3 Act Structure Legally Blonde

           As Professor Ramirez-Berg stated in his lecture on Monday, most of the films produced by Hollywood use the 3-Act Structure. The three act structure consists of the rising action, the climax, and the falling action. The rising action develops the story to let the viewer understand, what is happening. The climax is the peak of the movie, and is the most intense in terms of action and is most often the point where the problem for the character is identified. The falling action is the resolution to the problem, is at the very end of a movie, and informs the viewer of the moral lesson.

            Legally Blonde is an example of the 3 Act Structure. The rising action informs us that a blonde is going to go to Harvard Law School in order to show her ex boyfriend that she is intelligent. She goes to the school and finds that everyone thinks of her as a dumb blonde. When she realizes she has to prove herself to the teacher and students at Harvard, is a plot point that takes place during the rising action. The rising action in legally Blonde is about 45 minutes long.

            The Climax in this film takes place when Elle’s Professor comes on to her and she realizes that she is still being judged by her looks. This takes place around minute 80 in the movie. Elle’s first instinct is to give up, but instead she decides to fight back and prove her ability to become a lawyer.

            The falling action is the answer to Elle’s Professors’ come on. She talks to the client and gets the professor fired. She then goes to court and uses her common sense about beauty to prove that her client is innocent of murder. This wraps up the movie and shows the moral lesson, which is the good character, comes out on top. This all comes to an end in minute 96 of the film.

TV sitcom

       Colin Tain, discussed on Wednesday, some of the characteristics of TV sitcoms. One of the characteristics of a sitcom is that they are usually only a 30 minute show. Another characteristic discussed was that sitcoms are episodic, this means that each episode has a storyline, but the stories don’t necessarily build on one another. This makes it easy for the viewer to watch a sitcom, because if you miss an episode you still know what if happening. Sitcoms are usually based around the same characters, and every episode has a central point or problem, that is solved at the end of each episode.

       The characteristic can be applied to one of my favorite sitcoms, The Nanny. The Nanny was filmed in the 90’s as a 30 minute TV sitcom. The show was about a women in her 30’s that was desperate to get married and have a family, but since she has not married Mr. Right yet, she is working as the nanny for a high class family in New York, raising three children. In every episode the central point is the Miss Fine (the nanny) makes a mess of her bosses life or work, the episode is usually a storyline from the beginning of the mistake, to when the mistake has been corrected. Even though Miss Fine makes many mistakes she always keeps her job as The Nanny because of her love for the children and because of the unspoken love that her boss has for her.

Cast Away- 3 Shots

            A good example of the three types of shots that are discussed in Mondays lecture with Professor Ramirez-Berg, could be the scene in Cast Away when Chuck Noland, (Tom Hanks character) is about to be saved.

            In this scene the first shot we see is the long shot, this shot shows us Chuck, asleep, floating on the raft that he has made in the middle of the ocean. In this shot we see the open water, Chuck on his handmade raft, and we understand that chuck is all alone. This shot also helps us to connect the dots to where he is and how he got there, and that he is all alone.

            The next shot is the middle shot this is where Chuck Noland is waking up, in this shot we get a better view of the character, and a ship enters the scene. The middle scene is the information scene, the information we are receiving is that Chuck has drifted near civilization, and hopefully about to be discovered.

            The last shot of the sequence is the close up; this shot shows the face of Chuck Noland clearly. This up-close shot conveys the emotion to viewer that Chuck is feeling when he notices the ship is near. The emotion we see is the exhaustion, and determination to survive, even though Chuck is physically and mentally exhausted he does everything is his power to get the attention of someone on the ship.

Studio Systems

       Studio systems were an aspect of vertical integration in the film industry during the time of Classical Hollywood. The studio system was the use of famous actors and actresses (stars) to promote a studios film. This was done by studios having contract with these Stars. This affected the movies that studios made because the Stars usually played the same type of character in each movie; therefore most movies done within a studio were of the same genre. An example of this would be Warner Brother’s studios producing many crime and gangster movies during the time of classical Hollywood. Many of these films Warner Brothers films featured Humphrey Bogart, were he usually played a gangster.  This studio system made it easy for movies watchers to associate Stars with certain studios and the use of Stars made for easy film promotion.

Week 4 All in the Family

       “All in the Family” is a family-based TV show that aired in the 1960s, the show deals with issues that people of that era were starting to talk about and deal with.  “All in the family is different from contemporary family-based shows because they are very much more conservative. Even thought the 60’s were a time where society became more liberal, the language and physical nature of the show was still more conservative than the TV shows of today.

       The TV show “All in the Family” is the same as modern day TV shows in that the parents and the children have different opinions and views of the world. Neither of the views are wrong but they demonstrate a generation gap between the members of the family. The generation gap between family members can be seen in many TV shows that air today.

       “All in the Family” show the mother of the family being very agreeable and air-headed, in this show the man is very much in charge of the household. In today’s contemporary family-based TV situation comedy the man and women run the household together, with the mom sometimes being shown as the boss of the house. This shows how society has changed. “All in the Family” deals with some of the same prejudice that we deal with today.  Even though society is excepting homosexual people more and more, it has not been widely excepted everywhere.