September 13, 2010

Aristotle - The purpose of art is to teach and to delight

In class this week we started getting into different definitions and dramatic structures, in particular when it comes to sitcoms.

Before I get too far into these, I do better re-writing terminology to help me remember.

Story - all that is in the events, including implied events.

Narrative - The telling of the story, how it is told - it is associated with the plot.

Diagesis - the world of the story - anything involved.

Diagesis element - something in the world (e.g., harmonica player in Jaws)

Non-diagetic element - in the story's world, but something the actors do not see/hear, etc. (e.g. theme music, credits, etc)

Main point- considered the "A-story"

Sub-plot - the "B-story"

We spoke of about several several models used in drama, such Gustav Freytag's Dramatic Pyramid:

Climax

Rising Action Falling Action

Exposition inciting incident resolution denouement

***This model is flexible and can be altered based on the actual story.

Syd Field's Screenplay (1979)

Act I (A) (B) Act II (C) Act III (D)

Set-up Confrontation Resoution

A) inciting incident

B) confrontation

C) crisis

D) Climax

** B and C are plot points that spin the story into a new direction.

Act I = 30 pages, Act II = 60 pages, Act III = 30 pages

Out of the two of these models, I believe Field's screenplay model makes more sense and is more accurate to the shows we are used to watching these days. I feel this due to the fact that the crisis is a peak of its own in Field's model, where the crisis is not so distinctly established in Freytag's model. The climax to me, is an essential part of the show which culminates in a climax that you are prepared and ready for as on observer. In addition, soon after the climax a resolution is made and the episodes quickly end. Although the Freytag model is flexible, I believe Field's is more accurate to the way the audience may prefer their sitcoms to me made.

As an example, we were shown an episode of "Project Runway." A show I had never before seen. I was shockingly unsurprised at the amount of drama that immediately showed itself in the opening scenes of the show, and knew it would undoubtedly be present the entire episode. The great part about the show was the the A-stoy was easy to find. Contestants battle each other to win a grand prize at the end of the entire competition. Unfortunately, I could not for the life of me keep up with the sub-stories. I venture to say that our alphabet does not contain enough letters to categorize the sub-plots in such a show. There were sub-plots within the episodes, sub-plots within the challenges, with the host, with several contestants, with individuals, and so on. The sub-plots were everywhere, which I'm sure is one of the reasons this show is so successful. People love drama. It was quite evident the producers focused on certain story lines and fed into the drama of it all.

The Sitcom Structure

The good 1st obstacle worse even worse! twist and turn success?

Act I Act II

"tree" "a beehive" "bees and stuck" "stung, allergic" "rains, wet/stuck""get down"

Blow - Final act where scene climaxes, could also be the "blow" of the entire show

*for this, remember the blow pertains to comedy sitcoms only - it refers to the main one-liners, etc that make scene/show funny; changes the mood*

September 5, 2010

As prompted, in class, by Professor Voytilla, I will begin this class journal by answering some suggested questions:

1) At this moment, what would I consider my favorite movie?

Not necessarily just at this moment, but on I have considered my favorite for many, many years is The Sandlot.

2) Why is this my favorite movie?

I played baseball for about 14 some-odd years while growing up. Some of my most fond memories are from practices and games when I was a little kid. I still love baseball, and consider myself somewhat obsessed. From all the memories I have involving baseball, The Sandlot, in my opinion, encompasses so much of the emotion and enjoyment of what I loved, and still love, about the sport. The movie is an adventure of several youth overcoming an issue, that in their minds, was insurmountable, yet in reality was very simple. The story revolves around a summer of baseball and fun. I never tire of watching this movie and it seemingly gets better and better every time I watch it.

3) Why did I choose media as a career?

I have had a long and confusing story about how I landed in Media Studies. It is something that I, more or less, landed in. In this major a minor is required, and I chose TFM. Even though this has been the path the school has led me, it is a major that I love and really have enjoyed being a part of. I have long sought to work in professional baseball, preferably for the Padres, with long term goals of getting into media coaching and image management. Having such a backing in media will allow me the insights and knowledge to explore at least one, hopefully all, of the avenues mentioned above.

Even before I declared TFM as an official minor, I had taken a couple TFM classes. With this, I consider myself quite uneducated in much of what these classes entail (e.g., with terminology and extensive knowledge) and have been impressed with what I have learned from the professors and fellow classmates. With this being said, I loved what we did in the first class meeting for 310 when we watched the opening scene in the original Jaws, and broke it down piece by piece. Much of what we talked about in class I found very interesting. We broke down and talked about a lot of different subjects and even though I had slight difficulty keeping up with it all, I felt I kept up decently wit it all.

As we started with the opening scene of Jaws, we notice that before anything even appears on the screen, we are queued into that infamous theme music. As this music is playing, I attempt to put myself in the shoes of someone sitting in the theater back in 1975 when this movie was first released. How powerful and thrilling this must have been for everyone in the audience! This suspenseful movie begins immediately trying to pull you into the story, and it does an extremely effective job at doing so, in my opinion. This movie transitions straight from the sounds of the theme music into and underwater view of what is assumed to be the shark eye view moving through the bottom of the ocean. Brilliant!

After viewing the scene, we started getting into an in depth look in the shots used, where the camera was angled in relation to the actors, etc. Admittedly, this was some unchartered territory that I really enjoyed learning about. The break down of scenes, let alone movies, is much more involved than I ever imagined.

In addition, the break down of character profiling, location establishment, and some of the smaller themes with the scene were very interesting as well.

I loved how we spent so much time slowly dissecting such a truly small part of the movie and all that went into it. It was very cool.