Extra Credit.

Before taking this RTF 305 course I have never used a blog, as in writing one.  I’ve been addicted to PerezHilton.com for about a year now but creating one was never something I planned on doing.

I enjoyed making this blog because I was able to make sure I understood the material presented in this course.

The only difficulties I encountered was not knowing how to embed a video into on my post, but I decided to insert links so that I could still get my point across.

I liked the blog prompts that let us choose a piece of media and describe it.  For example I really enjoyed the on the 3 different types of shots (My Girl post), 3 Act Film (Hangover post), and the post when I talked about socially learning and ‘Mean Girls’, and Framing (Jersey Shore post).

I didn’t like the post that too specific, like the one I wrote on the Snuggie and the Star System.  They weren’t too exciting to write about because I was given the topic, especially on the Star System, and I didn’t always feel like I was writing on the correct topic.

I would recommend blogs for future courses, I think it’s an good way to get “homework” grades and it helps make sure that the student is understanding the assignment and/or the topic discussed in class.

I wouldn’t have blog that’s really specific, but then again the more specific the more you can tell if someone understands the material.

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

Globalization.

Globalization is simply connecting many different ideas and various things from all over the world through cultures, genre, people, and even technology.

Hybridization is easily relatable to globalization.  Hybrid is typically known as mixing or crossing 2 products and creating one, so in this case of making it media linked, hybridization is connecting two different ideas and displaying or presenting them together.

An example I can think of is the show ‘Ugly Betty’.  It originally began as a Colombian soap opera or telenovela titled ‘Yo soy Betty, la fea’ and ran in the US for 4 seasons.  ‘Ugly Betty’ follows Betty Suarez, America Ferrera, in her daily life encounters.  We get to meet Betty’s family and then we see her professional life at MODE magazine.   This show crosses a strong Latino family and puts Betty into this professional and predominately Caucasian atmosphere.  This was a twist of bringing a Spanish show to America and having the character in two different environments.

Advertisment: Snuggie.

An advertisement I've seen lately that has been in my mind is the snuggie ad.  We all know what the blanket with sleeves is.  Or as my friends back at home call it, "the backwards robe".  I sadly must admit I have one, it was something I saw at work and HAD to have it.  This ad convinced me I needed a snuggie so I could enjoy TV with arm freedom. 

I realize this sounds ridiculous but the creators of this ad made sure to make the name stick, within the ad I don't know how many times the word snuggie or snug was mentioned.  Repetition was their key.  The style was saying all the advantages of using the snuggie like being able to enjoy everyday life.  They also showed people (of all ages) in the snuggies and the various colors you can purchase them in.

I think my chosen ad shows off the appeal because during the ad, almost everything the narrator said was reinforced with the captions below.  This ad was a good attention grabber, and it also has a semi-catchy tune.  And even better you can get snuggies in more colors and even decorated in your college or sports team oh and they also started making them for dogs :)

Ad: Lookie here!

3 Acts of Films

After much consideration about what film to discuss, I have finally decided on the 2009 hit film, 'The Hangover'.  Believe me it was a hard decision, I thought about writing on 'My Girl' (of course), 'A Walk to Remember', & '21', but I think 'The Hangover' is possibly the best choice to write on the topic given.


The topic, write based on Professor Ramirez-Berg lecture regarding the 3 acts film structure.  The 3 acts are  the introduction which usually runs about 30 minutes, then the complication which is the "meat" of the movie and is 30 minutes to an hour in length, then the resolution is about 30 minutes and is the ending of the film.  I remember Professor Ramirez-Berg saying that the ending builds up then ends fairly quick. 


To start the film...


Introduction- The first 30 minuets or so we, the audience, gets to know the characters and understand what the main concept of the storyline is.  We learn that Doug is getting married, and he's going to Vegas with some friends (Phil, Stu, & Alan) a few days before his wedding.  We also learn a little background info on the characters that are involved in the rest of the film with Doug.


Complication- This is when the story gets going!  We see the guys go to Vegas and have a wild and an unforgettable (or in there case unmemorable) night.  The guys have a CRAZY night and when they wake up the following morning, they realize they have lost the groom, Doug.  So the boys retrace everything they did the night before and attempt to figure out what all happened.  The guys encounter many hilarious antics and the story line gets better (at lease in my opinion).  This section of the film fits within the 30-60 minute time frame.

