Television Structures Assignment

Background

  1. Macrostructure: In any given hour of time, there are hundreds of "programs" accessible globally and dozens available in any locality. There are some linkages across these "programs" (e.g., serials, dialog allusions).
  2. Microstructure: In any given program there are multiple communication channels: video and two or more audio channels (spoken, music, background sounds, etc.). In each channel, there is a hierarchy of structural information units (note that just as in other media, there are also thematic structures). For example, in the visual channel, we might consider the following: [program|segment|scene|shot|frame] American television (NTSC) uses 30 frames per second and each frame can be manipulated in principle. The human visual system can recognize visual images in 50-100 milliseconds, depending on experimental condition. Taking 100 ms as an estimate, the theoretical "speed limit" of recognition is somewhere around 10 frames per second (we know that for most people, when frame rates are between 8 and 12 fps, a series of still images becomes motion). Therefore, many of the frames are not "seen" at all (are those frames information?).

Assignment

  1. Consider one single program—your choice of genre--whether drama, documentary, news, comedy, etc. Watch the program and "log" its structure using any information "chunking" strategy that makes sense to you (include commercials if you are watching commercial TV). Turn in this log, with a key to what your tags mean.
  2. Watch any other program of your choice for 5 minutes. Count the number of seconds each "shot" takes. Consider a shot to be a camera cut—not a zoom or pan.
  3. Watch three different commercials and count the number of seconds per shot. You may have to estimate!