Evaluation :)

I actually have used a blog before and it was for the same purpose as this one, I would turn in assignments through it. The positive aspects of using blogger were that I could log on and turn in any blog post at my convinience and it is simple to use. There were little difficulties I encountered, at first I was not sure on how to upload videos or images but eventually I learned by experimenting. The blog promts which I found most fascinating all depended on what lecture they were coming from. The blog where we had to identify different shots and find examples in a movie I found the most difficult because I had to go and watch a whole movie to find those shots and angles. The blog I found most interesting was the one where we had to identify different techniques in advertising, because that was the lecture which I found the most enticing. I would recommend the further use of blogging in this course because I found that through writing these blogs, I was able to go in to more depth with the lectures and was able to understand the material better. So far I think it is good and I cant think of anything to improve the blogging experience. Yes, you can use my blog in a paper or report.

Globalization + Hybridity

There are many aspects to globalization which contribute to the integration of regional economies, societies, and cultures. Globalization is the process by which different cultures and nations become familiar with eachother's customs, language and ideas and use them to their advantage; by combining the ideas. Progression of our society through a global network of communication, the improvements (such as digital convergences, mobile phone infrastructure, and internet infrastucture) and spread of technology, all make globalization possible.

Like I said earlier, globalization allows ideas from different cultures to come together. Often the ideas that are successful in certain places are the ones that are taken and they are all combined to form a product, this results in the mixing of cultures (culture a+ culture b= culture c) also known as hybridity.

Hybridity creates new ideas with the mixture of other cultures, everything from genres to scripts and music, taking the originality of cultures and making them have traces of others. A well known TV show, which is a full blown product of hybridity, is "The Office." The TV show can be described as a comedy verite, a label that acknowledged its hybrid innovation as a comedy that fused the conventions of traditional sitcom with those of ‘reality’ TV sub-genre. People love sitcoms and also love reality TV, the combination of the to make "The Office" a great product of hybridity.

Beauty Campaign

In 2004 Dove launched a worldwide beauty campaign, "The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty", in hopes to serve as a starting point for societal change. They have created many commercials to inspire young girls to have the confidence to  be comfortable just the way they are. One of my favorite commercials is called "Beauty Pressure." The advertisement shows a little girl and when you look through her eyes, we see everything that she will eventually be exposed to, which is pressure from the media to embrace superficial beauty. I believe this advertisement is very powerful because the message it conveys is right on target. We see hundreds of advertisements every day which weather we admit it or not they influence our decisions, and this commercial is warning parents about the reality their kids face.

Every advertisement has a purpose, some are for informational purposes while others are trying to get you to buy a certain pruduct (persuasive.) They also often have different advertisement appeals, all depending on what audience they are trying to get at and what they are representing. The nurture and guidence appeals, which is what "Beauty Pressure" consists of, are the opposite of eachother and together they create a powerful message. A nurture appeal, is more contributory to the giving aspect of life not so much the receiving. This is often tailored to women not so much men. A guidence appeal, promotes the need to be the one being nurtured and pampered. This is suited largely for the parent figure.

The ad I picked, "Beauty Pressure," perfectly exemplifies the nurture and guidence appeals. The nurture appeal fits in to the advertisement because the ad is targeting young women while warning them and giving them a sense of confidence in who they are. The guidence appeal also is part of this advertisent, as it is also targetting parents of girls. It is informing them of what their daughters will eventually face so they can take an affirmitive action.

Here is the "Beauty Pressure" advertisent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei6JvK0W60I

Mean Girls

In order for any film to make sense it needs some sort of organization, a base. That is why there are three types of narratives: classical tragedy, alternative, and three act structure (which is the one we see the most.) "Mean Girls," one of my all time favorite movies, is organized by the three act structure. It is basically about a girl, Cady Heron (protagonist), who goes from being home schooled in Africa to attending a public high school in America. It is not very hard for her to adjust to the change as she is accepted right in with The Plastics, the A-list girl clique at her new school. Than she makes the mistake of falling in love with Aaron Samuels, the ex-boyfriend of alpha Plastic Regina George, which leads to major conflicts.

The film has a very interesting syuzhet. The first act begins with an establishing shot as Cady takes a look at what will be her new high school. As the fabula evolves we can see that Cady forms a strong friendship with The Plastics, that would soon lead to trouble. The rising action of the film begins in 14:55, when Cady tells The Plastics that she is interested in Aaron Samuels. Regina, his ex girlfriend, offers to help her out with him, which turns out to be a total lie.

Stakes escalate in the second act as the climax approaches. In 28:15 Cady spies Regina kissing Aaron, they boy she was interested in, after she had told her she would help her out with him. A close up shot is used to reveal how Cady feels after seeing this; she feels betrayed and is filled with anger. She decides she must do something about this to get revenge on Regina. After brainstorming different plans she finally decides to target the only assets she has, her body and her "army of skanks." She than follows through with her plan for revenge, which is consisted of several dramatic plot points.

