Style and Stylistics (Discussion)

"Televisuality and the Resurrection of the Sitcom in the 2000s"

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  Television Style, table 5.3 "Multiple-camera and Single-camera Schemas," full table.

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  Table 5.3: Cinematography.

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  Table 5.3: Mise-en-Scene and Editing.

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  Table 5.3: Sound and Miscellaneous.

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  Morgan, Mindy, Cliff, and Yana (from left).

View a scene from The Mindy Project (see Blackboard and screenshots online).

• Table 5.3 in "Televisuality and the Resurrection of the Sitcom in the 2000s" (see above) lists elements of the "single-camera televisual schema".
  • How many of those single-camera elements do you see in The Mindy Project scene? Each group will account for one or two groups of elements (click a thumbnail above to enlarge it):
    1. Group 1: cinematography
    2. Group 2: mise-en-scene
    3. Group 3: editing
    4. Group 4: sound and "miscellaneous"

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  Television Style, table 5.6 "A Televisual Continuum".

• All groups: Table 5.6 from the essay outlines a "televisual continuum"--ranging from very televisual (The Simpsons) to not televisual at all (school-play recordings).
  1. What does the term "televisual" mean--as conceived by John Caldwell (see p. 175)?
  2. Where does The Mindy Project fit on the continuum? Table 5.6 puts The Honeymooners in the second category, The New Adventures of Old Christine (which we discussed three weeks ago) in the third category, and Scrubs in the fifth category.
  3. Where would you place The Office (see Ethan Thompson's and Brett Mills's discussion of comedy vérité ; p. 214?

Television: Visual Storytelling and Screen Culture

1. All groups: Explain how the textbook defines the term "style" in your own words.
2. Group 1: Explain the work of "evaluative" and "descriptive" stylisticians. How might they approach The Mindy Project?
3. Group 2: Explain the work of "analytic" stylisticians. How might they approach The Mindy Project? Be ready to define the following purposes or "functions" of style discussed in the textbook.
   • symbolize
   • decorate
4. Group 3: Explain the work of "analytic" stylisticians. How might they approach The Mindy Project? Be ready to define the following purposes or "functions" of style discussed in the textbook.
   • persuade
   • hail or interpellate
   • differentiate
5. Group 4: Explain the work of "historical" stylisticians. How might they approach The Mindy Project? Be ready to define these terms: "craft practices" and "schemas."

Bibliography

1. Butler, Jeremy G. Television: Visual Storytelling and Screen Culture. NY: Routledge, 2018.
2. Butler, Jeremy G. "Televisuality and the Resurrection of the Sitcom in the 2000s," in Television Style (NY: Routledge, 2010), 173-222.

External links

• Television Style official homepage
• The Mindy Project screenshots
• Hybrid mode of production in How I Met Your Mother
• The New Adventures of Old Christine: screenshots
• The New Adventures of Old Christine: découpage