Formats & Narrative Structure

Series
Series (also known as television programme). A series is always aired on TV online and consists of up to 13 episodes per season. For example, Pretty Little Liars has 6 seasons (and counting) with 20-25 episodes in each season and new episodes are aired once every week.


Serial
Serials is a television programme such as a soap opera. Serials have very few episodes and a storyline that starts and ends within the episodes which includes continuity and a single camera. They are usually advertised during programme breaks. An example of a serial is Breaking Bad, The Flash.


Single Drama
Single Dramas is a one off story for TV. The stories are usually based on topical or real issues. Due to different types of camera productions being out, single dramas are rare as they are hardly shown on TV anymore. An example of a Single Drama is BBC Three's 'Murdered by My Boyfriend'.



Narrative Structure

What is a Linear Narrative?

A linear narrative, which is also known as a 3 act structure, is when event are portrayed in chronological order, the film Up uses 3 act structure as it builds up emotion and shows the main characters’ past all the way to his present. The purpose for a Linear Narrative is to create sympathy from the audience and to also show the character’s life.

What is an Episodic Narrative?

An episodic narrative is used by having a cliff hanger at the end of each episode. This gives the show a new story or problem to deal with in the next episode. The purpose is to create a wider audience with the use of cliff hangers as it gives the viewer something to look forward to in the next episode.

What are Open and Closed Narrative?

An open narrative usually have many characters and no foreseeable ending. Soap operas such as EastEnders and Holy City are multi-stranded and are in chronological order or real time. The purpose of this is to show the audience it in real time.

Closed narrative films usually have a ‘tight’ reading as they’re usually 2 hours and has an end to the story. The film, About Time compresses around 20 years into just over 2 hours and has an end. The purpose of this is to let the movie have an ending and a finish.

What are Realist and Anti-Realist Narrative?

A realist narrative is a believable story that might be based on a true story. Realist narratives are used by displaying believable scenarios for example, a middle season or a man living in the city. The purpose for this is that it can cause the audience to feel emotions towards the film as they feel as if it could happen in real life.

An anti-realist narrative is an advert that is not real so it can have anything in the advert such as cartoon characters and other thigs that are not real. For example, two M&M’s talking, in reality, which would never happen so it’s not real. The purpose of this is to make the audience laugh so more people will remember the advert and talk about it to others.

What is a Multi-Stranded Narrative?

A multi-stranded narrative is when there are several narratives running at the same time. For example, in many soap operas. It focuses on one family and so does everyone in the series on each scene and documentaries. A popular narrative device is the enigma. The plot constructs a puzzle that the audience is asked to solve while the characters act out the story.