Three Act Structure

   My personal favorite film, The Shawshank Redemption, can fit this three act structure rather well. It is interesting to look into a film you are very familiar with, and when you once thought of it as one solid unit, you now can break it up to see the three acts in the film. Here is my take on that the three acts are.
   The first act starts with the beginning of the film when Andy Dufresne is sentenced to Shawshank Penitentiary. Although when Andy starts out at prison he can't handle it, in this first act we see him slowly get used to life at Shawshank, mainly because of his growing friendship with another inmate, Red. The first act goes through a few events that happen to Andy at the prison, there are quite a few important moments in this first act, but I would say that the mini-climax is the death of Brooks. Because he is let out of Shawshank but can't handle the real world that changed without him, Brooks takes his own life, which leads into the second act.
   The second act shows Andy helping out the warden and guards with their taxes, and in turn is able to get a decent prison library for the inmates. In this act Andy does some important things, for instance when he plays the opera song on the speakers in the prison. But the main climax in this act would have to be the death of Tommy. Because his character comes in and is very hopeful of being able to prove that Andy didn't kill his wife. This eventually leads to the warden killing him, which sets off Andy into the next act.
   The third act of the film is basically from Andy's escape to the end of the picture. It is hard to say which events in this act are the most important, but I would have to say that the mini-climax is when the warden commits suicide due to Andy showing the outside world what kind of crook is running the prison. In the end Andy and Red are reunited, which is a perfect ending to this great film.
   I wouldn't say that these acts that I chose perfectly fit Dr. Ramirez-Burg's timing that he related to the changing of acts. Because this film is so long is one reason, but I did notice that the first and third acts of The Shawshank Redemption seem to be quite a bit longer than Dr. Ramirez-Burg anticipates, but from my eyes this is the three acts of this film.

Sitcoms

   An interesting concept arisen by Tate in his lecture of TV Sitcoms was the differences between the structures of different sitcoms. He discussed how although most sitcoms follow an episodic format, some of them have certain story arcs that follow throughout the series. Although in the shows with the story arcs the characters still seem to go right back to normal each episode, the events that conspire still go on.
   An example of a sitcom being in episodic format but still having branching story arcs is Seinfeld. Possibly the most memorable and important was when George's fiancé Susan dies. She had been a main character for the better of around two seasons, and eventually dies due to licking bad wedding invitations. The characters don't drastically change after this event, but it is solidified in the show from that point that George once had a fiancé and she passed away. The show also has certain stories continuing throughout episodes that change through time, for instance who Elaine is working for changes with about each season, and although you can watch episodes of the show randomly, it does continue storylines if watched in order. The Simpsons even had an event which stuck through the rest of the show, which was Flanders' wife Maude dying. Although The Simpsons might be seen as one of the most episodic shows on television, the fact that Maude is dead still echoes through the show.
   Shows that are purely episodic never seem to have events happen that keep living through the rest of the show. For instance in South Park the characters will do something like form a band and make millions of dollars, but that is never referred to again after the episode ends. The same for Seth McFarlene's triple threat of Family Guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland Show. None of them have any events that seem to flow throughout the rest of the series.
   The use of continuing story arcs in sitcoms can be a nice subtle change to either a purely episodic show or a serial drama. By having the best of both worlds, those who watch the show as it airs in order seem to have a better experience than those who watch it randomly off and on, but even the random watchers have an enjoyable time because it isn't a dire consequence if you haven't been keeping up with the show. A show that was almost too much of a serial was Arrested Development, and because of this it suffered. People who hadn't been keeping up with it really had no idea what was going on, but those who had found it to be one of the best television shows in recent memory.

Shots in "The Wire"

   The use of camera angles and shots is very important when looking at a piece of film, and as an example of different shots I decided to use the final scene from the first season of "The Wire". In this scene, the character Omar Little robs a drug dealer of his stash. Dr. Ramirez-burg discussed that the typical flow of shots is Long Shot, then Medium Shot, then close up, yet pieces of film will break this mold and go in their own order. This scene from "The Wire" specifically goes from Medium Shot, to Close Up, then to Long Shot.

   The Medium Shot can be seen in the picture shown above. Dr. Ramirez-burg described the Medium Shot as an "information shot", meaning that it is the most informative and shows the relationships between different characters. If you were a viewer of "The Wire", you would know that if there are two people dressed in baggy clothing that looked like thugs on the corner of a street, you would know that a drug deal was going down. This Medium Shot being used here thus lets the viewer know that there is going to be a drug deal between the two characters, and their relationship is nothing more than that of a salesman and a customer.

   The next shot used is a Close Up, which can be seen above, is of Omar revealing himself to the drug dealer and putting a gun to his head. The lecture emphasized that Close Ups were used heavily to display the emotions of the characters, which can easily be seen in this picture. From the Medium Shot, the viewer had known that the mysterious hooded fellow was the beloved Omar, but it isn't until he pulls back his hood and pulls out is gun to show how much he loves catching drug dealers off guard and 'obtaining' their stashes from them. This shot is great and very well used because it shows Omar's feelings toward his actions with him saying in this shot "[It's] all in the game yo, all in the game".