SPOILER ALERT

Resolution- In the final minutes of the film, I'd say the last 20 minutes (give or take some), they gang finally finds Doug!  After all there back tracking they finally find Doug, then it's a race to the alter, literally.  We see the guys solved there problem which was Doug gone missing and they resolved the situation by finding him and getting him to his wedding. The movie ends with Doug's wedding.


(Not too sure, but I think the unrated version of the film ends with the camera scene, the one where the guys look at the camera one last time to see how wild of a weekend they had)
And the unrated version includes more extended scenes and runs about 10 minutes longer than the theatrical version.

Sitcoms.

A television drama is one of those shows; I consider being one that you have to watch the very first episode in order to understand the plot.  TV dramas are typically hour long shows that deal with some realistic and serious topics.  This type of show is also classified as serial; it follows a set storyline that keeps its audience interested.  This type of show is completely different than its counterpart are sitcoms.  Sitcoms don’t typically have a set plot that you necessarily have to watch and understand from episode to episode.  Sitcoms are usually about 30 minutes and sometimes predictable.  Each episode does have its own “problem” that gets resolved quickly within its half hour time frame.

A sitcom I enjoy is ‘The Simpsons’, this show has been on the air for years and even though I haven’t seen every single episode, I know I can watch it and know what’s going on.  As the seasons change, the characters never age; it’s always the same characters in the same way, just like the audience and grown to love.  ‘The Simpsons’ also tend to follow the seasonal focus, for example their Halloween specials they run during October and how they make episodes that revolve around certain topics going on at the time.

Click here to see one of my favorites scenes (from an older episode).

My Girl!

My all time favorite movie, ‘My Girl’ is based on a young girl, Vada  (Anna Chlumsky) who lives with her widowed father in a funeral home.  Her father, a mortician (DanAykroyd), hires a new cosmetician (Jamie Lee Curtis) and a love story develops.  This movie follows the life of Vada and deals with the various relationships she’s around, including the one with her best friend, Thomas J. (Macaulay Culkin).

This scene is what we call a medium shot (MS).  If you've seen the movie you'd know what is happening, I don't want to explain this scene without telling too much so I'll just explain why the MS is important here.  In this scene we see the scenery of the lake behind them and we see how comfortable they are with their friendship.

This shot is a close up (CU).  This shot was important to the film because since Vada's father is a mortician, she is pretty much obsessed with death.  At this point in the movie, Vada's father had just received a new body to arrange a funeral for.  Once she finds out how the newest body dies, Vada usually rushes to the doctor claiming she has the same illness.  This CU shows Vada's seriousness of believing she has the illness mentioned in the film.

This scene is one of the closest I could find for a long shot (LS).  I could think of a better example of when Vada is riding her bike away at the ending, but after thinking about LS's and this shot, I see that Vada in the background foreshadows what is to happen as the film progresses.  We see Vada is isolated to herself behind Thomas J.

Star System.

One point that stood out to me while studying the studio system was the star system.  The star system according to our book ‘Media Now’ is described as “a way film studios’ used stars’ popularity to promote their movies.”  This seemed important to me because it showed how corporations had the benefit of using the same stars for their movies and it was almost a guarantee of making money.

This affected the kinds of films made because companies were focused on using one particular actor/actress to make a lot of money for their productions.  Depending on what the actors strength was helped shape the film.  Studios could practically make movies about anything because they knew audiences would be high to support certain actors.  Another approach was using one popular star to promote another star. 

An example we used in class was MGM being a ‘Star Heaven’.  We learned about a young star, Judy Garland, who was discovered as a child (Andy Hardy Series) and she was put into many MGM productions.  The clip we watched in class was one with Garland in the production of ‘Dear Mr. Gable’.  We saw how Garland’s character referenced another MGM star, Clark Gable, as a fan who wrote letters to celebrities to her mother’s dismay. Garland sang about her love for Gable in the clip we saw in class.

Go here to see a clip I found of some MGM Stars.

Television Families.

When I think about shows from the past and compare them to current shows, there has definitely been a big change.  For example, when we watched “All in the Family” in class, we saw a family that showed a strong male presence in the father and had the wife as the ‘stay at home’ stereotype.  They also had the wife play the not so smart role.  We also saw in the episode that the father, Archie Bunker, had strong feeling towards homosexuality, whereas others in the storyline like his daughter and son-in-law didn’t have the same feelings. 

If we compare that to shows of today, we see female characters are stronger and don’t necessarily have to just stay around the house.  I see that topics presented haven’t changed much, but the approach to a certain issue has been censored.  I can’t compare the episode of ‘All in the Family’ to many other shows I’ve seen with the topic of homosexuality, because I watch a lot of reality shows, but when the topic arises, words from certain people are blurred/censored out.

