Characters are the most important factor of a story. The audience looks at Gordie and his friends and relates them to their own childhood. Because we have all been that age we can all relate to the children in Stand by Me. We can empathise with Gordie because his older brother who died in a car accident was their parent’s favourite. He now has a battle ahead to gain the respect of his parents. Gordie, the main character from Stand by Me also narrates the story. This gives us, in a sense, two lead roles. The boy who has adventures, which is the child we used to be, and the narrator who looks back over his many exploits through his own childhood (as we all reflect on our own childhoods).
In Jaws, the main character; Jaws himself was introduced to the audience not directly but using suspense, tension and especially the element of darkness, introducing him as a mysterious formidable killing machine. We already know that Jaws is some form of underwater creature from the beginning credits. The music used in that scene has suggested that this creature is sinister and evil, and by him killing a swimmer this is confirmed. Two minor characters where used to introduce Jaws. These were in the form of two teenagers, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Chrissie was the girl who went into the water in the dark and was only illuminated by the moon. At this point Jaws was brought in. You could tell something was amiss when a slow two note minor chord was being played in the background and when the water buoy started to rock to and fro. As soon as Chrissie had disappeared under the water, after considerable thrashing about, all went silent and Jaws was gone without leaving a trace, sound or sight. This tells us a great deal about Jaws. He is a stealthy, deadly killing machine that is unstoppable. This is an example of how characters can be fantastically introduced via the introduction.
Rites of passage genre however is one that can use voiceovers effectively in a story. The film; ‘Stand by Me’ does use a voiceover throughout the film, to great effect. The main character in the film: ‘Gordie,’ is not only the star but the narrator too. Stand by Me has the adult version of himself looking over his life and telling his own story, while his younger self is actually playing it out. ‘I was 11 going on 12’ says the older version of Gordie. This uses two versions of himself, one being the adult doing the voiceover and the other being the child on screen. Voiceovers aren’t essential to a genre but they can help define it.
Themes are part of a genre. Suspense and tension are the main feature of the thriller genre while narrative and character development define of the rites of passage genre. In Jaws the opening sequence uses suspense and tension to introduce the main character who (as a killer animal) is also a theme and feature of its genre, while the narrative in Stand by Me is a theme of its genre. Themes are key to defining a genre as they are the genre’s characteristics and are used to great effect in that type of story.
Jaws uses significant SFX to create the Great White himself. This is not to say CGI but puppets and camera work. Pretending there was a shark in the water would have been extremely lame if there were not anything there. On the other hand having a live great white would have been costly and dangerous and unfeasible. Great whites, needless to say, are untameable unlike dolphins and whales. Another type of edit the two films had was the use of the volume of the background music and how the volume was controlled to make other sound effects louder etc. Both films looked at were lacking in any use of CGI due to their age, but wise use of editing made up for it. A voiceover is a form of editing in which a voice-track is put over a section of film. Music being put over is also editing but these are simple forms of editing. In Jaws the volume of the 2 note theme was edited to get louder progressively. Stand by Me uses voiceovers and also from time to time uses another editing technique called camera fades; in which one scene will fade/dissolve into another. One example of this being used is at the beginning of Stand by Me to change scene from adult Gordie reading an article in a newspaper in the car about the death of his friend Chris to himself as a child leaving the comic store in his hometown of Castle Rock.
Music is a fantastic element to any film and is used in all genres. One thing that I noted was that the music score in Stand by me was a song called ‘Stand by Me’ which is (apart from the title) unrelated. Apart from occasional serious/sombre piano music at points of great importance in the film, Stand by Me does not have a prominent music score except from the song in the introduction, which helps to define the genre or narrative in the introduction.
To this day the most successful feature of the Jaws franchise is the film’s soundtrack. Anyone who has seen Jaws will fear it’s minimalist theme song of two notes. But before that, at the very beginning we hear a piece of fast violent music which goes with the underwater fast perspective shot which tells us something sinister is here. This sets the scene to what it is that kills the swimmer later on. Although it is only a ‘C’ and ‘C#’ it gets louder and faster which builds up the suspense and tension leaving the audience’s minds wondering what the climax of this will be. This music combines with the tension in the air and as the tempo increases so does your heartbeat. The eventual climax of it is total silence. The music first starts when the water-buoy moves, suggesting that something moved it. The tempo increases as the swimmer (Chrissie) is thrashing about and when she is pulled under the music keeps going until a point that we can be sure she is dead, then the music stops.
Using ‘Stand by Me’ and ‘Jaws’ I discovered that themes of a genre are key to any film and in fact the genre itself. Music and characters are key to the film also. These features are key to the film but no more so that in the introduction and it is here that I conclude that the introduction is essential to define genre and narrative.
By Max Warren 11D
