english – English 1102: Television and Feminism

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Cinematic Crash

On November 13, 2018

Image of the plane crash from Scandal S1E

Good evening, people. I am signing on just one more time. In my last blog post, I plan to revisit cinematic elements in the Scandal show, but in episode 5, “Crash and Burn”. The cinematographers capitalize on portions of the show where characters face tragedy and crises. Specifically, the cinematographic tactics used when Olivia and her team see the plane crash site and when they listen to the black box recording of the crash.

This episode begins with the disappearance of Pope and Associates’ client, Amanda Tanner. The team goes into a frenzy and cameras switch quickly between their faces as they scramble around. The show then suddenly cuts to Quinn and Harrison stumbling down a hillside to discover the horror of a deadly plane crash. The cameras flash horrific images of burned plane pieces, smoking fabrics, scattered clothes, and even dismembered body parts. Then, it pans back to the shocked faces of Quinn and Harrison. Dramatic music plays in the background and there is a grim filter on the lens as it blinks between these somber pictures. I believe Rhimes and her directors wanted Scandal viewers to feel the gravity of the situation just as Quinn and Harrison were experiencing. Olivia and her client, the husband of the plane’s pilot, visit the site later, and the somber mood is amplified by the client’s explanation that the red flags symbolized parts of passengers bodies. The cameras then proceed to pan around the crash site to demonstrate the hundreds of red flags scattered throughout the smothering plane pieces and all along the ground.

However, I think the most cinematographically intense scene occurs when Olivia and her team must listen to the black box recording of the crash. The pilots start out just conversing between each other in a friendly manner and the camera remains zoomed out at a long distance from the team while they listen. But, as the action picks up and the crewmembers become increasingly stressed, the camera starts focusing in closely on the facial expressions of Olivia’s team. Eventually, the camera starts cutting faster and faster between their horrified faces as the recording on the box intensifies. Finally, after all this action has built up, the camera stops on Olivia’s face, which fills the entire frame, at the exact moment that the plane crashes and the audio cuts out. Thus, viewers are left with her intense look filling the screen and it is completely silent. This very dramatic sequence of cinematographic elements increases the heart rate and suspense of viewers as they watch and listen carefully to this scene, just as the team’s heart rate and suspense rose when they listened to the black box recording.

Therefore, I believe in this episode of Scandal, the cinematographers desire to use their filmographic art to connect the viewers to the emotions and experiences of Olivia and her team.

Moral Compass and Actin’ Pompous

By Callie Anderson

On November 6, 2018

In Review Topic 4

Good evening fellow Scandal fans!!

** these Scandalous feelings got me like…

Tonight, we are discussing THEME. The final episode of Scandal’s first season deals heavily with the theme of morality. Almost every single main character is shown facing questions about their morality. A long chain of immoral actions and unethical decisions becomes a vicious cycle as the culprits start lying in order to cover their previous mistakes.

Well, let’s begin at the start of the episode. It opens with a very gruesome scene that places Quinn at the scene of a horrific murder. Instead of calling the police, Quinn calls Olivia. Together the team argues over whether they are willing to break the law and risk their freedom to defend someone they barely know. Ultimately, they decide to break the law, not because they care about protecting Quinn, but solely because of their fierce loyalty to Olivia.

From here, the show depicts how Billy, the victim’s actual murderer, copes with his actions. He must decide whether he will come clean, run away, or cover it up. Initially, Billy really grapples with himself after killing the victim. In private, he struggles with his emotions, but he puts on a brave and innocent face in public. Billy finally decides to lie about this incident and make up an additional issue concerning the President, raising further questions of morality.

Next, the President must decide how he will handle his immorality. At first, it seems as if Fitz will do the unthinkable and actually tell the truth about his affair(s). Shockingly, his wife and former mistress (Olivia) convince him to lie about his affair with the office aide.

Finally, David, the Attorney General, condemns Olivia and her team for breaking the law. He calls himself the law and states he will always keep it. However, in the very last scene, we see David conflicted with compassion and the moral high ground. Thankfully for Quinn, David chooses compassion. But, we can tell this decision still really bothers him, as he feels he is betraying his country and his duty to uphold justice in this country.

Overall, this particular episode of Scandal desires to demonstrate to viewers that each human on this earth will face different questions of morality. In this episode, the show asks the hard questions like, “Is doing the right thing always right for everyone?” or “Is kindness more important than justice?” and of course, “How do you internally handle your immorality?”