The third act of the film introduces the end act. In 76:24, the falling action begins when Regina gets hit by a school bus. After Regina gets hit by the bus, the cattiness between the girls stop and they decide to make peace. As the film uses a modern cinematic style, it ends with a happy ending.

Episodic vs. Serial

Sitcoms are something we have all come to love. They are usually an hour and a half long, are funny and tend to all be either episodic or serial (mostly episodic.) When a sitcom is episodic, it always ends where it begins, there is not much of a character arc, and there is an individual lesson within each episode. Each episode tells a different story every time with the same cast of characters while characters rarely develop or change and the stories tend to follow a basic formula. The story is always complete in one episode, meaning the viewer does not need to watch the episodes in a sequence to know what is going on. Serial sitcoms on the other hand, tell stories that develop over a period of time and the viewers have to tune in every time in order to know what is going on. Each episode is predictable and is likely to rise and ask a central question. Both of these types of sitcoms generally are developed from the same sitcom genre, they use reoccurring characters in common environments. The environments, such as a home or a workplace, are usually chosen in a way that they will be able to relate to the viewer.

One of my all time favorite sitcoms is "Full House." This type of sitcom would be considered an episodic sitcom because each episode is a new story. This show is basically about a single father, Danny Tanner, who in need of help to raise his three daughters asks his rock musician brother-in-law, Jesse Katsopolis and his comedian best friend, Joey Gladstone to move in with them. The show is filled with humor and inspiration, as we watch how three men try to raise three little girls. For the most part it is shot from the comfort of a homie house and is family oriented. The house gives the viewer a sense of humbleness and averageness, something the viewer can relate to. That is one of the reasons I love this show because it is about a humble family facing the typical problems families encounter on a daily basis, and it enables me to feel connected and comfortable.

Below is a scene from "Full House" and as

you can see in the background, the house is

 portrayed very homie and average.

Matilda :)

How would you like to watch a movie where you had no clue what was going on? you probably would not appreciate it. Fortunately, the film industry has discovered many strategies to get across messages of what is going on in a film to the audience; they use what they call film language. They have developed different camera angles and shots that have different meanings within the context of specific films. In "Matilda", which is a movie about an extraordinary girl of wondrous intelligence with neglectful parents who are too ignorant to notice her, therefore she is forced to live with out the guidance of elders; there are a variety of angles and shots to portray how Matilda is intended to be viewed in the film.

Matilda's father always liked to think as himself as superior to Matilda. He would never give her the benefit of the doubt and he always thought she was just a dumb little girl. There was a scene in the movie where he kept repeating to her over and over "Your wrong I'm right, your small I'm big." While he was saying this, a high angle shot (used to connote power) was being used. High angle shots are used to take power away from the subject, in this case the power was being taken away from Matilda.

Than there is the medium shot which is used as and information shot. It usually shows the relationship between a subject to its surroundings and the cituation they are in. While Matilda's father is proving himself as being ineferior to her, the camera switches from a high angle shot to a medium shot; which informs us of the relationship between Matilda and her father. We can see Matilda's fathers hand in her face while her facial expression shows she is angry at him.

Throughout the movie Matilda was forced to grow up without the guidence of her parents. From when she was young she had intelligence out of the ordinary, which made growing up alone something that came fairly easy to her. All the shots of her doing things on her own were low angle shots, which give power to the subject. Therefore, all these shots were saying that Matilda was powerful and independent.

Studio System with the Star System

I must say the concept of the studio system was pretty clever in how it managed to create and arbitrary business out of the film industry, which was greatly benefited from. After the Great Depression is when things took a different toll in a direction that would lead to monopolistic control of the film industry. Paramount, Loews/MGM, Warner Brothers, Fox, and RKO were the five major studios that basically controlled the film industry; and they all had similar strategies which they used to do so. A strategy which I found interesting was the star system which relates directly to the "contract system" they created; which secured stars to the company.

Companies would use the names of popular stars to promote their films. They would note that there were certain stars the audience loved and they seemed to always give them the same kind of roles in movies, different character but same role. The audience were willing to watch whatever movie as long as their favorite star appeared in it, making it a great market strategy and influencing the direction of the creation of certain films.

 

Rudolph Valentino, Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin were a few of many popular stars whose names were used to promote films. The industries would use the talents of stars to their advantage,  Judy Garland, who appeared in the "Wizard of Oz" as Dorothy, is a great example of how the star system was used. The audience loved her presence on the screen as she was always given a role in musicals as the happy go lucky girl; because of her rich exuberant voice and warm personality. We see much as this still happening to this day, Michael Cera is always the dorky sweet nerd, Jennifer Aniston who is always trying to find love, Kate Hudson is always perky and bubbly, and I could keep going. Whatever the matter is, the strategies film industries use seem to work, making them in to billion dollar industries.