Juno in 3 Acts

The Hollywood Three-Act Structure is a commonly used story-telling tool within mainstream movie making in all it's forms, from action to comedy. This is because of a variety of factors: it's familiarity to the audience, it's ability to tell a story concisely and completely, it's broad usage and ability to function within any genre, etc. Even some movies today that are thought of as "independent" employ this structure. This is because it is a tried and true form of storytelling within film.

For example, in the 2007 film Juno, writer Diablo Cody employs three acts (a beginning, middle, and end) to tell the story of a pregnant teen and her search for adoptive parents for her yet-to-be-born child. Act 1 begins where the film does, and is used as the introductory act. In this film, it is where we are introduced to the first plot point (Juno MacGuff's realization that she is pregnant), as well as the central cast of characters, including the baby-daddy, Paulie Bleeker, her father and step-mother, her best-friend Leah, and others. We also are introduced to the world of Juno: the high school she attends, her relationship with her family, her relationship with Paulie (who is obviously in love with her), and everything that has led up to her getting pregnant. We see the first plot point come to a close as she decides to keep the baby and tells her family that she wants to find adoptive parents before the baby is born.

Act 2 begins with the introduction of Mark and Vanessa Loring, the couple who wish to adopt Juno's baby. Their initial reaction is uneasy, but Juno soon strikes a friendship with Mark because of their shared interests and similar personalities. As Juno's pregnancy progresses, so does her complicated friendship with Paulie. The second act of the Three Act Structure is marked by a conflict. In Juno, there are two conflicts that arise. The first is Juno's feelings for Paulie: she states that she doesn't have feelings for him, but angrily confronts him when she finds out that he has asked another girl to prom. The second conflict arises when Mark tells Juno one day that he is planning on leaving Vanessa, and implies that he has feelings for her. Juno is appalled at his decision, and the scene comes to a close when Vanessa finds them and Mark expresses that he doesn't think they're ready to have a child yet.

Act 3 is where the climax of the film occurs, and the conflict is resolved. The beginning of Act 3 can be seen as the scene in which Vanessa and Mark decide to get a divorce. In this same scene, Juno leaves a note for Vanessa saying that she still wants Vanessa to be the mother for her child. Juno also confronts Paulie and tells him that she's in love with him. The climax of the film is when Juno has her baby, and at this point, the conflicts have been resolved into an ending that is both satisfying yet realistic. The film ends here, leaving the future up in the air for all the characters.

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: A Modern Sitcom

In Colin Tain's guest lecture about television and sitcoms, he highlighted a few key characteristics that set sitcoms apart from other TV show types. Sitcoms are usually episodic and comedic, with the show ending basically where it began, showing little character development throughout an episode and having predictable plot development. It is for these reasons that so many sitcoms are set up so that a viewer can see any episode at a given time, and the plot will be understandable regardless in it's placement within the show's season. This makes sitcoms the perfect shows to be rerun, with networks like Nick@Nite making a living showing various sitcoms in a random, non-linear order.

Although the general characteristics of sitcoms may seem formulaic on paper, there is still room for a lot of creativity within the sitcom template. Show's that are episodic in nature must focus on each episode being unique from the rest, in story and detail. Writer's have to focus more on individual jokes than on broad plot development. And given that many modern dramas that follow a serial structure are often as stale in plot development as any sitcom, a sitcom's self-aware formula can often work towards it's advantage.

A modern example of great creativity within the sitcom formula is the FX show It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. The show features almost no character development whatsoever, no plot development throughout a season, and alway ends where it began. However, within this formulaic sitcom structure, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia is able to focus on each episodes content, especially within it's humor. Indeed this is where It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia is able to distinguish itself from other sitcom's; it's humor is ridiculous, vulgar, and often showcases the complete lack of morality within it's central characters. And yet, viewers who enjoy the show often sympathize with these characters and continue watching the show because it is far funnier within this "anything goes" structure, in which individual decisions within an episode will have almost no effect on future episodes. This gives the show free-range to do absolutely anything, and within it's now 6 season run, it has definitely tried to get away with everything it can. The results are often hilarious.

