Narrative in films and the narrative in our own film idea

One of the inspirations for the narrative that we decided on for our film is The Hangover. In The Hangover, the opening scene shows one of the grooms friends ringing the bride and telling her that something had happened to her fiancee whilst they were all in Las Vegas. As the film goes on the three men shown in the opening set out to find the groom, Doug. During the film, the audience find out what had happened in Las Vegas that led to the disappearance of the groom, catching up with the scene the audience saw at the beginning, and how he then gets married. Unlike many other films, this film, along with the two sequels to the trilogy, does not follow the traditional Todorov model, but shows a more intriguing structure of a film by starting with the disequilibrium. 
  The film that Courtney and I have decided to create follows a similar structure to that of The Hangover by making the opening at the beginning of the film, showing the present state and situation of the main characters before using the technique of several flashbacks that show how the main characters ended up in that position. The rest of the film would continue to show the story line to how the main characters got themselves into the position they were in at the beginning of them and then the film switches to opening shot and shows how the main characters got themselves out of their situation.

Season 1, Episode 12 of Hawaii Five-0 (not a film I know, but the use of flashback is used exceptionally well within the episode). The episode begins with video footage showing one of the main characters kneeling on the ground with a bomb device secured around his neck:

The rest of the episode shows how the character ended up with the bomb device secured around his neck and how they disable and remove the device:

The flashback within the episode works well as the dramatic beginning leaves the audience wanting to know how the character ended up in such a terrifying position and whether the character lived or died.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

This examples uses the technique of flashbacks to answer the question "can you remember the first candy you ever ate?"

The use of this flashback is very effective as it shows the audience a more interesting way of answering a question rather than just through words spoken within dialogue. The flashback also gives the audience an insight into the childhood of Willy Wonka - allowing the audience to further understand how his past has affected his present state.

Big Fish

In the film, Big Fish, flashbacks are used to tells the stories of main character, Edward Bloom. The flashbacks are used very efficiently within the film as it gives the audience a clear understanding of events opposed to one character talking them through it. The audience can experience for themsevles the events that Edward Bloom was faced with during his life time more effectively as they are seeing the story unravel itself opposed to listening to someone repeat the story in the same screen.