The 3 Act structure: Mean Girls

I've probably caught Mean Girls once on the big screen and about 30 other times on ABC Family, TBS, etc. But anyways, it definitely follows the 3-act structure.

In the first act, the audience is introduced to the film's protaganist, Cady (played by Lindsay Lohan). She is a regular teen, except she's lived in Africa all of her life, traveling with her parents. They end up settling in the suburbs of Chicago, in Evanston, yet because of her cultural difference, she is naive about the social cliques and social norms. Her original motive is to not be lonely and try to "fit in" as best as she can. She's introduced to the off-beat Janis and Damian, who encourage her to hang out with The Plastics, the richest and hottest girls of the high school, in order to sabotage and ultimately ruin them.

The plot starts to develop (35 minutes in) when The Plastics, consisting of Regina George (played by Rachel McAdams) and her "minions," embed Cady into their world of fake 3-way calling, boyfriend ruining and backstabbing. The plot peaks when Regina kisses the guy that Cady is crushing on, Aaron, right in front of her, when Regina said she would actually put in a good word about Cady. The latter is a mini-climax that propels the plot further in the second act.

In the second and heaviest act, Cady becomes vengeful. She starts hanging out with The Plastics more and more, wanting to ruin Regina George while simultaneously becoming addicted to the Plastics' popularity. She starts to veer away from Janice and Damian and pursues her own "sabotage" of The Plastics, whilst ultimately becoming one of them. Another mini climax ensues when she throws a party to get closer to Aaron and doesn't invite Janice or Damian. The party is ruined when Aaron makes her realize how she's changed, she's shunned by Janice and Damian and Regina finally figures out that Cady was sabotaging her social status. Regina decides to print hundreds of copies of a rumor book The Plastics made and scattered them across the school, allowing chaos to ensue among all of the junior girls.The latter point was another mini-climax that propels into act three. The main goal of the protagonist of the movie is repeated, as she finds herself alone once again.

In the final act (time at 75 minutes in), all of the girls are lectured on basically female empowerment and how rumors, gossip and social disparities gives males the to also degrade them. The third act's mini climax is at the Spring formal, when Cady apologizes for her actions to The Plastics, Aaron, Janis and Damian. Like the typical Hollywood 3-act structure, the movie ends in a high-note resolution, with everyone reaching their optimum place.Cady is happy with Aaron as her boyfriend and finally finding true friends.

Full House: The sitcom nitty-gritty

According to Colin Tain's lecture, the sitcom generally follows an episodic, half-hour, three-act structure, with a lesson resolved in the end of the episode. The plot tends to be predictable and introduces a problem, rising action and resolution. Comedy and hyperbolic tendencies are also written within the plot. The family sitcom following a Caucasian, upper-middle class family, "Full House," embodies all of these characteristics, yet I will focus on the predictable, three-act structure.

An episodic sitcom involves a lesson learned, but doesn't really develop the character in the span of the entire show. Characters aren't really developed, but are predictable, much like the plots they are weaved into. The three-act structure resolves a central question or central problem of that episode. The plot follows a very cookie-cutter structure, with a problem, rising action and resolution. The problem tends to change each episode, without regard to lessons from previous episodes. This type is very much classic sitcom, and usually involves comedy to attract viewers.

"Full House," which has a proscenium style (taped and performed infront of a live audience) definitely follows the three-act structure, sometimes mixing comedy and drama.

In the first segment, before the first set of commercials, one of the Tanners faces a predicament, whether it be as silly and hyprebolic as Uncle Jesse and Stephanie getting locked in a car shop before Michelle's birthday or a dramatic problem, such as Joey feeling unappreciated and wanting to move out. The second part of the episode follows the character's attempts at trying to solve the problem, which usually involves slap-stick and dialogue humor, and the problem is amplified. Following the second set of commercials, the conclusion is laid out and the "lesson learned" is brought to the attention of the character as well as the audience.

The conclusion usually wraps around the forgiver forgiving the forgivee, followed by a standard family hug. In the Tanner household, honesty and family dynamics are usually highlighted within the ending dialogue or speech given to resolve the initial problem.

