NARRATIVE THEORY APPLIED

THIS TABLE by Zach Wechter 

This short film details a 'semi woke hipster' describing his anxious friend's existential crisis and the universe's exceptional response to it. 

Just as in all media texts, the film makers have adhered to different rules to make the film easy for us to understand without concentrating too much. These include genre, character, time and form. This is a comedy and the conventions that were adhered to in the making of this were:

• Setting - as in most comedies this is set in a bright, social situation. 
• Camera work - The shots are natural looking and the characters are shown in an equal way. 
• Sound - the  diegetic sound such as dialogue is very important in this, to help the audience understand what is happening. 
• Lighting - just as with setting, the lighting is bright and encourages a bright atmosphere.

Time is a convention too. Narratives don't take place in real time, they telescope out and can be shown in various ways. 

• flashbacks
• dream sequences
• repetition
• different characters' POV
• flash forwards
• real time interludes
• pre-figuring of events that have not yet taken place.

In this short, time is shown to be passing with flashbacks (showing Jack's experiences) and shots of different characters points of view.

Primarily, the story is told from Zach's point of view.

However, to show time passing and different events taking place,
some of the shots are from Jack's point of view.

The shots from the point of view of Jack are told by Zach but described from his POV. 

One way to look at media texts is to see the text as a tangled ball of string that needs untangled to separate the string. Because string can be untangled in many ways, there are lots of ways to look at media texts and come at it from different angles. Texts are either open or closed - they're either easy to unravel from many different angles or else only available to unravel from one angle. This text is closed in my opinion. There is really only one way to look at it, and that is Jack's odd way of dealing with his anxiety and the bad luck that came with it, eventually resulting in peace of mind for him.

Something I noticed about this short is the relevance of Claus Levi Strauss's theory of binary opposites. Beside each other are Zach and Jack, one very relaxed and the other clearly very anxious. Their contrasting characters are interesting and even their appearances are very different.
The film maker has made use of the binary opposite theory with the contrast of dark and light in the scenes of Zach telling his friend about Jack, and Jack visiting his grandmother. The visit ends with her death and immediately the viewer is led to believe that something bad is going to happen with very subtle uses of narrative. For example, the lighting is darker, the characters are wearing darked colours, the temperature is suggested to be lower than it was in the previous shot due to the roaring fire and heavy knitted clothing.

Todorov's theory of equilibrium is one that is prominent in this short film. The film opens with a relaxed scene outside a coffee shop and a conversation between two friends, however disequilibrium is established throughout with Zach detailing Jack's misfortune. Eventually there is a new equilibrium established when Jack's problems are solved and he announces his peace of mind.

Also applicable to the way in which events unfold in this film is Freytag's Pyramid. First, is the exposition which sets the scene. The character, Jack, Zach and Zach's friend, are introduced. The location, the coffee shop, is set. The description and background is set. Zach explains that he is about to tell Jack's experiences. Second, the inciting incident. This incident puts everything into motion. In this case, it's Jack approaching Zach. This is the beginning of Zach's story.

Jack approaching Zach in inciting incident

Next, is the rising action. In this case it is when Jack goes to visit his grandmother which results in the next part of Fregtag's pyramid - the climax. Jack's grandmother dies at this part, Jack shoots his own arm, and then gets killed by a lumberjack.
Next is the falling action, which indicates that the film is nearly over. In this, the falling action is Zach describing how he is dealing with the loss of Jack. Finally, the denouement. This is the end and all questions are answered.

The terms Fabula and syuzhet are applicable to this short as well. The fabula, referring to the chronological order in which events took place, is Jack's struggles with his anxiety and how he deals with them. The syuzhet, however, is how the story is told thought and this is by flashbacks to different parts of Jack's story.

In short, the short film, just as with any other film, has many features in which different narrative theories are applicable. These include Todorov's theory, Freytag's Pyramid and Strauss's binary opposite theory.  These theories are integral to the narrative of the film, to create an easy to follow story.