Possible Candidates For Kite Flying Society...

In the 1998 film Rushmore, director Wes Anderson's hyper-cinematic take on adolescence and rebellion utilizes some of the most simple film techniques in ways that are both creative and yet not completely unorthodox. This is most apparent in his use of cinematography, and more specifically, his use of camera shots. In discussing different camera shots and their meanings, Rushmore is a great example. Shot meaning is essential to the story of Rushmore, where internal conflicts are conveyed through all aspects of the film, whether it be in the acting, set design, direction, or cinematography.

In a very brief section of a later scene in the film, we can see Anderson's utilization of long shot, medium shot, and close up as a means of telling the story that is unspoken in the scene. The scene takes place after the protagonist, Max Fischer, has lost almost everything he holds dear in life, and has spent some months in seclusion, away from his school and abandoning his friends. Eventually his closest ally, his chapel partner Dirk Calloway, and he have a reconciliation while they are out flying a kite. Many factors in the scene lead up to the scenes climax, in which Max realizes it's time for himself to get back into the world. This realization is beautifully expressed in the scene's camera shots.



Beginning with Max flying his kite, we see a close up of his face. This is where we see his emotional state. He is worn down from all of the things that he is gone through in the past year, but he realizes that he can't keep living as a hermit. His concentrated features and solemn face makes this apparent, but only through the close up shot are we able to fully realize this.

Next, we have a long shot of the kite in the sky. This is from Max's point of view, and it is symbolic of the way Max has felt: flying alone in a grey sky. The long shot expresses the loneliness and sadness that long shots often convey in film, and yet the inanimate object retains it's simplistic value through the long shot and low camera angle. The kite is not monolithic or given any forced meaning, it is simply a kite in the sky.

We cut back to the close up of Max as he tells Dirk to take dictation. We cut to a close up shot of Dirk's face, as he is shocked to hear this phrase, a semblance of Max's old self. The close up conveys Dirk's position in hearing Max's revelation, and indeed confirms to the audience the meaning behind such a simple phrase.

We cut to a medium close up of both of them as Max starts listing off "possible candidate's for Kite Flying Society." The camera slowly moves back into a medium shot. Through medium shots, we are given the information about character's and their relationship to their surroundings. Although this has already been presented earlier in the scene, this medium shot shows not only the characters' relationship to their surroundings, but their relationship to each other, now that this revelation has occurred. The medium shot conveys both characters' acknowledgement that the future might just be okay for Max Fischer.
                        

Screenwriting in the Studio System

The Classic Era Hollywood "Studio System" was an incredibly prolific time in film history, and shaped American cinema into what it is today. However, many characteristics of this time period were fairly unique to the era and system they belonged too, with modern cinema evolving from the mass-produced entertainment pieces of the early 20th Century to the somewhat more challenging and artistic works of today. In no place is this more pronounced than in the area of screenwriting for films. A major characteristic in the old studio system was the mass production of scripts. Hollywood screenwriters were not prioritized with creating artistically unique works or challenging films, but instead were simply payed to produce a product that the audience would consume the heaviest. This often meant the repetition of story formulas, characters, conflicts, and style. It also led to many films (some of which are consider the greatest of all time) being primarily "authorless" works, an accumulation of different writers that fit the project within different circumstances. Films like Gone With The Wind and The Wizard of Oz are great examples of this kind of writing.

The effect on the films of the day were easy to see. Many films from Hollywood's Golden Area are formulaic, and often copy entire stories from previous films. Characters who seemed popular in one film would be brought back under a different name in another film, with the same actor to portray them. If audiences loved one film, they expected a very similar one to come out that they could love in the same way. However, many of these films were quite innovative, and some could say they benefitted from this writing system.


