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.