Becca, hmm, in retrospect the shlong was perhaps a bit thoughtless; the animators and I did not realize that not everybody might find this funny. I am glad, though, you like the animation as a whole.
Hmmm... this may work as a basic introduction into some narratological concepts but I am a bit wary of the mingling of terms that is happening here. Also I find some of the animation distracting or misleading. E.g., the example for an unreliable narrator might be misunderstood in that the character portrayed is unreliable because they are drawing a knife and should not be trusted, which would mean that unreliability refers to a diegetic character rather than the narrator’s narrating. Also I wish here was a more thorough explanation of how focalization works differently in written and film fiction. I find this especially important because the video essay character of this video resembles the narratological mechanics of film. Finally, Genette has proven that narrative perspective is more complex than the "objective perspective of the external narrator and the subjective perspective of a character" since mood and voice are not identical.
Hello Rick, thanks for your thoughts. First of all -- yes of course this cannot be more than a "basic introduction." Ideally, it is used as a "teaser" to get people more interested, and read a handbook to understand concepts in more depth if they really want to (or must) become good narratologists. As for "unreliable narration" -- indeed that is precisely what we wanted to convey: not just an external/extradiegetic, but also a diegetic, character-bound narrator (or focalizer) can be unreliable (e.g. the first-person narrator in Irvine Welsh's Filth; and Maisie in What Maisie Knew (Henry James). You are right that focalization works differently in animation and film than in written fiction. Inevitably we ran up against the limitations of the medium we chose to explain focalization. The same, of course, holds for explaining focalization-in-film in writing! The course from which this series of animations arose is called "Narrative across Media," and a key idea running through it is that while pertinent narratological concepts occur in ALL forms of narration, irrespective of medium, most of these concepts have medium-specific modes of expression. The text book on narratology in written fiction I use in my course is Bal (2017). Her model is strongly inspired by Genette's work, but she ignores, if I am not mistaken, "mood" and "voice." That does not mean, of course, that the difference between them is necessarily unimportant -- but again, creating an animation takes an incredibly long time, and the HKU students only had a limited amount of that resource. There is only so much you can do in a four-minute film!
Hello Rosana, thanks for the compliment! The students and I worked hard on this by far the most difficult of the five short animations about storytelling ...
Dear Yagmur, happy to hear you find this video (the last of a series of five) useful for your course. Of course most of the credits need to go to the HKU (polytechnic) students who actually did the time-consuming work of animating my ideas! This series is now complete, but I am thinking about other topics that it would be worthwhile to explore in one or more animation films.
Joshua, thanks for your kind words. Of course a large part of the credits needs to go to the HKU students who made it the film. I'd love to do more of such animated films, but making such a film is enormously time-consuming. But I am a great believer in animation as a medium for communication, so I will keep an open eye for other opportunities.
"Embedded discourse" is a quite complicated issue. I would advise you to check pertinent passages in Mieke Bal's "Narratology" (U. of Toronto Press, 4th edition, 2017). Otherwise you might search for material pertaining to "free indirect discourse" or "free indirect thought."
I love this video! I laughed at these animation so much and the serious British voice is the perfect foil for them.
Kudos for J.C. Voicemale!
Was not expecting the shlong at 2:09 but it was funny lol and the animation broke down the concepts perfectly. Thank you 😊
Becca, hmm, in retrospect the shlong was perhaps a bit thoughtless; the animators and I did not realize that not everybody might find this funny. I am glad, though, you like the animation as a whole.
Hmmm... this may work as a basic introduction into some narratological concepts but I am a bit wary of the mingling of terms that is happening here. Also I find some of the animation distracting or misleading. E.g., the example for an unreliable narrator might be misunderstood in that the character portrayed is unreliable because they are drawing a knife and should not be trusted, which would mean that unreliability refers to a diegetic character rather than the narrator’s narrating.
Also I wish here was a more thorough explanation of how focalization works differently in written and film fiction. I find this especially important because the video essay character of this video resembles the narratological mechanics of film.
Finally, Genette has proven that narrative perspective is more complex than the "objective perspective of the external narrator and the subjective perspective of a character" since mood and voice are not identical.
Hello Rick, thanks for your thoughts. First of all -- yes of course this cannot be more than a "basic introduction." Ideally, it is used as a "teaser" to get people more interested, and read a handbook to understand concepts in more depth if they really want to (or must) become good narratologists. As for "unreliable narration" -- indeed that is precisely what we wanted to convey: not just an external/extradiegetic, but also a diegetic, character-bound narrator (or focalizer) can be unreliable (e.g. the first-person narrator in Irvine Welsh's Filth; and Maisie in What Maisie Knew (Henry James).
You are right that focalization works differently in animation and film than in written fiction. Inevitably we ran up against the limitations of the medium we chose to explain focalization. The same, of course, holds for explaining focalization-in-film in writing! The course from which this series of animations arose is called "Narrative across Media," and a key idea running through it is that while pertinent narratological concepts occur in ALL forms of narration, irrespective of medium, most of these concepts have medium-specific modes of expression.
The text book on narratology in written fiction I use in my course is Bal (2017). Her model is strongly inspired by Genette's work, but she ignores, if I am not mistaken, "mood" and "voice." That does not mean, of course, that the difference between them is necessarily unimportant -- but again, creating an animation takes an incredibly long time, and the HKU students only had a limited amount of that resource. There is only so much you can do in a four-minute film!
Thanks and congratulation for the great job! I was excited waiting for this final film. Perspective is amazing to storytelling!
Hello Rosana, thanks for the compliment! The students and I worked hard on this by far the most difficult of the five short animations about storytelling ...
A very useful video for my Language&Literacy class! Thank you! You must continue producing such videos :)
Dear Yagmur, happy to hear you find this video (the last of a series of five) useful for your course. Of course most of the credits need to go to the HKU (polytechnic) students who actually did the time-consuming work of animating my ideas! This series is now complete, but I am thinking about other topics that it would be worthwhile to explore in one or more animation films.
Thank you so much for this,sir!
Glad you find this useful (and perhaps the other 4 videos as well?)! ChF
Ohhhh Gracias! ❤❤
Can you please explain focalisation in cold comfort farm? 🥺
we need more videos from you!
Joshua, thanks for your kind words. Of course a large part of the credits needs to go to the HKU students who made it the film. I'd love to do more of such animated films, but making such a film is enormously time-consuming. But I am a great believer in animation as a medium for communication, so I will keep an open eye for other opportunities.
hi, would you have some notes or pdf file about embedded narrative please?
Thank You
"Embedded discourse" is a quite complicated issue. I would advise you to check pertinent passages in Mieke Bal's "Narratology" (U. of Toronto Press, 4th edition, 2017). Otherwise you might search for material pertaining to "free indirect discourse" or "free indirect thought."
Thankyou
('አመሰግናለሁ' in Amharic Amesegenalehu)
I LOVE THIS THANK YOU
Thanks for the compliment, for which I share the credits with to the HKU animation students who actually made the film!
شكرا 👍
Thanks!
I am puzzled as to why there is a penis in the animation, actually quite disgusted.