Well, this is the last day of class. I just have to turn in my paper and then I'm done. It's been...well it's been an online community college class. Those things considered, it was pretty good. Will I keep using this blog? We'll see, but probably not. That's what I use livejournal for.

ads

I decided to watch a series of shampoo ads for my assignment. Who created the message and why? Well, shampoo makers to sell shampoo. Who is the target audience? Young, affluent women based on the demographics of the ads. Aparantly, men don't wash their hair. Unless they have dandraff. Then it's OK. I'm not sure about "creative lanuage" but there are quite a few buzzwords they like using. Thick, full, silky, shiney, strong, light, hold and a whole lot of scientific mumbo jumbo like B vitamins, formula, tested, proven, fortified, extract etc. How did the message make me feel? It made me want to have nicer hair! How might people react differntly? Well, like I said, their are very few men in these ads. Guys might be disuaded from buying the brand because they think it's girly. Also, some of the ads I watched, like the ones for Prell or Pert Plus were from the 80s and emphasised big, full bodied hair. Watching it now, the dated hairstyles might be a turn off. Most of the newer ads emphasis shiney, pinstraight hair. As for values, lifestyles and points of view, the dated ads emphisised wealth with posh outfits, jewelry, women going to the gym etc. The newer ones show young, free spirits. Women dance in the streets and go to outdoor parties. Both types of ads imply that the shampoo with attract the opposite sex. Noone old, ugly, poor, gay or unhappy is to be seen.

distrust of Television

I think one of the reasons that people stopped trusting television as much was the gradual realisation that it might not be telling the whole truth. There were a series of scandals, like the rigged quiz shows and the misreporting of the Bay of Pigs. After a few incidents like this it becomes harder to write them off as isolated.

week whatever

I'm a bit behind with this one, but better late than never.

I watched the "I have a dream" speech on Youtube. It was an interesting listen. King has a powerful voice, and the speech probably would have sounded as powerful on radio as TV. But the advantage that TV has is in the crowd. The shots of the huge crowd outside of the Lincoln Memorial that has gathered from all over to this event are powerful, and couldn't be replicated on radio.

Fourth week

I'm not quite sure how to sum up my idea of 50s television in one image (which is the assignment for you mythical people reading this who aren't in my class) but here goes.

I like this image not just because it's very "period" but because it symbolizes the authority of TV at the time. If you said something on TV you were assumed to be both intelligent and informed about your topic. Part of this might be because we were more trussing and naive, and part of it might be that the criteria for appearing on television back in the day really was stricter back in the day.

For the copyright bit, this image is from a now-finished ebay auction that I found through LiveJournal. Here is the link. http://i21.ebayimg.com/04/i/000/fe/38/87ab_1.JPG

Third Week

So, I have to list what I learned that was interesting, surprising and new to me. Well, I though all the back room shenanigans and other shady deals involved in bringing radio and TV to life were interesting. These sort of things usually don't come to light until years after. The thing I found surprising, and I might be getting ahead here, is the fact that color TV was ready in some form two decades before the viewers got to see it. The new information was exactly how the systems of advertising were different back in the day. You see ads for a multitude of things on shows now, instead of shows having just one sponsor.

Second Week

For my "Classic" TV assignment, I watched the Doctor Who story Spearhead from Space. For a more modern show, I watched a few episodes of Third Rock from the Sun. One of the most obvious differences would be the picture clarity. Even with restoration, the UNIT era episodes of Doctor Who don't come close to anything done today. 

Spearhead from Space was also serialized. This wasn't that unusual to do back in the day. Another prominent example I can think of is Rocky and Bullwinkle. I think it harkens back to radio, when serialized stories that kept the listener tuning back in with cliffhangers was the norm. Some modern shows, like Lost for example, use cliffhangers and story arcs, but I think that most shows today prefer stand alone episodes.

One of the differences that I didn't expect was just how studio bound third rock was as opposed to all of the location footage in Doctor Who. You would have thought that the older show would have been more studio bound. Part of it might be the genre difference. Sitcoms are less reliant on visuals than action shows are.

The pacing was different as well. The entire Spearhead from Space arc would probably be crammed into a much shorter time frame nowadays. Just look at the new series. Whether this would be to the show's benefit or detriment is debatable. Some classic stories are notoriously saggy in the middle and featured a lot of unnecessary "corridor acting", that is actors running up and down hallways to pad the run time. Still, I sometimes find that the relaxed pace of an old story is a welcome change to a rushed, ADD inducing modern drama.

That turned out to be a lot about Doctor Who and very little about Third Rock from the Sun, didn't it? Well, it's me. What did you expect?