We have transferred 11 readings from the Bird Library to the new reading room in Newhouse 3, which is on the fourth floor of Newhouse 3. Readings include books on lighting and set design, TV production, writing sitcoms, scripts from popular television shows, and more!
Archive for the ‘Production Design’ Category
Readings are now in the NH3 Reading Room
January 31, 2008Blog 3: The Medium is the Message
January 31, 2008Noted educator Marshall McLuhan long ago quoted a phrase that remains extremely relevant to the study of multicamera production: the medium is the message.
One way of applying it is to consider that the medium a message is conveyed through (say multicamera video) actually adds additional meaning to the message it emits (say “eighties”).
Explain how various production processes influence the content of television stories. Multicamera, Single Camera, Hybrid Camera, Film, Video and HD should factor into your discussion. As usual, your article should contain specific examples from television we watched in class together.
READING MATERIALS THAT MIGHT HELP YOU ON THIS TOPIC:
- Carter, Bill: “Thanks to YouTube Fans, ‘ Nobody’s Watching’ May Return from the Dead,” New York Times, July 3, 2006: carter_times.pdf
- Friend, Tad: “Laugh Riot,” The New Yorker, September 28, 1998: friend_nyer.pdf
- Goodman, Tim: “‘Earl’ and ‘Chris’” Rescue Sitcoms from Mediocrity,” SFGate.com, Jan 30 2006: goodman_sf.pdf
- Hagan, Joe: “Funny Business,” Wall Street Journal, Jan 21 2006: hagan_wsj.pdf
- Kukienski, Valerie: “TV Comedies Get a Makeover,” LA Daily News, Nov 10 2005: kukienski_ladn.pdf
- Levy, Don “How Different Is Posting HD?” Film & Video, May 2004: levy_filmvideo.pdf
- McDowell, Joanne: “Evenings at the Improv,” Time, October 2002: mcdowell_curb.pdf
- Rice, Lynette: “TV Comedy is Broken,” Entertainment Weekly October 6, 2006: rice_ew.pdf
- Rosen, Lisa: “It’s Such a Deal; For an inside showbiz peek, TV show tapings are hard to beat — and your only investment is time,” Los Angeles Times, Sept 28, 2006: rosen_latimes.pdf
- “Sony’s 24P Cinealta Production Format Stars in 2002-2003 Television Season,” Sony Cinealta News, October 2002: sony_24p.pdf
- Swidey, Neil: “Family !@%$#%’ Ties,” Boston Globe, November 27, 2005: swidey_bostonglobe.pdf
—On reserve in the the Newhouse 3 reading room—
Television: The Critical View, edited by Horace Newcomb,
A collection of essays about television criticism and culture.
- Excerpt: Timberg, Bernard: “The Unspoken Rules of Television Talk”: newcomb.pdf
Blog 1: Lighting and Set Design
January 16, 2008Lighting designers and set designers “see” their worlds very differently than normal, everyday people. They are translators of sorts: They translate 3D ideas into 2D imagery that in the end goes undetected through viewer sensors. Their efforts are, especially if they do an excellent job, unnoticed, unappreciated and invisible to the viewers they design for. The purpose of Blog 1 is to discuss why and how this is so and what strategies the lighting and set designers of your show employ in their translation process. Discuss examples of effective lighting and set design in a show of your choice. And don’t just say it’s good! Explain what exactly it is that makes it “good” and how techniques it uses might be applied to your own works.
Blogging Instructions: To comment on the blog, go to the bottom of the bottom of the post and click where it says “X Comments>>.” Enter your name and your syr.edu email address. Entering your email address ensures the WordPress server that you are a person and not a spammer, and it will allow us to keep track of who has and has not commented.You have two options when you comment. You can either directly address the question of the week, or react/respond/interact with another student’s entry or entries. You can interact with words, pictures, videos or anything that adds to the conversation. There is great value in either approach, but the more of the latter, the more the discussion will become “our own.”
READING MATERIALS THAT MIGHT HELP YOU ON THIS TOPIC:All below are at the reserve desk under TRF-452/652
- Light Science, by Thomas D. Rossing & Christopher J. Chiaverina, introducing the science and phenomena of light.
- Lighting for TV and Film, by Gerald Millerson, a broad coverage of the dynamics of lighting design.
- Lighting for Video, by Gerald Millerson, basic coverage of effective video lighting.
- Production Design for Television, by Terry Byrne, covering the culture and dynamics of television design.
OTHER THINGS THAT MIGHT HELP YOU ON THIS TOPIC:
- Paying close attention to lectures on lighting and design.
- Carefully and critically analyzing a television show beyond its surface.
- Check Semester Schedule for due date.
- Looking at these photos, examples of professional set design from CSI: New York and Cane:
