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Making and Unmaking Meaning in Television: From I Love Lucy to Modern Family

Making and Unmaking Meaning in Television: From I Love Lucy to Modern Family. HUM 3085: Television and Popular Culture Spring 2014 Dr. Perdigao January 24-27, 2014. Modernization and Resuscitation. Modern Family premiered on September 23, 2009 on ABC

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Making and Unmaking Meaning in Television: From I Love Lucy to Modern Family

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  1. Making and Unmaking Meaning in Television: From I Love Lucy to Modern Family HUM 3085: Television and Popular Culture Spring 2014 Dr. Perdigao January 24-27, 2014

  2. Modernization and Resuscitation • Modern Family premiered on September 23, 2009 on ABC • Success for network that had rejected The Cosby Show, saying that sitcoms were dead: (http://entertainment.time.com/2014/01/22/why-nbcs-new-bill-cosby-show-wont-solve-its-sitcom-problems /) • Self-analysis worked into show’s format, self-analysis, self-exposure • “Baring the device,” breaking the fourth wall • Use of the set, staging • The Cosby Show and the Huxtable home • Multi-camera mode, live studio • Single camera, three storylines in Modern Family

  3. Modes of production • Multi-camera live studio production: origins in radio, adaptation in 1940s in television (Mittell 164) • Almost every form of television in the 1940s was broadcast live; exceptions in 1940s and 1950s in stand-alone plays, anthology drama (167) • Single-camera telefilm production: from early days but increase in popularity • Base in Los Angeles vs. New York (168) • Hollywood filmmaking • Single camera to shoot scene from particular angle • Master shot as distant shot to cover entire scene (168)

  4. Experiments in Form • Extensive postproduction process but benefits in flexibility in location shooting • Durability and high-quality of the medium, higher resolution (Mittell 169) • Dragnet as breakthrough program to popularize telefilms on major network (169) • Quality of picture in reruns as another benefit (170) • Multi-camera telefilm studio production: example of I Love Lucy, hybrid form • Demands of actors—production in Hollywood and shooting on film (171) • Desilu Studios created to absorb the costs, financing the show (172)

  5. The Great Divide • Performed in television studio in front of a live audience but cameras recorded action to tape, then editing in post-production (Mittell 172) • Emergence of videotape in the 1950s as key development that innovated the medium (173) • Live-to-tape programming popular in the 1960s • Live-edited videotaped sitcoms: All in the Family, Roseanne, Everybody Loves Raymond • Live-edited videotaped sitcoms feature “limited settings, character relationships, and longer scenes”; themes “emphasize domestic life and the community of a family or workplace” (175)

  6. Experiments in Form • Most comedies shot in multi-camera studio mode, with live audience giving feedback (Mittell 252) • Live broadcast in early 1950s, shift after I Love Lucy’s use of multi-camera telefilm system, live-to-tape model in the 1970s (252) • Single-camera telefilm system: M*A*S*H (1972-1983), 1990s and 2000s: Malcolm in the Middle (2000-2006), My Name is Earl (2005-2009), The Office (2005-2013) (252-253) • Telefilm sitcoms feature “more editing, varied locations, and multiple storylines that are controlled and paced through postproduction editing” (Mittell 175)

  7. Stylistic analysis • Staging: set, props, lighting, costume, makeup, and actor movement and performance (Mittell 177) • Film’s mise-en-scène (177) • Camerawork • Capturing the image, style of shooting • Speed of motion

  8. Perspective • Lenses • Focal length: “alters the degree of magnification and depth of an image” (Mittell 185) • “[A] long focal length makes objects appear closer to the camera than they truly are, while shorter focal lengths can create the illusion of objects appearing farther from the camera” (185) • Telephoto lens: used to “capture images from far away” (185)

  9. Perspective • Wide-angle lenses use short focal lengths; “fisheye” distortion but allow panoramic shots (185) • Longer focal length=compresses depth, flattened image (185) • Shorter focal length=increases depth, deeper space (185)

  10. Focus • Depth of field: “range of distance from the camera in which images can be in focus” (187) • Rack focus: Alters focal plane to shift what part of the image is sharp and clear; changing focus from one character to another (background vs. foreground in focus, quick change) (188) • Framing: camera constructing the image, giving sense of space • Establishing shot: Extreme long shot that “sets the scene from a distance” (189) • Long shot: More details in a scene, sense of space (190)

  11. One fish, two fish • Two shot: Two people converse within the frame • Three shot: Three characters • Two shot west: Soap operas; one person stands in front of the other, both peer beyond the camera; two do not see each other’s reactions (191) • Closeup: Intimacy and emotional expression, fills frame with person’s face (192) • Medium closeup: Frames person’s chest to top of his head

  12. Orientation • Extreme closeup: “[A]llows an isolated detail, object, or body part to fill the screen” (192) • Low angle shot: Camera shooing from below, making object/people seem larger • High angle shot: Camera shooting from above, making object/people seem smaller (192) • Canted shot: Camera shoots at an angle, creating sense of disorientation (192)

  13. Camera movement • Tilt • Dolly and tracking shots • Crane shot • Hand-held cameras

  14. Editing • Continuity editing: Natural, realistic feel; continuity of time, space • Cut: Switch from one shot to another (197) • Jump cut: “jars and distorts viewers by breaking continuity” (196) • Shot/reverse shot: Back-and-forth editing between closeups in a dialogue (197)

  15. Transitions • Fade-outs: To a black screen • Fade-ins: From black screen to illumination • Dissolves: Transition from one shot to another, images briefly overlapping (200) • Wipes: Line or shape appears on the screen as one image is replaced with another (200)

  16. Fragmentation • Cross-cutting: Establishes parallels between storylines, continuity (200) • Flashback: Transition to earlier point in the story • Split-screen: Division of physical space of the frame (204)

  17. Storytelling • Diegesis: The world created in the text, storytelling • Diegetic sound: Sound characters can hear: dialogue, noises within the scene, and music onsite (209) • Nondiegetic sound Sound only audience can hear, soundtracks, etc. (209) • Voiceover narration, often as framing device at the episode’s beginning and end • Internal voice of character; ex: Carrie’s narration on Sex and the City as diegetic, originating in storyworld • Extradiegetic narration: Existing in storyworld but not emerging from on-screen action; ex: Mary Alice from beyond the grave in Desperate Housewives or the retrospective narrator Kevin on The Wonder Years

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