Blog evaluation

I had used a blog before RTF 305. I used it while I was a Texas Youth Ambassador to Taiwan. Part of the Youth Ambassador program was detailing our experiences each day in a blog in order to share our impression of the culture.

The positive aspects of using the blogs in this course were that they were short enough to not be a super stressful burden, but long enough to learn from. I really liked that we didn’t have any burdensome long writing assignments. Also, it was kind of fun to be able to do a writing assignment in a creative way. I felt that the blogs were a way to make sure I looked over my notes and actually registered the class material.

I didn’t really encounter any difficulties with my blog.

The blog prompts that were most useful were the ones asked us to go find a real life example of a term used in the course. For instance, the prompt involving globalization and the one on media theories were useful. I felt the ones that asked us to find examples from movies were less useful because I spent a great deal of time scanning through a movie rather than applying the term.

I would definitely recommend using blogs in other courses and again in RTF 305. However, that is only if the blogs were the primary written assignments. If the blogs were implemented in addition to other assignments, I feel they would just be a nuisance.

I would suggest giving out the blog assignments sooner. Perhaps even give out all of the blog prompts at the beginning of the semester with reminders right before the blogs ware due.

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

Disney Worldwide

Globalization has become a major factor in the way the world is shaped. Globalization is the process of increasing interconnectedness among nations, cultures, and people. In other words it is the widespread exchange of ideas between different areas that cause changes in culture. It is greatly facilitated and increased with technological developments, especially ones that accelerate communication.

Globalization is highly connected to cultural imperialism. Cultural imperialism is where one nation’s culture becomes strongly present in another nation’s everyday activities, but not the other way around. This means that there is a very unequal flow of culture. Often, cultural imperialism is referred to in terms of one culture forcing itself upon another or manipulating a market to cause culture to be adopted.

One wonderful example of cultural imperialism is the Disney Corporation. Disney has performed cultural imperialism to the full extent of its definition. I would like to discuss two examples of this; first, Disneyland Hong Kong. I have embedded a guide to Hong Kong Disneyland. If you watch it and compare it to Disneyland or Disney World in the US, you may notice that is practically identical to the US versions, only with Asian people riding the rides. The guide talks about “stepping back in time to a turn of the century street.” This is not a turn of the century street in China. It is definitely an American Street. However, Disney has transferred American culture to Hong Kong to such an extent that the Disneyland visitors don’t seem to feel out of place while immersed in a very American Fantasy World. This shows cultural imperialism because a large amount of American culture has become present in Hong Kong, but, in comparison, America has adopted almost no Asian culture. Another example of Disney’s cultural Imperialism is in the movie market in Taiwan. When I was in Taiwan last summer, my youth ambassador delegation went to the movies with our hosts. We were expecting a Taiwanese film, but found ourselves watching Toy story 3 in English. Disney has so successfully embedded American culture in Taiwan that my Taiwanese friends there don’t even think twice about watching an American Movie in English. Disney has done this all over the world, which makes the Disney Corporation a perfect example of globalization via cultural imperialism.

Should your man smell like an old spice man? You tell me.

The Old Spice commercials are some of the most powerful and persuasive advertisements I have ever seen. They are all very powerful, but I have chosen the “swan dive” one for this exercise. It is a video that has an extremely good looking, ripped man with a sexy voice who asks the women of the audience to compare their men to “an Old Spice man.” The man in the commercial is the embodiment of a dream guy who does amazing things. At the end of the commercial, he asks the women in the audience if their man “should smell like an old spice man.” It is so powerful because it implies to the women of the audience that if their men used Old Spice body wash, then they would be as amazing as the Old Spice Man. It also instills jealousy and insecurity in the men of the audience because their women are comparing them to a man who is, by far, a better catch than they are. This makes the men want to improve their status, and conveniently, the ad presents using old spice body wash as a way to do this.

Almost all of the advertising appeals discussed in class apply to this add. One of the strongest of these is the achievement. Prominence, and attention appeal. The general characteristics of this type of appeal are that the appeal makes the target audience feel that the product will make them more successful, prominent, and noticeable. Ads that use this appeal try to show the accomplishments that their product will make easier. They also show people who have achievement, prominence and popularity so that the audience will associate the product with those characteristics.

The Old Spice commercial exemplifies this appeal because it asks the audience to compare men who don’t use old spice body wash to the old spice man, who is the embodiment of achievement prominence and attention. For example, the ability to build a kitchen by hand that is referenced is an appeal to achievement. The popularity of the old spice man is an appeal to prominence. And the fact that women pay attention to the commercial is an appeal for men’s desire for attention. Overall, the ad is very effective and entertaining.

The Princess Bride and the Three Act Film structure

The Hollywood three act film structure can be applied to The Princess Bride. This structure works well with this movie because it has a “happy ending” plot.

The first act, the introduction, is about 36 minutes long which is not far from the general 30 minute Hollywood introduction. During the introduction, the characters are introduced, the princess is kidnapped (which is the main conflict of the movie), and the Dread Pirate Roberts challenges the kidnappers. All of these are essential things to understand for the rest of the movie. The plot point of this act is when Princess Buttercup realizes that the Dread Pirate Roberts is her love, Wesley. This plot point sets of the possibility for conflict in the rest of the film.