Shooting progression - Hitch

So "Hitch," starring Will Smith as a debonair dating consultant, happens to be on the tele right now. But it still applies to Prof. Ramirez-Berg's lecture. Through "Hitch" use of long, medium and close-up shots, certain scenes deliberately convey meanings. Check out the scene here.

The scene is Hitch trying to give Albert advice on how to execute "the first kiss" to take a relationship to the next level. The scene starts off in mid-shot, with both Hitch and Albert in the frame, with only their profiles facing us. The background is the stairs, which shows the actual distance between the two men, which greatly sets up contrast later on in the scene. Showing just their profiles gives the viewer input on who exactly is in the scene, regardless of their actual emotions. Also, Hitch is wearing darker clothing, while Albert wears lighter clothing, showing their difference in expertise - Hitch wears darker colors while Albert wears lighter.

To practice this process of how to kiss, Hitch pretends to be Albert's date, ending the night at the top of the stairs. To give the viewer a sense of how awkward the situation was, the camera pans out into a long shot, giving it a sense of isolation, with the focus just on Hitch and Albert. The pan out also shows how physically close the two men are, in contrast to the earlier shot. This scene also reminds the audience of the circumstances of a conventional "good night kiss."

The third shot was taken during the climax of the scene, when Hitch is teaching Albert the "90 percent-10 percent" rule. The camera zooms in tightly, for a close-up shot. This is definitely meant to convey both emotions of Albert and Hitch, so much so that you can tell that they are assimilating into their roles, blurring the line between the kiss scenario and reality. The intimacy is both seen on the actors' faces (with them so close that they are somewhat being seduced by this pretend kiss) as well as how close the camera physically is to their faces. This adds to the overall comedy of the scene.

The Star System within the Studio System

During the consolidation effects of vertical integration, the studio's system of production was key. Embedded in the production portion of the studio was the "star system," the mild basis of what we constitute as "movie stardom" today. The Star system was when studios used and contracted certain actors to promote and brand their movies.

Because this further popularized their overall business, this usage of stars' popularity created more emphasis on the actor and less emphasis on the movie itself. Studios began to churn out films that emphasized the actor over the plot. People became fascinated moreso with the stars than the movie's story line, that studios started to churn out movies that had the star's name in bigger letters above the movie's title. The star's image became the commodity, therefore the actor's acting skills, dancing and voice held importance throughout the entirety of the film.

An example of this system is the actor Humphrey Bogart's career. Throughout his earlier films, he was branded as an actor with mainly "gangster" character roles. The role that mainly changed his direction of acting was "The Maltese Falcon," where he played a detective. He was known for his signature hat, trench coat and fast-talking suaveness because of it. He became a legend after Casalanca, where he played a cafe owner. In the last, and probably most memorable scene, he is seen wearing his usual gettup, which was mainly used to reinforce the audience's affiliation with him. Mr. Bogart needed to stand out as the star the audience's know, or the film wouldn't sell as well. And studio directors understood that.

All in the Family Vs. Modern Family

Although both "All in the Family" (AF) and "Modern Family" (MF) are both successful sitcoms, there are clearly differences between them, mainly because of the time period they first started airing. This factor affects the characters as well as the content of the show. Yet the underlying messages of both shows may be more similar than audiences would think.

While both sitcoms center around the family and what goes on within the family home, the cast of characters widely contrast each other. In AF, the Bunkers are the typical, middle-class Caucasian family who live in New York. Archie, the father, is the channeled ignorant bigot, whose constantly reinforced as a manly-man racist who shuns at progressiveness. His wife is apparently an idiot, but is kind-hearted. His daughter and son-in-law both represent the "newer" generation and are seen as having more taste and a more liberal nature.

On the other hand, MF surrounds the three different immediate families, who are overall one big, loving family, residing in California: The suburban, well-off family, the multi-cultural family and the gay family, consisting of two fathers and an adopted daughter.

Also, other than their completely different comedy stiles, the shows are filmed differently. AF is filmed in traditional sitcom style, breaking the fourth wall at times. Whereas MF is filmed mockumentary style.