Obviously, a show called Scandal will be dealing with some aspects of immorality. But, by showing how each character wanted to respond to the immorality they faced, versus what they ended up doing, Scandal shows us that the world is not strictly black and white. Sometimes good people do bad things for the right reasons. Sometimes bad people do good things for no reason. And, sometimes people just don’t know what they are doing at all, but they desire the best for others.

Fresh Outta Film School

By Bailey Moore

On November 6, 2018

In Review Topic 3

Fresh Off the Boat has a fresh visual design. The colors are bright, the cuts are quick, and the color scheme is warm. This show is so wholesome that it even reflects in the visual design. The colors are warm schemed, reflecting the warmth of the show and the inviting characters as the series wants to display their family dynamic. This has the effect of carrying over the program’s lightheartedness. There are no gloomy days, dark scenes, or special effects in the show. It is very clean cut and looks bright and cheery even when nighttime scenes are shown.

Image result for fresh off the opening gif

fight like sisters, love like sisters

The show has mostly longer scenes, with a plotline falling over an average to long timeframe, but shots are quick and clean. Conversations between characters are shot with quick cuts between each perspective, ping-ponging between lines of dialogue. Every once in a while scenes are shot differently, like the opening of Episode 7, when the Huang’s are in a mock robbery scene. The opening of the showtimes special edits with riffs and music. The narration is paired with shots, especially when narrating the thoughts of multiple characters at a time, which the show does often. These long takes help the development of the show by allowing for longer jokes and humor with better punchlines and more drama between the characters. Scene 7 also shows a fantasy of Eddie Huang wanting to hit on his crush, who he is intimidated by, by showing her his music taste. In this scene, he gets up to walk back to her and enters a fantasy edit with backup dancers and an autotuned bus driver. More intimate scenes, like one on one conversations between the mom and dad, are shot closer up, leading you into the conversation as if you were there. If it weren’t shot this close, it would feel as though you are observing something private, and may lose engagement with viewers.

the way they look at each other <3

I find the intro of the show interesting cinematographically because it uses unique panning styles and zooms not used in the actual showtime. In the title sequence as well as most of Eddie’s scenes, the music is paired with the style of the shot. Zooms have riffs, sexy scenes have jazz, happy scenes have elevator music and Eddie’s got his 2pac. Is this show Straight Outta Compton or Straight Outta Suburbia?

From SNL to Portlandia: Fred Armisen’s Comedic Evolution

By Adam Lederer

On November 5, 2018

In Review Topic 6, Uncategorized

Fred Armisen of SNL and Portlandia fame, smiling with vampire fangs at an awards show

Fred Armisen gained notoriety in the comedic sphere through his rise on NBC hit Saturday Night Live, being one of the longest running actors in the show’s lengthy history. In 2011, he ventured to independently create a comedy show with Carrie Brownstein called Portlandia – a show making fun of the culture in Portland, Oregon and offering unique comedic insights on American culture at large. With my final blog post, I will be analyzing Fred in his these two shows of his that are also what he is best known for.

Fred Armisen’s role as an actor on both shows was relatively similar. In both shows, Armisen played a variety of characters rather than just one, which expressed his comedic diversity and acting ability. On Portlandia specifically, Armisen even played both male and female characters. One of his most famous characters on this show was a female feminist bookstore owner who was supposedly one of the most “woke” in all of Portland. This is a character that is very much similar to one that Armisen would play on SNL, with multiple appearances on different types of sketches like “Weekend Update” or “The Californians.”

However, Armisen also evolved his comedy after leaving Saturday Night Live to act on his own show. One of the most notable differences between the two shows was Armisen’s insightful cultural comedy that was a product of him and Carrie Brownstein’s own writing. Armisen provided through his characters many satirical observations of the slow paced life in Portland, Oregon. Through a variety of characters, he would point out the absurdities of youth and Portlandish culture associated with it. In a way, the show is a whimsical look at adolescence as a whole. Armisen and Brownstein’s characters represent all of us in our youth, with an idealistic view of the world and how it works. Armisen is truly a great comedic mind, and I know that there is a lot of great cultural commentary left in him. It will be interesting to see what direction he takes next.

Writing the wrongs in Portlandia

By Adam Lederer

On November 4, 2018

In Review Topic 2

Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen, the minds behind cult hit Portlandia

Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen are two faces that were easily recognizable in the comedy scene prior to their creation of Portlandia, so when they joined forces to write a new show in 2011, many were buzzing with anticipation. Not after long, the show was already winning multiple awards, largely due to the writing efforts of Brownstein and Armisen. This blog post will be focused specifically on the writing of season 3 episode 3 called “Missionaries.”

