Extra Credit

The only blog-like website I have ever used before RTF 305 was xanga.com in middle school. The purpose of this blog was to update your friends on what you were doing or had done. It was similar to facebook except the main focus was on writing about what you were doing or your opinions on life. The positive aspects of using a blog for this course was that I didn't have to print any pages out and remember to bring them to class to turn them in. It also allowed us to fully exemplify our ideas by being able to add media to our posts that you wouldn't be able to get that out of printed out papers turned in every week. Formatting the blog and the media I embedded was the hardest thing about the blog posts. I know basic html formatting so it didn't take me all that much to figure out how to edit it like I want it but, I could see anyone who doesn't know anything about html to be very frustrated when trying to embed videos. This website does have a very easy to use editor though so it made changing backgrounds and color schemes easy. The blog prompts that were more difficult were the ones based upon specific topics in class because the lecturer coved much of the material and there wasn't much deviation that we could bring into our blog posts. The most interesting blog posts were when we got to give our personal opinions about a facet of media and how they affect us in out lives as college students. Yes i would recommend using a blog in future classes because it is an easy way for students to write short responses for the TA's to grade them and provide feedback. Also with the ability of using enriched media and connecting it right to your words makes examples that much more effective. I would suggest making the blog less formulated because it would give people greater room for using creativity and making their blog experience that much more exciting. Overall though the way this blog has been set up was very effective and made this class more effective.

yes you can use my blog in a paper or report.

Effect of Advertising

I find this advertisement particularly powerful because it makes no sense. Ray Lewis, linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, is giving a pre-game pep talk which results in a quite bizarre description of what the heart of a champion is made of. Old Spice has had a recent streak of really strange TV commercials which has created quite a buzz about their products. It uses a few appeals but the one that is most prevalent is the affiliation with Ray Lewis. This is important because he is one of the best defensive players in the NFL and they really emphasize that aspect of his life by having him in uniform and talking in front of the team. This is influential because their target market is males 16-35, which is the primary audience of the NFL. Also Old Spice was known in the past to be a deodorant that old men used, so they needed some crazy and creative ideas that will attract younger users who are now their target audience. The general characteristics of that kind of appeal is associating your product with someone that your target audience idolizes and/or looks up to and respects. This is one of the most used appeals in that every product is looking for or using a movie star or famous athlete to push their goods. This can be very expensive for the company but is probably one of the most effective ways to advertise.

3 Act Plot Style: City of God

In the first act Rocket, and the main characters are introduced as well as the backstory to how the crime that plagued the city of God had started. The escalating action is the showing of the the robbery at the motel and the following hunt for the "tender trio" who were the boys who committed the crimes. The plot point of Act I is when you see the 3 boys of the "tender trio" meet their demise as well as the viewer finding out that a younger brother, Lil Dice, committed all the acts of violence at the hotel that night.

The second act begins to develop the take over of the crime industry by Lil Dice who has now changed his name to Lil Ze. This act begins to establish the drug culture of the city and how the once young hoodlums have began to take over. The majority of the plot that occurs in this act details how Lil Ze took over all of the other drug rackets except the one organized by a man named Carrot because a friend of Lil Ze's helps keep the peace. The plot point of this act is when Benny, the one who keeps the peace dies and Lil Ze decides to kill a member of his drug racket who hasn't paid him back yet. This causes the brother of the recently deceased, Knockout Ned an ex-marine, to enter the escalating war.

The third act consists of Carrot's gang and Lil Ze's gang preparing for the evident war. This is also when the main character Rocket achieve's his goal of being a photographer because no other photojournalist has been able to get into the City of God in order to take pictures. He then takes pictures for the big newspaper of Rio de Janero of the escalating gang violence in the City of God. The final climax of the movie is when Carrot's forces and Lil Ze's forces engage in an all out gun battle in the streets, which is captured by Rocket. Many of the gang members on both sides are killed and Rocket also captures Governmental corruption that was backing much of the gang's forces the entire time. The movie ends with Rocket becoming famous for his photos and what happened to the rest of the living main characters.

Proscenium Style Sitcom and its Demise

The Proscenium style of creating a sitcom is the original way that sitcoms were produced. They involved a live studio audience, set structures, and multiple cameras that filmed the show live-on-tape. These things were very important to early sitcoms such as The Honeymooners and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The live studio audience gave the at home audience the feel that they were on set, laughing with the silly antics of all the characters. Set structures had an influential role because the "outside" world of shows was very rarely seen, the majority of the show took place mainly at the family house or a common place for all the characters. This added to the family aspect of sitcoms because it showed families, such as Will Smith's family in Prince of Bel-Air, all the time hoping to influence families in the audiences with the message of being together. Multiple cameras made it easy for the editors to put the cleanest episodes together by editing different views of the set together to potentially cause more humor then looking at the show from one viewpoint only.

While there have been many different extremely popular sitcoms with this style over the past twenty years it seems to be fading into recession. Many of the more popular sitcoms in today's TV world have gotten rid of the studio audiences, as well as setting sitcoms not so much in studio sets but outside in what seems to the viewing audience could be next door to your own house. The one thing that has stayed the same is multiple cameras shooting at different angles in order to be able to get the best shot without having to keep re-filming scenes. Examples of this type of show are Modern Family, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and 30 Rock.

