Extra Credit Assignment

This blog experience proved effective in helping students to better explain concepts to their professors and themselves, yet it proved to still be in a fledgeling state. The grading criteria were quickly altered at the beginning of the course, fine. But the new criteria was obviously not totally agreed upon. Many students doing the same amount of work and proving the same level of understanding often received vastly different grades.

Whether this is due to the subjectivity of the graders or due to the wording of the students themselves is not the point. The point is that there must be a much more definitive set of guidelines on what a good blog post is. Being that this is a class with over 400 people, the variation of grading from one TA to the next may be vast. So, a better grading criteria would remove much of the subjectivity and focus more on the students' understanding of the material.

Writing a poor blog post with apt mastery of the material should not get in the way of the students' grade. This is the most important thing that needs to be altered in the class because it is new and accounts for a large part of the grade in the course.

Yes, you can use my blog in a paper or report.

Globalization and Glocalization

Globalization, a continuously evolving concept, constantly changes meaning with the advent of technology to grow the idea's efficacy. It refers to the unity of the world into one entity, whether in terms of culture or economy. What this means is an American car isn't necessarily what it's name implies. The parts may have been made in Germany, while the assembly was done in Japan. The accomplishment of this idea is entirely due to progressive technology and the hunger of business that comes with it.

Glocalization takes this idea of globalization and forces its focus on the culture and especially the community portion. A group of people from around the world and feel extremely close sitting around the warmth of the same ideological campfire.

An example of this is a social network such as Facebook. The site allows for a great number of people from different corners of the world to have a "glocal" feeling as they experience the joys globalization brings them. Users connect through increased communication granted through the prosperous site.

Head On: Fulfilling a Need

We've all seen it. We all wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat repeating it. "Head on, apply directly to the forehead." One of the most successful commercials in the recent years simply because it supplies all that one needs for an effective advertisement: present a problem, solve it, and do it in a memorable way. It does all three very well, the third part being the most astounding with this product.

Watch the commercial here.

A physiological appeal in advertising is one of the more basic ideas to understand. An advertisement of this type aims to find a need the viewer has and fix it, but the need must be physical in nature. Examples of this are hunger, pain, and itchiness.

The Head On advertisement represents this appeal because it, as stated previously, presents a physical need and fulfills it. Head pain is a physiological ailment that is fixed within the commercial, successfully representing a physiological appeal.

The Matrix Explained as a Three Act Structure

The Wachowski Brothers movie The Matrix exhibits a classic hollywood 3-act structure.

The first act involves the introduction of the main characters: Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, and Agent Smith. Not much is need for establishment in terms of setting and plot here as the setup is fairly simple. Escalating action occurs during a panicked car ride as Trinity attempts to remove a tracer implanted in the protagonist. The mini-climax for the first act comes when Neo is forced to make a choice between the red pill and the blue pill, whether or not to follow the rabbit. It poses the question of "what's down the rabbit hole?"

The second act answers this question with a stark change in setting and plot. The hacker night scene is now replaced with a mechanized world of AI dominance and the quest now is to discover if Neo is "the one." This act is focused mainly around Neo's training and a quest for knowledge. The complication in this act revolves mainly around the question of the protagonist's power, if he is the savior of man. The escalating action of the second act is a gun fight in which most of the team dies due to a double-cross. The second mini-climax is the capture of the fearless leader, Morpheus. This raises the stakes by risking the loss of the man who brought Neo into the real world. The question asked is "will Neo be able to recover his mentor and rise to his full potential?"

The third act revolves around the rescue of Morpheus. Trinity and Neo return to the Matrix and fight a battle against a horde of security guards and agents. The escalating action occurs when Morpheus is finally rescued with the helicopter. This answers the first part of the second mini-climax's question, but what about the second part? When Neo stays behind to finally face off with the protagonist, Agent Smith, the final climax occurs. The protagonist stops bullets and defeats three agents, answering the second part of the question. Neo lives up to being deemed as "the one."

