences between textual narration in literary works and image narration in movies and TV shows, and the relationship and differences between movies and TV shows.Chapter Three focuses on visual narration in image narration. To begin with, this chapter deals with the image elements and the sense function of visual narration, constituent forms and grammar rules and narrative syntactic construction of montage. It then discusses narration methods of montage: (1) linear (continuous) narration, (2) parallel narration, (3) cross narration, (4) repeated narration, and (5) other narrations. Last, this chapters discusses location management, a visual narration method as well, and the view of Bazin, a French movie theorist, that long shot is also a narration method.Chapter Four is devoted to audio narration in image narration. After indicating that audio narration is a major element in image narration, this chapter deals with the advantages and functions of sound narration, and it further believes that the fundamental function of sound is to strengthen the reality of frames, that sound creates rhythm of frames, and that sound make soundless frames a stylized method. The latter part of this chapter discusses the functions of music and sound in narration and how they work in narration. Music is a sound system with regular patterns, and has a strong appeal and narrative function. When involved in television broadcasting, and as an element and technique of expression of a specific video work, music will change its own position and functions before it reduces itself to a subordinate position of being a part of the work and serves it.Chapter Five elaborates time of image narration. Time of narration is a basic issue in image narration studies. One of the functions of narration is to change the time in a story into the time in the visual text. And the change of time of narration gets complicated because of the participation of special elements. Time is an important element to understand the features of image narration in movies and TV shows. Forms and patterns of chronological narration, and aesthetic features in movies and TV shows are all related to time. This chapter first deals with the basic patterns of chronological narration, and further indicates (l)time of story, (2) time of narration (plots), and (3) time of screening. These three different times make the different times of utterances, and they have different functions. This chapter then discusses three important issues of chronological narration: features of chronological narration of movie utterances, structure and patterns of chronological narration.Chapter Six addresses special issues in image narration. This chapter indicates that, in movie and TV arts, time and space equally have boundless artistic attraction. Once the narration is finished, chronological and special change will have limitless potential in narration of movies and TV shows. And the potential lies in that discontinuous frames with editing skills comprise a complete whole and creates a continuous continuity, while frames as a whole manifest a function of narration with special words as its main language medium. This chapter first focuses on the features of special narration and then discusses the constituents of special narration. Last, it deals with the proposition that space in visual narration reflects artistic creativity of human beings, and that a sense of space is far more striking than a sense of time in terms of visual impact.