Friends to Watch Friends

Narrative fiction programming, or as we like to call it television, quickly became the prime-time event of family night, the center of the den/living room, and the implied statement on actual television shows, as it rose to popularity in the 1960s and 1970s. Speaking from a reel world perspective, tv shows were seen through in two main feature modes: serial and episodic. Episodic in particular, also nown as the sitcom, evaluates and presents the predictable and familiar plot development. With not much charater arc, each episode doesn't neccesarily connect to the others in a plot line, each standing alone and raising both a question and answer on it's own. Some more than others will introduce a lesson that is learned throughout the thirty minutes of viewing.

For instance, if you were to look at the popular television series, Friends, you can understand the labeled aspects and certain characterisitics of an episodic sitcom found in this show. Where six best friends modify a three-act structure, accumlating mini-resolutions throughout there times living in Manhattan in neighbored apartments. Now running as late-night re-runs on TBS, this television show cycles through it's plots in one way or another, brining back the mini series drama and amusement, repeating patterns and creating a seasonal text. Escalated with humor and wit, involving relationships between Rachel and Ross or Monica and Chandler,this group of pals bring into character a new twist or action that keeps the audience glued to the screen, as well as keeping it's ratings up, and keeping the mold of an american tv sitcom.

Solo Shots

People show up to the movie theaters, and for an hour or so second-handily experience the language of the actors through a story line of comedy, romance, or horror. But most people tend to over look the language that is interpreted in the film behind the scenes; how the cinematographer and director use their own dialect through camera shots to intertwine the language of acting and film together to produce a movie that would have a follow-through. 

Film-makers use the direction of different distances to portray these moments in time. Specific shots are utilized to interpret a situation differently. For instance in the Academy Award winning film, The Soloist, you can see how director Joe Wright manipulates the situation in a scene by displaying it through a long shot, medium shot or close up view. It allows the story to travel from general to specific details by changing the look of the scene.

Illustrated in the first image, the long shot presents an overview of the location and who all is relative to the place. Also known as the orientation shot, shown from The Soloist, we can find that Nathaniel Ayers and Steve Lopez are set in an abandoned street alley, therefore giving a "who" and "where" of the plot. Steve is stepped back, eyes open, watching the violinist play his tunes. It symbolizes a lonely, isolated state setting the characters farther away and smaller to the eye.

Following the long shot is the second picture of information, the medium shot. This brings a closer look to who the characters are, and confirming that they are Nathaniel and Steve. Here they meet each other, still within each other's comfort zones, putting a name to the face. The visual is combined with discussion between the two people, representing and stating a 
relationship in the film.

And finally comes the impact of emotion, revealing the freckles, wrinkles, or dimples on their face, as well as conveying important details to advance in the narrative. Nathaniel is cautious to Steve, showing little trust and hesitation in his physical self. Altogether the combination of these shots pull together the language of film and its significance in relevance to the story and its characters/actors.

Black and Blanca Hollywood

Within the “Casablanca” film period, the studio system had the ability to put everything in one place, where directors, producers, and actors all resembled in the same contract format and followed under specific producer-distributor market control. One aspect in particular was known as the star system, where actors and actresses were material products of immaterial production. 

Stars best exemplified the way the studio system worked, but they were also contracted by the studios, and paid to sell their products. In order for stars to make the big leagues and act in what films they desired, they were under contract to work in five to six other films that weren’t of interest to them. Although this brought about a huge money-maker business into the factory-based, mass production system of the big eight producer-distributors. Audiences were drawn to any movies with any big name actors, even if they included a poorly-played plot.

- "Here's to looking at you, kid."

As stars all worked under one substantial company, such as MGM studios, actresses, such as Judy Garland, were used to promote business within their system. When Judy Garland was discovered in the Andy Hardy series, she helped to elevate the status of Clark Gable in a song. With these factors, the star system worked to the advantage of the studio system between the 1920s and 1940s.

All in The Family vs. 8 Simple Rules

A television sitcom today, does not resemble the same impacted message as it did thirty of forty years ago. During the seventies, All in The Family, brought to attention the conflict of homosexuality and challenged it. Previewing a specific episode that illustrated the struggle between a son and his father, and the son's secret of being homosexual. It's interesting to see how we can look to a family-based comedy today, such as 8 Simple Rules, and that same factor doesn't stir up half as much conflict. 

8 Simple Rules tends to focus more on smaller subjects that are followed through the daily life of a family than relatively anything else. For example, if a girl doesn't get along with her father, or the boy is trying to ask a girl out. TV shows, like All in The Family, centered around certain subjects of matter that had not been solved or were seen as some type of discrimination in that era, provoking and trying to blend it into equality in a sense.

Yet, altogether both All in The Family and 8 Simple Rules express humor and wit, raising the mood, and using specific situations and themes that relate to their audience. These television shows, among many others, have entertained us and allow us to escape for half an hour.