Gone With The Wind was written originally by Sidney Howard, but the length and need for revision led director David O. Selznick to seek out other writers to rewrite the script to his approval. This reflected the ideas of Classic Hollywood filmmaking: a film was not a writer's work, nor was it a director's. It was the studio's work and would be changed as seen fit by the producers in order to make an end product they thought would sell well and gain attention. Gone With The Wind certainly accomplished both of these things, and in the process became one of the defining films in the history of cinema. However, it stood as a representation of innovation within the studio system, a film which has a combination of styles, acting, and grandiosity that had been present before, but never accumulated in such a perfect way. The amount of people who were a part of Gone With The Wind's writing, and it's creation in general, reflected the epic atmosphere the movie was trying to represent, and the script's constant revisions and writing contributions served the film well due to it's content (long story, multiple story arcs). In this way, Gone With The Wind is a shining example of how the writing processes of Hollywood's Golden Age could produce something worth watching over all the rest.

Dysfunction Junction: Comparing Contemporary TV Families

The dysfunctional family has always been used within the context of sitcom comedies on television for it's ability to show a broad range of funny characters. From All In The Family to The Simpsons, indeed some of the best shows ever to be shown on television deal with the relatable premise of families just trying to deal with each other. But how have things changed since All In The Family came on the scene? We can see the development of this format by comparing All In The Family and Arrested Development, a show released from 2003-2006.

The similarities are apparent from the start. All In The Family centers around the begrudging patriarch of the family, Archie Bunker, the center of most of the fights the Bunkers go through. Arrested Development's Bluth Family is headed by the George Bluth, a father who right off the bat starts causing all the families problems by getting arrested the first episode and the rest of the family trying to get him out for the rest of the show's three seasons. George Bluth and Archie Bunker are similar in that they care about their families but are far from perfect when it comes to parenting. Both families are filled with individuals who are very different from one another, but who generally try to stay together for the good of the family's well-being. Yet when it comes to interfamily interactions, both families run into disagreements when it comes to almost every individual issue the family faces.

However, the similarities end there. Arrested Development is very different from All In The Family in that it focuses on the only reasonably sane member of the family, Michael Bluth. After his father goes to jail, he is constantly trying to save his family and the company they own, while simultaneously threatening to leave them forever if they continue acting so selfishly. Indeed, the Bluth's are a markedly more self-absorbed and vain family then the Bunkers. All In The Family focuses instead on the least agreeable member of the family, Archie. As the focus of the show, we are constantly exposed to Archie's consistently distorted and bigoted views on everything from race to gender. But the rest of the Bunker's are a generally more caring bunch then the Bluth's. All In The Family is about a relatively normal family trying to deal with their constantly problematic leader, Archie, while Arrested Development is about a reluctant but level-headed leader (Michael Bluth) who is trying to bring together a group of total narcissists.

What do these two shows tell us about the different time periods in which they were made though? The issues both shows deal with is a good place to see how they are products of their time. All In The Family began in 1971, a time of much cultural change in America, from post-civil rights race relations, to broadening economic and class disparities, to more openness about alternative sexual identities (as we see in the episode watched last Tuesday). All In The Family dealt with all of these issues directly through the lens of the old-fashioned Archie Bunker, who is vocal about his disagreement with the changing culture in America. As many people shared the attitude of Archie at the time, the show worked both as a representation of this mindset, as well as a critique of it. However, while All In The Family dealt with broader cultural issues through the eyes of one family, Arrested Development focuses on issues based on each family member's skewed morals in everyday life. The reason why Arrested Development was so brilliant was because it dealt with the ridiculous decisions of characters whose narcissistic ways reflected of modern American culture. Arrested Development dealt with the egotistical mindset found so often in present-day American culture, and thus critiqued a broad issue indirectly through the personalities of each character. All In The Family instead directly addressed the issues of the time, with each character presenting their opinions on a certain issue, and thus representing the many different viewpoints in America at the time. All In The Family dealt with issues in a time when America was changing and people were uncertain about the future; Arrested Development dealt with self-centered people in an America that has gotten to comfortable with itself.