The writing in this episode is credited to both Brownstein and Armisen. They are also the lead actors in the show, which makes their command of their characters masterful, as they know exactly how the dialogue was intended to be portrayed. The core plot of this episode is that the mayor of Portland is asking Fred and Carrie to pull some more residents into Portland from rival city Seattle. They go about this by doing missionary type work, spreading the good word of Portland. The writing is very meticulous at parts, getting across the key point that there must be a parallel drawn between what they are doing and actual missionary work. For example, they say stuff like, “have you heard the good word of Portland,” or “have you considered accepting Portland into your life.” These comedic parallels are great writing, striking at the point that people often go about working very hard on certain tasks where if they were to step out of the box and think critically for a brief moment, they would understand the absurdity of what they are doing.

Furthermore, they get to the personality of Portland through this comedic writing through statements like, “Men, bring your bass guitars.” The dialogue is structured in such a way that there is much snarky back and forth that adds to the comedic nature of the show. Overall, it is a very funny episode with lots of great writing that I would highly recommend.

Long Takes and Heartaches

By Callie Anderson

On October 16, 2018

In Review Topic 3

CINEMATOGRAPHY in Scandal

Camera Crew with Kerry Washington on the set of ScandalS

Season 1, Episode 6, of Scandal dives into the story of how Olivia and Fitz’s notorious affair began on the campaign trail. The episode is the most fitting to study cinematography within the show because very distinct cinematic strategies and elements are used to tell the backstory and current status of the relationship.

The show is shot very methodically and has a few captivating cinematic characteristics I would like to specifically point out. For example, opening scenes and occasional transitions are shot with pans through the background setting or behind an unfocused blocking object before focusing on characters. In addition, Scandal is filmed with extremely close-up shots. A large majority of the scenes in this episode and others are purely facial. Scenes with two or fewer people hardly ever show below the shoulders of the actors.

Another factor in the cinematography and filming direction of the show is the length of takes. The most notable length of cuts are the very long scenes of just Olivia and Fitz. This episode, in particular, emphasizes their alone time through lengthy takes with only their faces in the frame. For example, twice in the episode, Fitz asks for just “one minute” of silence with Olivia and the cameras grant him both of those moments in full. The only short takes with these two characters are during sensual scenes. During the sex scene, the camera spends very little time on each frame and there are nearly a hundred different takes within the two-minute scene. The intro itself is a flash of multiple images within two seconds with a clicking noise, which imitates the paparazzi cameras. I believe the directors wanted to stay true to the theme of the theme of the show, its namesake, scandal. The longer scenes with Olivia and Fitz are more romantic and pure. Meanwhile, the sex scene being more inappropriate (since Fitz is married) is much shorter and filmed like the intro, insinuating the scandal that it is.

In regards to lighting, the show uses it to reveal mood and dictate morality. Olivia and Fitz’s scenes are always dark with a few warm colors, indicating romance and a sensual tone. During interviews, debates, and other campaign events, the scenes are very bright. I believe this is to show how the darkness attempts to hide the affair, but the lights used during the campaign events follow the old narrative that where there is light, there is truth. Thus, a brightly lit campaign demonstrates a candidate of truth. However, the darkness tries to hide reality.

The use or lack of color may be the most distinguished cinematic element in the episode. The directors choose to desaturate the frames in order to reveal flashback moments. This specific episode, “The Trail” explores the Grant campaign trail of two years prior and details the evolution of Olivia and Fitz’s affair. Therefore, the lack of color in certain scenes is what tells viewers that this happened previously.

Jessica Jones’ Suspenseful Writing

By Matthew Ramberger

On October 13, 2018

In Review Topic 2

Dana Baratta wrote most of Jessica Jones season 1, but today I am going to analyze just episode 5. Baratta is known for writing several other shows such as The Secret Circle and Red Widow, but Jessica Jones is definitely what she is most famous for. She is responsible for most of the dialogue in Jessica Jones which is one of the most important aspects of the show.

The dialogue in Jessica Jones helps define the show and make it the great show that it is. Whether it be dramatic pauses or heated arguments, the dialogue helps add to the characters and plot to make the show amazing. Everything each character says fits in perfectly with their persona which helps make every conversation impacting and meaningful.

Most of the dialogue this episode is between different characters, but there are several points in the episode where there is no dialogue at all for a few minutes over a scene. Silence is used in this episode to make certain scenes more intense or scary for the viewers. These scenes are usually when Jessica is spying on someone or if there is a fight or chase. There is usually music or background noise during these scenes. This leaves the viewers to react in their own way to this scene and add to its suspense.