It's basic. It's formulaic. But damn is it good.

Nothing Changes, Nor Ever Will

Sitcoms are known to follow a very specific formula, one that was created long ago. The most important aspect of said formula is the sense of consistency. Where some series like "Lost" and "House" evolve over time to create an overarching story, situational comedies retain short, episode-long narratives that serve as a cookie-cutter templates for an unchanging concept. After the initial concepts of the program are set (characters, setting, general plot types), the only parts that are altered are the short term plot points. The incidences are wrapped up within the episode to prevent any lingering questions about continuity.

One of my favorite sitcoms is "King of Queens." In one episode, the two main characters fight about having a baby. The conflict rises to engulf every part of their lives, turning them against each other. By the time the 22 minutes are up, the two are back as they were, loving but dysfunctional, having resolved the child issue. In the next episode, the fight is never discussed at any length and the characters go on as if nothing ever happened, a classic sitcom scenario.

Shot Use In Memento

Being that Memento is my favorite movie, I decided to use it to show the use of the three shot types.

Throughout the film, we are given glimpses of a conversation the main character has with a mysterious character on the phone. We know nothing about our mystery man, only what the director and cinematographer choose to display through the emotions of the leading actor. Through a close up, we can see the character's initial comfort and ease when telling a story through the phone until shock and horror run through his system when he reads the tattoo on his thigh telling him to never pick up the phone.

After the main character and the woman he meets have an imitate experience, they stand together in her house in front of the mirror. The stare in wonder at his tattooed body that gives the clues needed to find his wife's killer. Their relationship is clearly displayed in the medium shot; he stands, stalwart and distant, as she grasps his chest from behind. She wants him, and he wants nothing to do with her. All this is told through the correct use of the medium shot.

At the end of the film, the main character decides to destroy evidence that he has already "avenged" the murder of his wife in order to allow the continual puzzle to be forever incomplete. In a long shot, he enters a car outside an abandoned warehouse, and drives off. Through the use of this shot, the character is portrayed as alone and lost as he sets off, although he doesn't know, to complete a fool's errand. Only his polaroids are there to comfort him as the film ends and his quest begins.

Warner Owned Casablanca...and Humphrey Bogart

The concept about the studio I found the most interesting was the concept of actor "stables." The performers were contracted and guaranteed to work for a certain amount of time or films. The heads of Warner, MGM, Paramount, and many others used this concept to the fullest, cranking out every movie possible within each actor's contract. This accomplished two things. Firstly, it created stars out of the most overworked actors; many participants would often attend the theater only to see their favorite star again. It also fueled the production line aspect of the business. By always having great actors available, films could be created at an astonishing rate, weeding out the time necessary to find or negotiate talent. An example of this was Humphrey Bogart. He had already been in many a picture before Casablanca came along. When it did, the studio already had him and he archetype ready to shoot. The system was highly effective through acceptance of character repetition and quantity over quality.

This guided the way studios made films by relying on the actors to carry the film, not the plot. Humphrey Bogart did not play Rick in Casablanca, he played classic Humphrey Bogart, smooth, forceful, and torn. The studios would alter films around what filled their "stable," and not their page. Often audiences would be treated to a western, with a dancing scene simply because Gene Kelly happened to be cast.

The studios made the most efficient use of what they could get their hands on, and it worked.

All In The Family

The program that showcased the typical suburban family past their prime surprisingly relates very well to the much more recent show Arrested Development. Both shows demonstrate an uncommon family situation: one with the young couple living with their parents and the other with an entire extended family living together. Also, both explore issues that see great importance in the associated time period. They often see mildly controversial topics that serve as a centerpiece for the building tensions for which the audience continually returns.

The major difference is in the type of humor employed. The typical wordplay, irony, and slapstick comedy fails to meet the needs of today's audience. Shows like Arrested Development rely much more on boundary crossing and sarcasm to paint a clearly ridiculous picture of family life that exists nowhere else. All In The Family sticks to standard comedic ideals to match its standard family concept.

