Vladimir Propp

Vladimir Propp was a Soviet folklorist and scholar who analysed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements. Over his time, he also developed a list of characters that would be a common occurrence within folk tales this list includes:

1. The villain — an evil character that creates struggles for the hero.
2. The dispatcher — any character who illustrates the need for the hero's quest and sends the hero off. This often overlaps with the princess's father.
3. The helper — a typically magical entity that comes to help the hero in their quest.
4. The princess or prize, and often her father — the hero deserves her throughout the story but is unable to marry her as a consequence of some evil or injustice, perhaps the work of the villain. The hero's journey is often ended when he marries the princess, which constitutes the villain's defeat.
5. The donor — a character that prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object, sometimes after testing them.
6. The hero — the character who reacts to the dispatcher and donor characters, thwarts the villain, resolves any lacking or wronghoods and weds the princess.
7. The false hero — a Miles Gloriosus figure who takes credit for the hero's actions or tries to marry the princess.

- Wikipedia 

Propp also goes into an extensive list of narrative developments, which mainly centre around 'a hero' and his struggle to complete his quest. Personally, I don't think I can directly apply his work to my short film - as I don't plan on making a tale, nor do I plan on making a long winded tale. I want to create a simple piece (narrative  speaking) which retains an interesting subject matter with equally impressive technical capability.