Jessica Jones Scene

During this scene, Jessica follows her neighbor Malcolm while he meets with her enemy Kilgrave. This is all done without dialogue, which makes certain parts awkward and others intense.

There are several flashbacks in this episode which gives certain characters more character development and lets the viewers know why some things are happening. Flashbacks this episode are primarily used to give viewers more context on Jessica’s past and add to her character.

Overall, the dialogue in this episode of Jessica Jones is mainly just people talking to each other with several flashbacks to give context. There are no voiceovers this episode, and there is rarely ever one in other episodes. Jessica Jones relies a lot on silence and the show wouldn’t be what it is today without it. This show relies solely on conversation dialogue and silence to keep it going and its viewers engaged.

New Girl: Simple Cinematography Unlike the Normal Sitcom

By Navya Katragadda

On September 9, 2018

In Review Topic 3

While watching New Girl, the show takes on the generic format of a T.V. sitcom with quick shots where the camera will shift to the character speaking. Throughout the episode, specifically during the most recent episode, “Kryptonite”, the shots would consist of the characters talking to one another, and the camera would quickly shift to the face of another to highlight their reaction to the others. The reactions of characters to each other is the main basis of comedy for this show. The quick shots are important to the show because they keep the audience engaged. In fast-moving shows like New Girl, quick and dynamic shots are important because if the camera work is not crisp, the audience is likely to get bored.

In terms of lighting, the show is very well lit. The episodes are generally colorful as Jess has a very colorful personality and it’s enhanced by the background of the shots. Specifically, in this episode, about half of the episode is shot outside which is different from the previous episode, where most of the episode took place within the apartment where all the main characters live. The color scheme of this episode was still colorful but even when the characters were outside, the colors were still a bit subdued. I believe that the colors were subdued at times to fit the theme of the episode. The episode was about Jess getting over a breakup and finding herself again and it could represent Jess losing the happy part of herself for a guy for a period of time.

The directors of cinematography and visuals of New Girl do a great job of keeping the audience engaged without being overwhelming. This means that the cinematography is very simple

This shows how the camera shifts from one character to another

Usually, sitcoms have fake audience laughter in the background and more sound effects to enhance the show. This allows New Girl to be more simple and for the comedy to be more natural through the show. Watching New Girl has been great because it’s a simple, funny and unique T.V. show that always finds new ways to make me laugh!

A Semi-Boring Introduction to my Boring Self

By Navya Katragadda

On September 3, 2018

In Intro Post

Hi! My name is Navya Katragadda and I am a first-year Biomedical Engineering major from Smyrna, Georgia. I expect to graduate in 2022 from Tech (hopefully). I have taken English courses consistently since Kindergarten which has been interesting since English was not my first language. In high school, Literature classes were always my favorite and to be exact, I have always loved reading and analyzing poetry. This is my first English class here at Tech and I couldn’t be more excited. I definitely prefer reading and writing as forms of communication over speaking up in class, which is something I struggle with. Since I prefer writing/electronic communication, I am very excited to use Twitter this semester. This semester in English 1102, I hope I can improve my speaking and use it more efficiently as a way of communicating with my classmates and professor.

Even before this class, I have always been an avid watcher of television. I have seen every show from an 80’s sitcom to a 2018 drama series. Watching TV and sharing opinions with my friends has always been something that I have enjoyed, especially in the past few years. Not only do I watch many American series’, I watch many shows in multiple languages, such as in Hindi, Spanish and Korean. Considering that I love television, I am very excited about this course.

The awkward hilarious female lead that I am very excited to see on screen (:

This semester, I have chosen to review New Girl. New Girl is about a young teacher who moves in with three single guys into an apartment and documents her adventures with love, life, and friendship. The show follows the relationships that form between characters and their unique personalities. I chose this show due to a few reasons. First, the main character is a woman and three of the other main characters are men. It seems to be an interesting watch as how the female is portrayed in relation to the male characters throughout the show. It also seems like a fun and comedic show so I am very excited to watch and continue to document my thoughts on the show throughout the semester!

English 1102: Television and Feminism

Dr. Casey Alane Wilson • Georgia Institute of Technology

Tag: english

Cinematic Crash

Moral Compass and Actin’ Pompous

Fresh Outta Film School

From SNL to Portlandia: Fred Armisen’s Comedic Evolution

Writing the wrongs in Portlandia

Long Takes and Heartaches

Jessica Jones’ Suspenseful Writing

New Girl: Simple Cinematography Unlike the Normal Sitcom

A Semi-Boring Introduction to my Boring Self

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