On the subject of reality shows, television is mainly consisted of these reality trash shows that draw in HUGE rating and audiences.  I would really say the easiest way to say what each decade TV sitcoms are about depends on what’s going on/what’s popular at that time.  “All of the Family” dealt with gender/sexuality issues, whereas the shows I enjoy are about pop culture and complete, stupidity, and randomness.

Technological Changes.

As times change, I believe technology is one of the biggest factors that have influenced the radio industry in the 1920's.

According to dictionary.com, radio is defined as, 'transmitting a message, music, etc. by radio'. So, if we look to some of the earlier forms of technology used to do such things, we would begin with music boxes, nickelodeons, & jukeboxes. After those devices had there time we moved onto phonographs and record players, eventually we started having portable devices that we simply called radios that were moved into homes.  Now in the year 2010 we have much smaller and even more portable musical players that play radio as well as storing peoples personal favorites that are in mp3 format.  As 'radio' has been changed and improved, it has possibly in my opinion attracted more user by new designs along with what was being produced through the speakers!

From the lecture on music and radio, I remember being told that radios had initially dropped sales for the music industry, but eventually it helped in the long run. It has boosted sales because exposure of certain artists cause consumers to 'want more'.  This piece of technology was used for advertising and promotional purposes.  The radio could provide information/music to large audiences and was offered in such a way to please most people.

Socially Learning.

During this past Monday's lecture, Professor Straubhaar discussed the social learning theory.  This theory focuses on how tv impacts people.  The social learning theory is how people learn behaviors based on what they see through the television. 

I think the social learning theory has defiantly impacted our youth tremendously, especially when I see that my little cousins are no longer allowed to watch certain shows like ‘Tom & Jerry’ because they end up chasing each other around their house.

This concept is easily seen through children.  An example of children imitating what they see on tv can be seen in the film 'Mean Girls' starring Lindsay Lohan. There is a scene in which one of the main characters, Regina (Rachel McAdams), is talking to her mother (Amy Poehler) and you see her much younger sister watching an MTV show and imitating the dancing.  That shows how tv has captured the attention of a person and changed their behavior.

Click here to watch the ‘Mean Girls’ trailer.

Framing.

When I take a look around at all the media I take in on a daily basis, I've realized that companies deliver shows I enjoy in certain ways that don't show all the facts.  For example reality shows seem to show whatever it takes just for ratings.  One of my current favorites, Jersey Shore, has high ratings for MTV because they present the show in a way to keep its viewers wanting more!  The process of having an audience think a certain way is known as framing.  Jersey Shore has been framed to show the viewers drama, drama, and even more drama.

If you've ever seen an episode of Jersey Shore, you have seen partying, drinking and arguing.  While the cast has good times they also have some rocky times.  If we were to focus on the arguing for right now, a lot of their fighting and bickering is often one sided.  By one sided I mean, the producers show us scenes that lead to the climax but doesn't always show up everything that causes the action.  If you were to watch the reunion or the after shows, you'd hear the cast say sometimes say "that's not what happened" or "they didn't show it all" or they'll reveal things that happened once the cameras stopped rolling.  I've realized that if reality shows film constantly, they can only squeeze so much into an hour long show, so of course they aren't going to show everything.  Again, they show us exactly what's going to keep us wanting more, and I would say they are very successful in keeping me hooked.

If we take a look at this after show we see Ronnie and Sammi telling us about their relationship once the show ended.  We learn things that were not filmed, like Sammi flying out without Ronnie knowing.  If MTV had continued filming then the viewers would have be 'caught up' and not fallen into the drama and wanting to know what's going on.  The producers used framing in a way to boost their ratings for their after shows.  Once you're into a show, some people want to know more and more so of course they'd watch anything with their favorite characters involved!

-Kayla

RTF Blog #1!

Hey Everybody!

I'm Kayla Howard from Spring, Texas!  I am just beginning my college career here at UT!  I am in the currently in the Undergraduate Studies program, but hopes to declare the major of Sports Management soon... but this class may change my mind :)

To answer the original question as to why I decided to take RTF 305 I could easily break the answer down to it was part of my FIG.  During my orientation advising sessions I was given the opportunity to join a FIG and I started looking at my options.  While looking at the courses included with many FIGS, I decided on the one that had RTF even if I'd have to take Microeconomics.  RTF sounded like it would be something I would enjoy, since I pretty much use the radio, tv, and film on a daily basic.

My Daily Gossip Source :)