   This scene (and the episode/season) ends with the Long Shot shown above. Dr. Ramirez-burg defined a Long Shot as an "Orientation Shot", and that it was used to display the isolation or loneliness of the characters. The use of this Long Shot in "The Wire" is to show that there is no hope for the drug dealer because nobody is around, and that Omar will once again succeed in stealing all of the drugs from a stash-house, and that the drug trade in the show's Baltimore is still very alive.

The Studio System

     The classic Hollywood studio system was quite different from what we now think of as film production. This is mainly due to the use of vertical integration in the studio system, but what I found summed it up the best was the lecturer stating that "Hollywood production companies thought of the film industry the same as Ford thought about automobiles". The studios would just get whoever they had on contract to fill all of the parts needed for a film to be made, and from that the golden era of cinema was born. What I find as the most interesting aspect of this is how little the directors of the films seemed to be at this time. When the lecturer was talking about how although we think of Casablanca and The Wizard of Oz as some of the greatest films of all time, nobody ever seems to know who directed it or what any of those directors did other than those hits. That is much different nowadays, because now people can spurt off what films Darren Aronofsky, Steven Spielberg, or Roman Planski  has directed and how influential they are due to their inputs, but during the golden age the director was just another spot to fill in the assembly line of the movie making process.
     Because the public didn't seem to care about who directed what, it was the use of the Hollywood movie stars that brought in the money. These stars were directly related to their production companies, having contracts with them that could last for most of their life. People during that time were able to recognize what film studio put out what film based on the actors, and could assume who would be in the studio's next production. It is interesting to compare this to modern cinema, because really now the actors seemed to be more linked to certain people in the production process rater than production companies themselves. For instance, if you see a trailer for a film starring Seth Rogen and Jason Segel, you can make an assumption that Judd Apatow has something to do with this movie; either writing, directing, or producing it. Another example is that if you are watching a film directed by Chris Nolan, you can already guess that Michael Caine is going to show up and some point in the movie. Certain stars and directors are friends or just work well together, which seems to influence modern cinema more than the link between stars and production companies.
     This use of the assembly line film-making rather than the tedious ways of doing it now was definitely a way to spurt out more films at a quicker pace and have their stars on screen constantly, which in turn to the companies meant money. This influenced what kinds of films the studios made because they would make whatever film would showcase their star the best, and would be able to "own" specific genres over other companies because their stars they had would become the face of westerns, musicals, crime films, and so on. If someone were to see a film coming out with Humphrey Bogart they could automatically assume that it would be a crime film, and that Warner Bros. would be behind it. A modern equivalence of this would be if someone saw a trailer for a film with huge explosions, young "hot" actors, and fighting airplanes, they could assume that Michael Bay was behind it. What seems to have happened over the course of half a century is that rather that the production companies themselves being who took control of certain genres and actors, it is now more of directors and others in the production process that control the genres and actors.

All in the Modern Family

     When looking up "All in the Family" on Wikipedia I was very surprised to see how huge of a hit it was. From the three television episodes shown at the screening, I felt that the episode of "All in the Family" was the weakest of the three, and just kept re-using the same joke over and over. I wonder how fans of "All in the Family" would react to seeing an episode of ABC's "Modern Family"; if they would enjoy it or feel that their own "All in the Family" is a better work of television. I personally think the opposite, because "Modern Family" is probably my favorite comedy on TV that is still producing new episodes, and I feel that there is almost no comparison of it to "All in the Family" because of how much better it seems to be. This is of course all due to the show being relevant to my time period, as opposed to "All in the Family" being a portrayal of a family in the 1970's. 

     

     

     The two shows share some similarities, the most obvious being that they are both a look into American families in their respective time periods. There is a character on "Modern Family", played by Ed O'Neill (character pictured on the right), who is supposed to be the Archie Bunker-type character on the show. He plays a grandfather on the show and considering his age it is almost as if the character had grown up watching "All in the Family". He resembles Archie Bunker because he feels that men should be strong and hearty and that "back in his day" times were much simpler. His son on the show is homosexual, and he still has a hard time accepting it; just as how Archie Bunker dealt with homosexuality on "All in the Family". There is actually an episode of "Modern Family" when Ed O'Neill's character is uncomfortable to tell his friends that his son is homosexual, yet there is speculation from everyone else that one of Ed O'Neill's best friends is a homosexual himself. He is in disbelief just as Archie was when he was told that one of his best friends might be a little fruity, and dealt with it in the same way.

     A main difference between the two shows is how they deal with the issues brought up. On "All in the Family", it dealt with homosexuality by Archie Bunker making a slew of bad jokes to the audience about how his son's friend is "fruity", and on "Modern Family" two of the main characters are openly gay and even have an adopted child on the show (pictured on right). Because in the past decade our society has become more used to seeing homosexual couples in public, it isn't very drastic to see a gay couple as characters on TV. A watcher of "All in the Family" might think "Oh, my goodness how can they show that on TV? I don't want to see that, turn it off!". But when hearing Archie Bunker's comments on "All in the Family", a fan of "Modern Family" might think "Wow, I can't believe he keeps saying 'fags' and bashing gay people right in front of them, I had no idea they allowed this on TV back then. Nowadays only something like South Park could get away with that". Although the two shows dealt with some of the same topics, they dealt with them in drastically different ways. "All in the Family" is a much more crude approach to getting the message out there, where "Modern Family" is open to the ideas and makes it seem much more normal and accepting to the viewer.