Narrative Enigmas In Trailers

Judy Ibelgauptiene

Action Thrillers

What are the narrative conventions?• The narrative starts in a chronological order (normal guy living his life) up until climatic point of

where something bad happens to the main character. • At this point the narrative becomes non chronological and fast pace, and ends at a climatic point

which is usually the huge enigma.

Taken:Man is living his normal life, going to celebrate his daughters birthday. Daughter is kidnapped and sold part of trafficking while on holiday with her best friend and her dad tries to find and save her.

• Usually lots of fight scenes involved and based on a man and his past is involved. The man is usually an ex solider or CIA agent.

• The MES of cars, guns and some explosions is used to make it more realistic and build tension.

What is the narrative structure? • The first thing you see is usually a guy living an ordinary life and you are

introduced to the character but then a problem occurs that links to their past so they must solve it. This introduces you to their story briefly.

• The last thing you are shown is usually them approaching the problem with a climatic fight scene where the trailer ends and leaves the audience with an enigma of what happens next? Does he die? Does he find what he’s looking for?

What unrestricted narrative is there

Within a Action Thriller the narrative is unrestricted as they want to give the audience hints to what is happening and give them a back story so the audience understands what’s going on.

In the trailer Hanna titles are used to help explain the story and a brief insight into what happened in the past.

What restricted narrative is there?However they also have a restricted narrative as they don’t want to give away too much.

Action thrillers are usually restricted as they want to creative some enigmas for the audience to think about. Some enigmas are never solved.

In the Escape Plan the main character doesn't’t know who's put him here which the audience can relate to because as he learns stuff the audience learns with him.

What are the enigmas the audience is left with?Who is following them and why?

What is their history? Flashbacks are usually too quick to fully understand what’s going on.

Will they get free?

How do they create these enigmas?

• Enigma’s are usually created through fast pace editing. As the scenes become faster and shorter leaving the audience no time to fully absorb what’s going on creating enigmas.

• Another way enigmas are created is through the use of flashbacks as the audience is left to piece the puzzle together on their own.

How does this connect the expectations/conventions of genre?

Action Thrillers are expected to have fast pace editing as that’s how they create the thrill.

The MES used is usually cars and guns to make it more action. Sometimes explosions are used to make it more thrilling.

Usually set in the city.

Main role is a man and there is a lot of fighting scenes.