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Hero's Journey
Humans have an innate interest in stories. Story is the main element that engages an audience. If the story is good, most people will forgive less-than-brilliant acting in a video and overlook low-resolution filming. They will just want to know what happens.
Still images can tell a story within a single frame. Often this is because it is associated with a universal theme, such as love or loneliness. The audience is given elements of the story and reads into it, building on their own experiences.
In moving image media, story usually follows a three-act structure.
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Opening. This is often called the orientation stage. Here, the characters are introduced in their setting, or their normal world. At the end of the opening stage something dramatic happens that disrupts this world and sets into play a chain of events involving the main characters.
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Development. This is often called the complications stage. As the chain of events unfolds, the characters encounter more and more obstacles and blockages. Each is worse than the previous one, until the main climax is encountered. In the climax the characters face impossible odds. Just when their backs seem to be against the wall, they triumph over their opposition.
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Resolution. In the resolution, all the elements of the story are resolved. All the loose ends are tied up. The resolution comes immediately after the main climax. Usually it is over very quickly because the audience loses interest once they know the outcome of the story.
Joseph Campbell and the hero’s journey
Joseph Campbell (1904–87) studied myths from around the world during the 1930s and 1940s and came to think that they were all basically the same story. Despite variations across cultures, all myths seemed to share a certain basic pattern. He argued that there exists a ‘collective unconscious’, which is common to all people in all parts of the world. Building on this idea, in 1949 Campbell published his theory of a universal structure common to all myths. He called this the monomyth— the single myth that, at a deep level, lies beneath all other myths.
According to Campbell's universal structure, a hero's journey passes through 12 stages. These stages can be grouped into three broad phases.
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The departure. The hero receives a call to action in the form of a threat to peace or the community. The hero may initially refuse but eventually accepts the call. The hero receives help from a protector of some kind — sometimes supernatural help.
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The initiation. The hero crosses the threshold out of the ordinary world and into a special world. To do this, an ordeal must be survived. The hero faces a supernatural world of obstacles and threats that must be overcome. A helper with supernatural powers may, perhaps secretly, be assisting. A final battle is fought in a life-or-death climax that allows the future resolution of the journey.
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The return. The return is often a rebirth or resurrection of some kind, or perhaps just a return into daylight. Having achieved the goal of the quest and overcome the threats, the hero returns to the ordinary world with special powers or gifts that can be used to help ordinary people. Sometimes the gift is no more than an awareness of the hero's newfound place in the world.
