The three act structure

In the spirit of Halloween I have chosen the film Hocus Pocus, which is a film with a three act structure.
The first act begins with introducing the three Sanderson Sisters, in Salem being hung for killing a little girl. Then we move into present day where we are introduced to the characters who live in Salem now. The film has its first plot point when the character Max decides to light the black flame candle that legend says will bring the witches back. The second act has the main obstacle. The sisters have returned and are planning to steal the lives of the children of Salem. The main characters believe they have escaped the witches. Then the second plot point is when two of the main characters decide to open the spellbook of the witches, which is how they are able to find the main characters, steal their book back and continue with their plot of stealing the lives of children. The third act is when the witches try to steal the lives of one of the main characters before the sun comes up and they are dead forever. They manage to get one of the characters to drink the potion, but in the final minutes of the film the sun comes up and the witches are dead forever. This is a very halloweeny three structure film.

http://www.hotmoviesale.com/p1935/Hocus-Pocus.html#back

TV Sitcoms

One characteristic of TV Sitcoms was the targeting of the main audience demographic. The genres of soap operas, talk shows, and afternoon news programs were created because there is a large population of woman and mothers who watch television during the daytime. The sitcoms geared toward young families with children usually appear on television around dinner time, when the whole family is most likely to be together. The sitcoms were also character based, instead of story driven.
For example I Love Lucy is a sitcom that follows a young couple, but each episode has its own situational conflict and resolution. Such as the episode we saw in class about how Lucy finds a way to be in Ricky's commercial. She goes through several obstacles with the product she is supposed to sell, but by the end of the episode everything is better. The content of the show I Love Lucy was suitable for children and adults to enjoy. While the show Heroes functioned more on the progression of what happens next in a long complicated journey, where the resolution does not come until the end of the season, instead of the end of one episode. This show dealt with more adult issues, and premiered in the evening when older people would be tuned in.
As I mentioned before the show Heroes was a prime time show that was geared at an older audience. This show was not a sitcom because it did not follow all of the sitcom rules. Each episode of Heroes was a step toward the overall goal of the characters. Throughout the entire first season we get to know the characters but all the characters choices revolved around saving the world. By the season finale we finally get the satisfaction of the resolving the bigger problem.

http://www.sevensidedcube.net/wp-content/uploads/NBC-canceled-the-series-Heroes.jpg

Shots and their meanings

The different types of shots that Professor Berg spoke about were the LS that establishes the location and is a sad shot, then the MS that gives information about the relationship of the characters, and then the CU that shows the important details and the feelings and emotions of the character. In the film The Grapes of Wrath when Tom leaves the family Ford uses the three different shots. When Tom is telling Ma that he is leaving it is a CU and we can see the details and emotions of how Ma feels about him leaving. Then when Tom leaves it goes to a MS and we see that they are at the place of the dance that happened earlier in the film. It was a time in the film where the family was actually happy. Then we see a LS looking back at Ma watching Tom leave and we see how sad Ma is about Tom leaving. This is also a unique film because Ford uses an extreme long shot of Tom walking away and shows how lonely and sad Tom is. Through these three different shots we do not need dialogue between the characters to understand what is going on in the scene.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.fipresci.org/undercurrent/issue_0509/images/grapes-landscape.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.fipresci.org/undercurrent/issue_0509/grapes.htm&usg=__-vS1wrimv4alO6xI_0Kkz4AkfEQ=&h=347&w=480&sz=14&hl=en&start=84&zoom=1&tbnid=rdot9H-Gw3Q93M:&tbnh=127&tbnw=169&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dthe%2Bgrapes%2Bof%2Bwrath%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1251%26bih%3D584%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C1804&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=118&vpy=179&dur=504&hovh=191&hovw=264&tx=176&ty=99&ei=EkO7TPD-C8PCnAe6tYC3DQ&oei=okK7TLeqAYGC8galnKWBAg&esq=8&page=5&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:84&biw=1251&bih=584

Classic Hollywood

One aspect of the studio system in Hollywood that was interesting was how the studios would contract the stars of their films. The studios would use actors from their stock to make what ever movie was in the works. This would limit the different types of films and roles certain actors could have. Most of the time if you were an actor you would only make movies with your studio and you could only play the roles they  wanted you to. This kept the public very divided into what films they enjoyed. MGM at the time had a lot of the top young actors like Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and Katharine Hepburn. One example of how films in the past would have been different if the studios did not control the actors was the choice for Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. MGM originally offered Shirley Temple, who was the hot young star at the time, the role of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, but 20th Century Fox would not lend her out to film this movie. Instead MGM used an actress from their stock, Judy Garland, and this film helped launch her career.

http://www.thinkchristian.net/index.php/2009/11/05/‘the-wizard-of-oz’-and-yellow-brick-roads/

Blog 4- "All in the Family"

I would compare the sitcom "All in the Family" with the modern family sitcom "The Simpsons". The Simpsons is different from "All in the Family" because they cover more highly controversial issues of today then "All in the Family". These two are different because "All in the Family" was released in the 1970s and "The Simpsons" did not release until 1989. Society was already exposed to controversial issues similar to the topic in the episode of "All in the Family" we watched. The two shows are the same because the writers are exposing the audience to issues such as homosexuality and alcoholism through a "typical family" setting. The issues in "The Simpsons" ranged from highly controversial to not very controversial. They were issues such as, Homer's alcoholism, family abuse, and a tyrannical boss. In "All in the Family" they dealt with issues in the episode of homosexuality and not issues such as domestic abuse. The issue of homosexuality was a highly controversial issue in the 1970s and is not so controversial today. While domestic abuse was rarely brought up in television back in the 1970s, but would be televised today as a highly controversial issue much like homosexuality was back in the '70s.

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