Yet, the writers of the show have similar underlying messages. In AF, the creator of the show wanted to challenge the audience and ultimately make them question the older generation, which Archie represented. In terms of race and sexuality, the creator wanted audiences to think about equality in society. MF takes it a step further. They let audiences accept the different types of families and establish it as the contemporary norm, throwing out prejudice.

Both shows dealt with homosexuality, but portrayed it at different levels. In AF, Archie complains about his son-in-law's friend being "fairy," and in the end he leans that one of his own friends is actually gay. Archie's bigoted opinion of homosexuality is meant for people to laugh at.Yet in MF, the two gay main characters are generally accepted by society, and its their own insecurities that make it funny to audiences.

Still, race, at least in the episode I watched, was not brought up as much in AF. They didn't seem to outright deal with race, unless it focused on Archie's racism. But even that, only the African-American culture was featured in the show, not other vast minorities. In MF, the show deals with a Columbian wife, who makes her culture apparent, in both her dialogue as well as plot lines. They really delve/make fun of these stereotypes of strong, latina women that AF wasn't even close to covering.

Technological Change: Progress = Success?

Orson Wells

With technological change, the social and media changes embedded in "radio days" was inevitable. Much like the rise of internet and its fresher take on music consumption (Pandora and Groove Shark to name a few), audiences back in the 1920s had access to an easier way to consume media. Without technological change, being the building blocks of the radio industry, the government would not have anything to regulate and consumer demand would not exist. To technological entrepreneurs, such as Guglielmo Marconi, technological change is necessary to further society successfully.

Technological change acted as a locomotive, since it helped the radio industry become more accessible to an eclectic audience - from the middle-class workers to the elite-socialites. With the rise of FM radio, the accessibility became even more apparent. Yet it was diversifying the content at the same time, having social and cultural effects. With FM being able to travel 30 miles within range and with the ability of 20 FM stations to broadcast over many cities, people in cities had more of a variety to choose from. Shown thoroughly in Radio Days, what was featured on the popular shows became a market success. It would not be possible though, if technology hadn't evolutionized.

Furthermore, this ability to reach more consumers definitely shaped the way companies targeted their niche markets. In lecture, commercial broadcasting, which is basically sponsors selling consumer goods on-air, was touched on. Without the change in the technology that allows companies to exercise this type of brand marketing, a huge majority of radio shows would not exist in the 1920s (and integrated advertising would not have developed.) The programs and the products' sponsorship went hand-in-hand, such as in the radio to television program, Ozzie and Harriet. Today, commercial broadcasting is still apparent, its just the products sold and the music its combined with that's different.

Social Learning: The rise of Jackass

The concept of social learning has definitely put the popularity of "Jackass," the Johnny Knoxville stunt and practical-joke show into perspective for me. According to the textbook, social learning is how media effects one's behavior to imitate what they see in media. The example given is Bandura's Bobo doll experiment, where children watch as a model acts violently toward a Bobo doll and then rewarded with a prize afterwards. This then influences the children to act violently, imitating the video they saw, in order to receive a reward.

To further explain social learning, we allow the media to influence our behavior because of the outcomes we expect after acting a certain way.

Jackass, which first aired in 2000, has had been under scrutiny ever since. This is mainly because younger boys and fans of the show started to imitate the random, dangerous and violent acts that were on the show. In one show, Johnny Knoxville allows little children to shoot him in the privates with paintball guns and in another episode, he lights himself on fire. Two children suffered serious injuries after trying to copy-cat the latter stunt.

In comparison to the Bobo doll study, the boys who imitated the stunts sought attention (such as the kids seeking treats) and saw it as a way to gain recognition as jokesters, much like the Jackass crew. Through social learning, they saw how much popularity and laughs the Jackass cast received and wanted to repeat that outcome. The violence in both the Bobo doll study and the Jackass imitations are very pertinent to each other.

Below is just a sample of the many Jackass imitators that tried to leave the same mark on YouTube as Johnny Knoxville left on TV.