Although I’ve found the first few readings in the NiFF book to be difficult to read and fully understand, I’ve found that the thought process of beginning to consider the formal conventions of narrative useful.  It’s clear to me that the basic concept of narrative and narratology is something that is so ingrained in human culture that as difficult as the readings are to understand, most of the denseness comes from the terminology.  These terms, which for the most part are used to explain concepts that I most likely am already familiar with and simply have not dealt with them in such an academic way.  For example, the ideas of Benveniste which Bordwell mentions in chapter two were especially difficult for me to understand when they stood alone as concepts.  I found that as I read and re-read this section that I had to constantly be thinking of examples from modern film and television to help me.  Only after doing this could I begin to bring some kind of context and texture to the reading and the narratology concepts.  

In contrast, I found the readings from the CCN more manageable and similar to the kind of film and television studies that I’ve run into during my time at Middlebury.  The Mittell article was helpful to both discuss narratology as well as provide texts to analyze with The Wizard of Oz and Lost.  It was helpful to have seen both and I enjoyed this reading and the E-rez television theory article by Kozloff because of their more modern references.  

One thing that I remembered from the Kozloff article that I wanted to bring up as a possible discussion question was the third part of her three principle ideas of narrative where she writes about television scheduling and its influences on the narratives.  I’m not sure what year this article was written (I’m guessing during the 90’s) but I’d be curious to hear what she thinks of DVR and how that could possible change or negate this part of her argument.  The ability to record programming and watch what you want and when almost eliminates this additional part of her television theory.  I do however agree with her that television is undoubtedly a distinct medium from literature and film and that it should be considered individually and in specific ways in the field of narratology.