Film Structure

The first act in Hollywood's 3 Act structure is the introduction. In the movie Sunshine Cleaning, for the first probably 30 minutes of the movie, Rose's (the main character) life is displayed. It introduces her life as this crumbling puzzle by showing her poor, lonely, and daydreaming about a life she wanted. She cleans other people's houses as a job, has an affair with a married man, and feels like she never lived up to other people around her. The first act introduces this and gives the audience an idea about the main character. The plot point one peaks when Rose is told by her "boyfriend" there is a job she can do to make money.

Rose begans a business and makes money, helping her with a great deal of her problems. The action rises as Rose's life becomes more successful and she begans to figure things out. These actions from the first act transitions into the second act. In the second act, Rose's dream job is diminished when her sister ruins the business by setting a house on fire and getting the business shut down. This act takes up the next third of the movie by setting the problem for the story. Rose is now back to where she began in the first act of the movie; now, she's just more depressed.

Transitioning into the last act of the movie for the last third of the movie, Rose makes up with her sister and her father ends up selling his house to start up a business for Rose. The story ends up with a happy ending completing the "happy ending structure" the 3 act structure has.

Sitcoms!

Sitcoms are usually known to be comedies. They consist of short episodes with mainly a humorous story line, and have the same recurring characters and environment.  Sitcoms also have seasons; they'll run for a certain amount of episodes, take a break, and then start back up when the next season comes around. Also, people can expect the same things to be in sitcoms. Sitcoms usually have the same characters and environment in each episode.

If a show falls into these characters, it will fall into the sitcom genre. However, when sitcoms are brought to people's minds, funny and short are the two characteristics that will most likely come to mind, like The Office.

The Office falls perfectly into the sitcom genre. It has a humorous story line, and runs in thirty minute episodes. People do not watch The Office without wanting to laugh. Also, viewers can expect the same characters (Michael, Jim, Pam, Dwight, etc.) and environment (Dunder Mifflin workplace) in each episode.

Shots...

Shots and angles have a lot to do with how a scene is portrayed to an audience. They can affect how audiences perceive a particular scene, and the emotions they receive from it. I am a Harry Potter fanatic; one of my favorites is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

This is the final battle in the fifth Harry Potter movie. Here would be the "long shot." Voldemort has disappeared from this scene, and it seems to be only Dumbledore and Harry now. This shot reveals the setting of the upcoming scene for the audience. It shows a long view of the scene, and concentrates mainly on Harry by not showing Dumbeldore's face. This helps reveal the fact that something that concerns Harry is about to take place.

This would be the medium shot of the film; it confirms that this scene does in fact concentrate on Harry and his battle between letting Voldemort possess him completely or fighting against it and staying true to himself. Harry is also shown alone in this scene. That could be used to represent that he feels alone in this situation and can only fight Voldemort himself.

In this close-up shot, it reveals Harry's emotion in the situation. The shot reveals that he is in pain, yet shows a break through for the character. The audience discovers that while this may be a painful and hard moment for Harry, he is fighting the pain and will not back down. The close-up shot reveals this by getting closer to his face and letting the audience view the emotion. Also, this shot shows his eyes are back to normal, unlike the middle shot that showed Harry unlike himself; that reveals that Harry fought against Voldemort and is winning.

The Studio System

In a short summary, studios in the era of "Classical Hollywood" worked through vertical integration. Everything the studios produced was through their own company. They did the production, distribution, and exhibition. Something I think helped generate a lot of the studios' success, however, was their ideas of using stars to promote their company. Celebrities were the faces and representations of the studios.

Like we talked about in the lecture this past week, stars were the "best representations of what studios did." If a studio signed an actor that could sing, then most likely that studio would be making lots of musicals. The studios worked with their stars' talents; a studio who hired a dancing actor would be making films with dance numbers. This would attract audiences to certain film genres because of the actors who starred in the films, and the studios would use this to make money.

An example would be Judy Garland. Judy Garland was a representation for MGM studios, and was also used to promote other MGM stars. Judy was assocated with the innocent and "girl-next-door" look, and kept that association through must of her career. She was mostly known to sing, so when audiences previewed a movie starring Judy Garland, they knew it would most likely be a musical film, such as The Wizard of Oz. Judy Garland was associated with the musical genre, and helped promote MGM through that.

All in the Family vs. That 70's Show

While I was watching All in the Family, my mind couldn't help but wander to That 70's Show. There are major differences, but there are some similarities, obviously.

I believe that That 70's Show is somewhat of a milder version of All in the Family. All in the Family addressed sensitives topics for the 70's and even for today. Homosexuality was discussed, especially in the episode that we viewed in our screening. The episode we viewed would be considered politically incorrect and very offensive to certain social groups if a modern show portrayed it in that manner. Topics such as racism, women's libertion, and etc. were displayed in other episodes that could lead to many controversial issues. All in the Family was a show that discussed major issues in the 70's, while That 70's Show showed more of what progressed and happened in the 70's. That 70's Show focused on social issues such as feminism, sexual attitudes, and etc.

There are some ways, however, in which the two shows are similar. They are obviously both based in the 70's. They each focus on social issues of the 70's in one way or another. And, the two shows also consist of a family home (Bunker family vs. Forman family). They both also display the normality of families during the 70's. The dad was the working, "All American" father, while the mother stayed at home, cooked dinner, and took care of the family.

The main differences between All in the Family and That 70's Show are pretty much the social issues and how they were talked about in the episdoes. The time differences in which the shows were produced are very different; All in the Family running from 1971 to 1979, and That 70's Show from 1998 to 2006.  Also, That 70's Show displays ways in which the 70's progressed in the entertainment industry, and centers around teenagers' lives rather than adults' lives, whereas All in the Family does not. All in the Family could be considered a lot more "blunt" on the social issues of the 70's than That 70's Show, due to the fact that these issues at that time were more hidden from the public, and it was more acceptable to look down on people who participated in such lifestyles.