The issue differences lie in the limits of the era. The limits set for show 40 years vary greatly from the limits set today. Where All In The Family set the bar for edginess in a show by challenging the concept of homosexuality, Arrested Development explores ideas of incest, adultery, terrorism, and racism. The changing social constructs determine the content of a family sitcom like these.

Radio: Sponsored By Industry

Due purely for a need for new advertising and advocation media, the mass good industries of the 1920's pushed to create the popularization of radio.

In an innovate medium, companies will often see potential to create a much larger base of customers. The companies invest money in programing and sponsorships for the rising medium. The funding leads to better productions riddled with advertisments for the company who paid for the show. As the medium rises, the consumer base grows, feeds the sponsor more money, which in turn invests more money back into the show.

An example is the radio mega-company, RCA. RCA's main business was selling radios, pure and simple. So in order to facilitate the need for more radios, they created a broadcasting network, NBC, to increase the popularity of their product. The popularity of the show lead to the popularity of the radio itself, fulfilling RCA's intentions.

Social Learning

Social learning, while a sometimes applicable concept, does not always apply to every individual.

The truth is that social learning is merely the result of predisposed consumers being fed what they subconsciously crave the most. A person who has a strong reaction to something he ingests through the media was already going to have the same reaction to the most dominant thing in his domain. Likewise, a person who is not predisposed mentally to being strongly swayed by TV won't run out and kill someone as soon as he sees Die Hard. People take what they want from the media.

One of the most striking examples was Charles Manson and his "family." He built a cult following and ordered the killing of numerous people because of what he believed to be a message of revolt and uprising in the Beatles song "Helter Skelter." Yet, this group was the only that did so. There were no other vicious murders or uprisings due to this song. The man was psychologically predisposed to find a guiding voice of massacre in whatever media he could get his hands on.

The message does not make you. You take the message, twist it, and eventually spit it back out to support whatever you are already thinking, if you even are paying attention.

Hegemony

Hegemony, though an influential driving force of message delivery for many media sources, can be used in opposition to said sources, instigating a form of thought reform and investigation.

This concept is usually thought of as the way to plant an invasive idea into the mind of viewers and sway their opinions. True, this is the case most of the time, but often the same tactic can be used to point out the purely ridiculous nature of the editorialists' advances. The ploy of a party with a message to force can be halted by those who refuse to sedentarily obey. Satire levels the soap box until it is nothing more than a pile of debris with no logic to its form.

In this clip, Glenn Beck is seen using obvious methods of hegemony: framing, skewing, and more. Jon Stewart comments on the again clearly ridiculous nature of the Fox News personality by imitating the Glenn Beck show on his own program The Daily Show. Through a heavy use of parody and sarcasm, the show's creator uses the same method to influence people to think for themselves and not be swayed simply by slight of hand. Though Stewart does often have an agenda, as everyone does, the focus of his segment is not on the message, but its absurd delivery and obvious construing. The apparently "righteous" major news corporation is morally challenged by the show that often follows puppets making crank calls.

Hegemony is not a one way street. Telling someone to listen is equally as hegemonic as telling them not to.

My first RTF blog post!

Through RTF 305, I hope to discover how art (meaning Radio, TV, Film, and more) affects the society that creates it and how society affects the art. As a part of this, I want to emulate Salvador Dali. When he started into photography, he insisted on being a part of his creations. I want to do the same. By surrounding yourself using your brainchild, it reveals much more than the art itself ever could. The interaction between the two entities can often be more important than anything else in the scene.

My favorite blog is freddiew.com, a documentation of the nuances of being an independent filmmaker who is big on youtube.

The picture below takes a baby step towards what I want to do, reveal myself to the world through my art. In this picture I took the most obvious route by literally appearing in the image.