While I don't watch primetime TV on the national channels often(NBC, ABC, CBS) I do keep track of which shows are the most popular and these days it seems that the Proscenium style has faded from the most popular TV shows. How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men are a few of the shows still being filmed that follow this style. Also the Drama and the Dramedy(drama and comedy in one show), like CSI and Glee, seem to be taking over the television market. Slowly but surely i believe that the Proscenium style of sitcoms is being pushed out the door by this newer genre and even though classics such as Seinfeld and Friends will always be shown in syndication, new TV shows will never be the same.

Camera Shots

In The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day the director Troy Duffy uses many different camera styles to convey various messages to the viewer. In the scene where the saints attack the skyscraper hideout of all the mob bosses that are out to kill them, all of the camera distances are used quite effectively. The scene starts with a long shot of the saints jumping off a scaffolding. This long shot helps to demonstrate the danger of the pending situation as well as the risks they are willing to go to in order to achieve their goal of killing all the mod members. The long camera view also aids in creating more suspense of what is to happen since this is the first you see the outside of the building in the movie although you have already seen the aftermath, so it makes the viewer curious. The medium shot is used for most of the middle part of the scene during all the shooting. Since there are so many different things going on at one time in this sequence the medium shot is necessary for the viewer to be able to understand everything that is happening. The close up is also highly utilized in this scene to express emotions of all the characters. When the mob boss sees the saints right before they come crashing through the windows there is a close up of his face to express his surprised and frightened nature during the scene. Also there is a close up of the saints as they are sliding across the ground shooting all of the mob members. Their faces show focus and passion towards the deed they are doing and it adds to the seriousness of the scene even though it started out with a mildly humorous idea. Also at the end of this scene when the main mob boss is about to be executed there is a close up of his face which shows how he has come to grips with his fate although he is still very afraid. In all, these many camera styles intensifies the movie and helps to enforce certain emotional situations and create the action packed tone the director seeks to employ.

Studio Systems: the rise of the SuperStar

The part of the studio system that I believe is most important is the star system. The way this part of the studio system works is that studios would sign movie stars to contracts so that they would only be able to be in that studio's movies. This created the star specific genres which people such as Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, and Clint Eastwood used to increase their stardom. This helped out the studios because they could just pump out movies with these contracted actors and actresses in them and people would go see them just because they liked  the character always played by specific people. It didn't even matter what the plot was the actors would be typecast into a role and since they were the superstars of the time everyone would go see the movie. Because these poorly made easily produced movies could be so profitable for studios it decreased the number of high quality movies produced and focused more on creating movies stars could be fit into for a profit. An example of this is the actor Gene Kelly. He became famous for his song and dance routines and in any movie he was in you could expect him to break out into one. His contract was owned by the studio MGM so they became focused on producing musicals and films that Gene Kelly would fit easily into and would make them money at the same time. This shows how influential the contracting of stars could be and how much it shaped the classic Hollywood era of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.

Sitcoms: Past and Present

All in the Family, which was a popular TV show in the 70s has many of the same features of sitcoms today. The way the characters interact with each other is very similar, there is always the character who appears less intelligent than the others, as well as the character who is not accepting of whatever issue is being discussed during the show, along with the one's who are trying to open the audience's minds to accept the new view of the specific issue. These roles are the key elements to the hilarious situations the characters get themselves into.
However, All in the Family also differs from sitcoms today. Mainly this occurs in the types of problems that are talked about, but also in the language that is used, and the roles I described above played by different kinds of people. In All in the Family, the person who's intelligence appears to be less than the rest is, of course, a woman because that was societies collective way of viewing women at the time. Also the way the daughter acts towards her husband as kind of a servant in the kitchen reflects this stereotype of the times. In current shows, such as How I met your Mother, roles of cast members are not quite as gender biased. While sometimes stereotypes like that are used to incite comedy that is the only reason, because the views in society have changed and people can accept independent women as a character and not just see that as a comical situation.
The issues talked about in this episode of All in the Family were somewhat outdated but still relevant to issues talked about in shows today. Some of the side issues in All in the family were about how Archie didn't like giving people handouts and how he hated the welfare program. This issue while still has some relevance today, the majority of society has embraced helping those who are most in need and feel that the welfare program does more good for the less fortunate than it does bad for the upper classes. Another side topic was how going on strike affected the economy and cost of American goods along with how buying non-American made things also contributes to the problem. This problem is the most outdated, even though it still has an effect on society today, it isn't as big of a deal and wouldn't be the focus of a discussion on a TV show. The main issue in this episode of All in the Family was if it was acceptable to be gay. Archie represented the mindset of the nation in the 70s which is also still quite an issue today. The only difference today is more focused on getting gay people rights because they have slowly been accepted as part of our culture. While sitcoms having issues about gay people today may still be semi-controversial, this episode was extremely controversial in the 70s because so many people had the same opinions portrayed by Archie that gay men were bad for society. Luckily those views have become less severe but acceptance of gay men is still a large problem with society and therefore is reflective of how past and present media have similar ideals.