The second act, the complication, occurs over approximately the next 30 minutes of the movie. During this part of the plot, Buttercup bargains her love for Wesley’s life, and the Prince’s corruption and plans to kill both Wesley and Buttercup are revealed. Complication also occurs with Inigo and Fezzik being split up. The major plot point of the complication is when the Prince, in a rage, sucks 50 years of life out of Wesley. This escalates the stakes because, at this point, it seems impossible for him to save Buttercup.

The resolution in the third act begins when Fezzik and Inigo take Wesley to miracle max to get him healed. From this point on, things start to be resolved. The plot point of the resolution and climax of the entire film occurs just minutes before the end when Wesley stops Buttercup from committing suicide, and they are able to be together.

Overall, this film fits this structure very well.

Episodic Sitcoms: Full House

One of the main characteristics of TV sitcoms is their episodic nature. After all, we would be quite perplexed if we were to watch a sitcom, only to find, it only had one episode. However, the presence of episodes is not necessarily what makes most sitcoms episodic. There are several characteristics that make most sitcoms (but certainly not all), fall under the episodic label. First off, most sitcoms end about where they begin. It is not often that we see a sitcom take great twists and turns to make the sitcom into something new. Although things may change during episodes, the overall order of the world is often the same as in the beginning. Generally they follow the same predictable plot development. A problem is developed and introduced, the characters try to solve the problem, the issue is resolves, and everything is back to normal. This resolution usually contains a lesson or statement within it that raises and answers a central question. Furthermore, there is not much character arc. The status of the characters at the end of an episode is not far from where it was at the beginning. All of these common sitcom characteristics allow us to label most sitcoms as episodic.

One of my favorite sitcoms that this can be applied to is Full House. Full House follows about the same general plot structure during each episode, and in the end, one or more characters learns a lesson. Many times these lessons raised questions about family life or domestic issues. Although the characters status, age, and view of the world changed slightly over the years that full house ran, for the most part, from one episode to the next, the characters were static. These characteristics clearly make Full House an episodic show.

Shot Progression in Sherlock Holmes

In filmmaking, different shots and shot progression are used in order to convey meaning. Each shot gives the audience a new bit of information that they process; so different shots obviously convey a different meaning. To demonstrate this, I would like to use the example of one of the first scenes of Sherlock Holmes where the audience is first introduced to Watson.

This series of shots uses the conventional long shot to medium shot to close up. It begins with giving a long shot of the street and then zooming in slightly to focus on the window through which we see Watson for the first time. At this point it is still a long shot. This shot does not necessarily show lots of detail about Watson, but that is not its purpose. Rather, it orientates the audience to who is speaking and his location. It is simply showing us “this is Watson, he is a character.”

Next, the frame changes to a Medium shot inside the house. We see Watson from across the room talking with his to-be father-in law. This shot gives us more information. Before, we just knew that Watson was the man talking in the window, but now the audience can start to see more information about him- his environment, posture, attitude, ect. Overall, it gets the audience to start thinking about him.

Next, when Watson moves into the hallway talking to the secretary, there is a close up shot. This gives detail about him. We know more about his facial features and expressions, his clothes, and his character. Since the close up is while he is dealing with an issue, we can see the subtle nuances of how he deals with aversion (calm, cool, collected, but aware of the need for action.)

Through this series of shots, the audience is able to comprehend Watson as a character more thoroughly. There are many other examples of the same shot progression throughout the film, but they all show the same conclusion: different shots can convey a different message.

(pictures of these shots coming soon once I learn how to take a screen shot on a mac)

Genres in Classical Hollywood

During the Age of Classical Hollywood, the immensely vertically integrated studio system used many ploys to achieve success. One of the most interesting and important of these was the use of genres within filmmaking. Genres were employed to give audiences specific conventions to expect during the film, therefore telling them their likelihood of enjoying the film. The genres were simplified categories for types of stories that audiences identified with.

This affected the types of films a studio made because they could stick to a systematic formula for each film. Each genre would follow basically the same pattern, but perhaps with slightly different circumstances and actors. However, different actors were not guaranteed. In fact many actors became associated with one specific genre (for example John Wayne and Westerns). Therefore, the genres produced affected the actors who were cast. This formula based type of movie production created a predictable relationship between filmmakers and audiences because audiences knew what to expect and filmmakers could be relatively sure of the audience’s reaction to it. When social or political sentiment tuned against a genre (like it did with the idolizing Gangster Genre), film companies would turn to a different genre, like, in this case, detective films. Genres further influenced film development when it came to hybrid genres. Filmakers could create highly sensational hits by mixing genres and therefore giving movies a sense of novelty. Furthermore, if one genre was popular, you could be sure that the studios would pump out more movies from that genre. Overall, the supply and demand of different genres determined what kinds of movies were made and watched.

One example how the genre system worked can be seen in the evolution from gangster films to detective films to hybrid films. Gangster films were very popular and the audiences had a very high demand for them. However, the effect of idolizing vicious criminals was called to question, so the industry shifted to the detective genre. From there, they shifted to hybrids of detective film and other genres. This entire genre evolution can be seen in conjunction with the star system and Humphrey Bogart’s career. He started out his career in gangster movies and then transitioned to the hard-boiled detective in detective films, and then to a hybrid of detective and romance in the Maltese Falcon. The elements of several genres can be seen in the embedded trailer from The Maltese Falcon.