EARNEST - Narrative Theory

Our final piece last year was a 1 minute and 40 second remake of Oscar Wilde's class, 'The Importance of Being Earnest.' 
We revamped the story, turning it into a modern tale about online catfishing as two boys tried to impress two girls without letting their parents know. We called it EARNEST, and used various locations (my house, train platforms, outside City Hall) and a couple of our friends who do drama inside and outside of school for actors (Playing Jay, Ali, and Chelsea. I played Gemma).
I'm going to be looking at it now through an analytic lens to see how many Narrative Theories can be applied to our piece. As Earnest is meant to be the opening two minutes of a movie, as opposed to a two minute movie, there's not as much to work with as Strange Beasts but there are still points to be made.


Firstly, the Story vs the Narrative. The story is about Jay and Ali trying to get to know two girls, Gemma and Chelsea, without their parents finding out, for various reasons. 

The narrative is two first person narrators, Jay and Ali, as a series of quick shots bounce back and forth from them getting ready to meet each other down town. As a team, we watched and analysed various Romantic Comedies to learn the conventions, such as a large cast with an equal number boys and girls and pop music playing over the credit scene, and applied them where necessary to our own piece so that EARNEST felt like a professionally produced piece of film.


Secondly; The narrative does not take place in real time. This is true of EARNEST, as it consists almost entirely off Jay and Ali getting dressed, with a series of quick shots jumping back and forth. In one scene, Jay closes a door behind him, and the next time we see him, he's sitting at the train station, and than after another jump, he's on the train itself. We manipulated time quite heavily to keep an upbeat pace going. 


Our research into romantic comedies was essential for helping us decide what kind of Technical Codes to make use of. Bright colours and quickly edited shots conveyed energy and excitement. 
As seen in the famous 'Four Weddings and a Funeral', a good way to open a romantic comedy, and introduce the main characters, is a 'getting dressed' montage. 
There's a cheery pop song playing in the background of EARNEST under the script of the characters to make the dialogue more interesting to listen to, and add to the genre and overall feel of the narrative. 


One conclusion we all came to our own was that the Verbal Codes in the romantic comedies we watched was very informal and typically relaxed. They're meant to be feel good and reliable narratives, so the characters are more likely to make jokes, bicker among each other, and keep away from serious topics (except for the final climatic confrontation all romantic comedies seem to share). 
As EARNEST is not only a romantic comedy but also about teenagers, the script we wrote is purposefully unceremonious. 
An example of our use of verbal codes; Ali is exclusively referred to by his surname, instead of the full Alistair. This also helps create the feeling that the two boys are close friends. 


We put in some thought when it came to Symbolic Codes. One thing we knew we wanted to do from the beginning was colour coding the costumes of the boys. Jay was put in red and Ali in blue. 

We choose to dress Jay in red because they 'represent passion, romance, anger and royalty, so we decided to use it for dressing Jay. The false identity was his idea, and he is utterly devoted to his love interest right form the beginning. Of the two boys, Jay is the quicker to flare up, as he is in the original play, getting angry at his friend for stealing his idea and courting his cousin. Red is also the colour of extremes, which suits the fact that instead of finding some way to honest with Gemma, he starts off his relationship by lying about himself.' 
He was dressed in a dark maroon instead of bright red to make it a bit subtler, and also because his character probably wouldn't wear bright neons.

Ali was put in blue because it 'represents tradition, authority, and 'blue blood' which suits Alistair. His family is full of NHS doctors, and of the two boys, he tends to take control more, eg. he doesn't apologise for being late, snatches Jay's phone from him, demand answers, doesn't hesitate to message Chelsea as soon as it crosses his mind. In comparison to Jay's red, it's quite cold but also represents calmness and intelligence.'
Blue was also an appropriate choice because Ali is based off Algernon in the original 'The Importance of Being Earnest', who's a devil-may-care dandy who often dresses in dark, rich colours. 

Gemma and Chelsea were dressed carefully too, with Chelsea in white (to symbolise both purity, as she's based off the young naive Cecily, and luxury, as she's terribly wealthy) and Gemma dressed in a similar shade of red to Jay (to show their already existing connection and her own wealth and style.)


Todorov's Equilibrium isn't quite applicable to our piece as not enough happens to establish a conflict, recognition, resolution, or a new equilibrium at the end. The plot begins but as it's only the opening of a movie the audience can't be made aware of what will eventually happen. 
The current equilibrium established is that Jay and Ali want to date two different girls, and are currently devising secret ways of seeing of them. 


EARNEST actually has two narrators as Jay and Ali explain what's happening to the audience as each shot changes. While they aren't narrators in the sense that they explain every little thing that they're doing, they do set up the plot so that only two minutes is needed to understand the general direction the narrative is going in. 


Propp's Fairy Tale Characters is partially applicable to EARNEST. I can't say it applies fully because not enough characters have been introduced, and the ones that have been haven't been given enough time to develop.
However, it could be argued that the girls, Chelsea and Gemma, fit the role of the Princesses, the sought after characters the heroes chase.
As Jay and Ali are primarily introduced as liars, even in a casual way, I don't think it would be fair to argue that they're heroes, but they are the deuteragonists. 
If EARNEST was shot from the perspective of the girls, I would argue that the boys are False Heroes.

As EARNEST is only two minutes long, Strauss' Binary Opposition Theory doesn't apply. Having said that, if we were to expand it and make a full length narrative, the conflict would probably come from Reality vs Lies, and the climax would have to come from the boys having to admit what they've done. 
It's definitely more of a Narrative of Drama, as most romantic comedies are, but I would say the codes are more proairetic then hermeneutic, as the actual plot isn't overly complex and I think it would rely on a slapstick breed of comedy to keep audiences interested.

Although it wasn't the plan, EARNEST actually fit's Allan Cameron definition of Anachronic Narratives quite well. - Flashbacks and forwards between different characters at different locations. EARNEST isn't necessarily linear, as Jay and Ali get ready at their own paces, but we see them side by side.
The dream-like visions of the girls add to this as well, as they push the laws of reality in the 'universe' our narrative takes place in. It's almost comic book-esque, and we got the inspiration for it from movies such as Wayne's World and Scott Pilgrim vs The World. 

The Narrative Location of EARNEST is Belfast and the Finaghy area, these are we shot the outdoor shots, and any locals watching would know them instantly. It's never actually specified by either boy, but the City Hall can be seen briefly, and the boy's accents betray their nationality. 

As I stated earlier, we analysed several romantic comedies before the making of EARNEST, so we unknowingly began to shape the Narrative Image of our short. 
The saturation of the colours was turned up, we sourced cheery music to play in the background, and assigned colour coordinated costumes to each character. We also found Romantic Comedies tend to have eye catching titles that are either oddly long, Four Weddings and a Funeral, or notably short, Top Hat. This was why we decided to go with the simple 'EARNEST' in all capitals.