To strenghthen my knowledge on narrative structure, I took the example of Finding Nemo and put it onto a story mountain planner. This story mountain contains five acts, being the equilibrium / exposition, disruption, disequilibrium / climax, resolution and the new equilibrium.
The film starts with the exposition that they are all living together in peace in the coral reef and where Nemo is going to school. The disruption comes through the divers that appear and how Nemo in an attempt to rebel against his father, swims up to the boat. The climax is Nemo getting taken away and Marlin, along with Dory, looking for him. The resolution is Nemo being saved from the dentist and reuniting with Marlin and the new equilibrium is established. In this new equilibrium Marlin is less strict as a parent and his relationship with Nemo is restored.
We also discussed what a non-linear narrative can be like, where the narrative isn’t set up in the 3 or 5 acts that occur in chronological order. I took a look at Dunkirk, which is a WW2 film about three completely seperate people during the battle of dunkirk, where one of them is a soldier on the ground, another is an RAF pilot and the last person is an English civilian coming to save the troops. The events that happen in the film are all happening in parallel with one another however they aren’t all at the exact same time.